On the 21st and 22nd of June, 2005, I have taken part in the European Conference on rare diseases. According to the World Health Organization, rare diseases are those diseases that affect less than one out of every 2000 EU citizens. Altogether, there are approximately 6 to 7 thousand different diseases in this category. Therefore, in all the EU nations, about 230,000 patients live with each one particular rare disease, and altogether approximately 30 million people suffer from at least one of these rare diseases.