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Three weeks after the beginning of the trial of the Mediator, the name of this drug presented as an adjunct to diabetes and implicated in hundreds of deaths, it is a key witness who was heard this Wednesday, October 16: Dr. Irène Frachon , the pulmonologist at the origin of the revelation of the scandal.
In this case , Servier Laboratories is accused of knowingly concealing the actual properties of the Mediator and the risks associated with economic interests. The drug agency is being sued for delaying the withdrawal.
For 4 hours, the Brest pulmonologist, Irene Frachon, explained how, from her first suspicions in 2007 to the revelation of the scandal in 2010, she revealed the toxicity of the pick. It is a testimony halfway between the medical school and the police investigation.
" What makes me cold in the back is that it only held a thread, " she says. In February 2007, when she noticed that a patient with a rare pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, was under Picks, " two little things only " made her " tick, " she said.
At first, the memory of the case of isomeride, an appetite suppressant of Servier at the origin of many cases of PAH, removed from the market in 1997 as other derivatives of amphetamines. Then in a second time, his reading of the magazine Prescrire , which alerts that the Picks is an amphetamine derivative.
This is the starting point of three years of investigation on the Picks and its links with serious diseases of the heart and lung. Until discovering " the unthinkable, " she says, " that patients were exposed to toxic doses of poison knowingly " by Servier, who knew the toxicity of the Mediator since at least 1993.
Irreparable consequences for patients
As for the attitude of the laboratory during the thirty years of commercialization of the Picks then against the whistleblowers, Irene Frachon denounces dissimulation, manipulation and pressures.
The drug agency, she remained " petrified " she criticizes. A presentation closed under the applause of the room, quickly interrupted by the president. During 3 hours of tense exchanges with the defense, the pulmonologist will then defend his line foot by foot. She also particularly emphasized the often irremediable consequences for these patients.
" She tells us about the victims, Marie-Claude, Martine. It's been a few weeks that we talk about the Mediator but behind technicians, figures, studies, investigators Igas (...) there is a human reality, it is victims. People who died, who had surgery, pain, suffering and that Dr. Frachon puts it on the table in the middle of the debate, "said Master Joseph-Oudin, lawyer of some 250 victims.
" It's not a technician's trial. It is primarily a trial of victims who have suffered and who has been lied to, "he concluded.