France, anti-hunger drug scandal

The health scandal linked to the anti-hunger drug Mediator is growing in France, which allegedly caused the death of hundreds of patients in more than thirty years. New revelations were made yesterday by the French newspapers Le Figaro and Liberation, which reported what two researchers from the Servier laboratories reported to the judges: the reports on the drug would have been deliberately modified to also pass it off as an anti-diabetic. The Association for the defense of the victims of the Mediator (Avim) has announced that it intends to deposit "by the end of September" around 300 complaints for aggravated fraud against the pharmaceutical company. As explained by its president Dominique Michel Courtois, Avim accuses Servier of having lied about the characteristics of the medicine. According to the report obtained by the newspapers, Professor Jean Charpentier, who had drafted the study intended to obtain authorization for sale on the market in 1973, confirmed that his report had been modified to remove any reference to the anti-inflammatory effect. - fame of the Mediator for the sole purpose of "obtaining the authorization". "All of this just confirms that there has been a scam, I've been convinced of that since day one," Courtois said. The judiciary had opened an investigation last December on the Mediator, manufactured by the Servier laboratories. The antidiabetic has been taken by hundreds of patients for its slimming effect, suffering however more or less serious cardiac consequences. Between 1976 and 2009, it was prescribed to about five million patients. Between 500 and 2000 people would have died from it.

Pharmacist33 – September 8, 2011