The healthcare system is broken - how can we change it? David Hammerstein

David Hammerstein at the Symposium about Scientific Freedom, Copenhagen, 9 March 2019.

Lecture: "Public interest healthcare research and the change of our biomedical innovation model".

David Hammerstein has been working since 2015 as a civil society advocate for the Commons Network, a small German NGO with offices in Berlin and Brussels of which he is co-founder.

The Commons Network focusses on the defense of the knowledge commons and access to medicines.

He also works as an advocate for the World Blind Union and the European Blind Union on issues of disability rights.

From 2010 to 2015, he worked as a senior advocacy officer in Brussels for the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, platform of over 60 transatlantic consumer and citizens organizations, on EU and UN policy issues related to access to knowledge and access to medicines.

From 2004-2009, he was elected Member of the European Parliament. He was a member of its Industry, Research and Energy Committee where he specialized in issues related to scientific and academic research and innovation.

He also was the spokesperson for the Greens on the EP Petitions Committee that defends citizens rights.

This lecture is part of the Symposium about Scientific Freedom and the inauguration of the Institute for Scientific Freedom, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, 9 March 2019.

World renowned Danish scientist Peter C Gøtzsche is the founder of the institute.

The Institute’s primary area of focus is healthcare and the institute has three main visions:

- All science should strive to be free from financial conflicts of interest.

- All science should be published as soon as possible, and made freely accessible.

- All scientific data, including study protocols, should be freely accessible, allowing others to do their own analyses.