Paris (AFP)
Prescrire magazine unveiled Thursday its new list of a hundred drugs "more dangerous than useful", to avoid because of health risks "disproportionate" that they run to patients, with newcomers such as Ginkgo biloba and products against sore throat and cough, clays contaminated with lead.
Among the twelve drugs added this year to this blacklist, the famous Ginkgo biloba (brand name Tanakan and assimilated) for cognitive disorders (memory, understanding, etc.) of elderly patients, which carries a risk of hemorrhages, digestive disorders, convulsions ...
The review further notes that Ginkgo biloba is also used in combination with other molecules, under the name of Ginkor forte, in venous insufficiency, "without more efficiency".
Among the new, also include cough syrups that can be done as Clarix dry cough for children and vicks pectoral syrup 0.15% for adults, based on pentoxyverine. An antitussive that "exposes to cardiac disorders" and "to serious allergic reactions", emphasizes the independent review.
The lead contamination of medicinal clays used in various intestinal disorders, including diarrhea, justifies the removal of care, she continues by naming their names: attapulgite (Actapulgite, or in combination in Gastropulgite), diosmectitis (Smecta or its credits). In addition, the Rennieliquo, the Bedelix based on monmectite, is also present in Gelox as well as the kaolin contained in Gastropax and Neutroses.
The 2020 list, which lists 105 drugs (including 92 marketed in France), not to use, failing to see them withdraw from the market, was established on the basis of the analyzes published in the review from 2010 to 2019, explains Prescrire. It is regularly updated, some drugs are removed, others added.
The drugs referred to in this list are "causes of death, hospitalization or serious harm or very annoying, largely preventable," says the review. This "is not necessarily future" Mediator ", at the center of scandals and lawsuits involving a firm and the agency of the drug, especially if all health actors react in time," she adds perfidiously.
Among the twelve new men on the index, alpha-amylase (Maxilase and equivalents) for sore throats that can cause allergic reactions sometimes serious or even fatal (a death recorded in France in 2017, ed), that the Drug Agency wants to see free access to pharmacy. An oral spray corticosteroid, tixocortol (present with chlorhexidine in Thiovalone and its equivalents) for mild sore throat is also the cause of allergic reactions.
This report is freely available on the journal's website (https://www.prescrire.org/ecarter)
© 2019 AFP