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The criminal trial of the Mediator opens Monday, September 23 at the Criminal Court of Paris. This drug, presented as an adjunct to the treatment of diabetes, is responsible for the death of 1,500 to 2,100 deaths in France, because of its toxic effects on the heart. The 2nd French pharmaceutical group, the Servier laboratory, which manufactured it, appears notably for fraud, aggravated deception, and injuries and manslaughter by deliberately deliberate violations.
In this extraordinary trial that will last for 7 months, nearly 2,700 victims have filed civil suits while 23 defendants, 11 natural persons and 12 legal entities must appear. What is the Mediator? This simple question is at the heart of the trial. Because the laboratory Servier is accused of having concealed the true nature of the drug and its dangerousness.
In its 33 years of commercialization, the Mediator has been presented to health authorities as a medicine against excess cholesterol and triglycerides, and as an adjunct to the treatment of type 2 diabetes. A misleading presentation, dictated by the origin by commercial considerations according to the investigating judges.
"Servier has implemented a whole lot of initiatives ..."
For magistrates , the Mediator is actually an appetite suppressant, in other words an appetite suppressant, derived from amphetamine, similar to Isomeride and Ponderal, the other appetite suppressants of Servier, which were themselves sold as such. , by the firm; these three drugs belong to a family of molecules, fenfluramines, whose risks are documented since the 1990s. " The risks of this amphetamine are increasingly known from 1995, " says Dr. Irène Frachon, pulmonologist at the CHU of Brest, and who is the whistleblower thanks to which the Mediator was banned in 2009. " Servier has implemented a whole lot of initiatives so that nobody realizes that the Mediator is an amphetamine, dangerous , with in particular toxic effects similar to those of Isomeride, an appetite suppressant of Servier banned in 1997, " she continues.
Thus, while the "official" appetite suppressants of the laboratory are prohibited in 1997 because they can cause a very serious pathology, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and damage to the heart valves, the Mediator continues to be authorized and marketed, despite its chemical relationship with these products. The height of history, it is even prescribed more and more as an appetite suppressant.
I can not do anything anymore. I do not live anymore...
Meet a victim of the Mediator 22/09/2019 - by RFI Play
Drug Agency, Guilty Inaction
From the end of the 1990s, the number of alerts increased with the Public Agency in charge of drug safety. The European agency points to the proximity of the Mediator with Isomeride. Cases of valvulopathies and pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with the Mediator are notified to him from 1999. It will be necessary to wait until 2009 so that the Agency of the drug prohibits it; she is being prosecuted for negligent injury and manslaughter. For Charles Joseph-Oudin, a lawyer for several victims, the Agency " did not act fast enough by culture of the institution, which did not know how to listen to alerts, but also certainly to the benefit of members of the institution who had interests in the business of Servier laboratory . Thus former experts of the Agency of the drug will also be on the bench of the accused at the trial. They will have to answer for the offense of illegal taking of interests.
However, in court, he will miss one of the main protagonists of the case: Jacques Servier, founding boss of the laboratory, who had been indicted. He died at the age of 92 in 2014.
Tomorrow begins the criminal trial of #mediator scandal!
The opportunity for @prioritesante on @RFI to return to health scandals and relations between laboratories and patients!
Appointment at 9:10 UTC!
Photo: Photo: Daughter by Flickr pic.twitter.com/LNIRg7dkZu