Availability and affordability of cannabinoids for epilepsy treatment across different geographic settings—A survey from the <scp>ILAE</scp> Plant‐Based Therapy Task Force
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Pharmacoresistant seizures remain a major challenge for the global epilepsy community. Hence, approval of highly purified pharmaceutical grade cannabidiol (CBD) for Dravet syndrome (DS), Lennox–Gastaut syndrome (LGS), and refractory seizures associated with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) generated significant interest, both in the medical community and public domain. However, there are limited data on the availability and accessibility of CBD and other cannabinoids for the treatment of drug‐resistant epilepsy worldwide. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Plant‐Based Therapy Task Force commissioned a working group in 2022 to conduct a survey through the chapters to understand the global availability of cannabinoids for the treatment of epilepsy, and to identify the possible factors affecting the accessibility and affordability of these products. The survey was conducted between June and December 2023. Responses were screened, tabulated, and analyzed using pre‐set criteria. Among the 126 ILAE Chapters, 86 (68%) completed the survey questionnaire. Thirty‐two countries had regulatory approval for cannabinoids for the treatment of epilepsy at the time of this survey, of which 21 (65.6%) reported approval only for CBD. Twenty‐three chapters (71.8%) in this group reported cannabinoids to be unaffordable, and 18 (56.2%) reported they were difficult to access. Cannabinoids were not approved formally for epilepsy in 54 countries (62.7%). Over‐the‐counter availability of unapproved products containing cannabinoids was reported from 34 countries (39.5%). Forty‐seven chapters (54.6%) indicated the existence of traditional plant‐based products for epilepsy in their respective countries, of which 16 had products containing cannabinoids. Forty‐two chapters (48.8%) expressed a need for targeted advocacy efforts from the ILAE to improve the accessibility of cannabinoids for the management of epilepsy. This survey should act as a premise for developing better concerted strategies to improve the availability and affordability of cannabinoids for the management of epilepsy across the world.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".