The pulmonologist Irène Frachon testified this Tuesday, February 14 at the Paris Court of Appeal in the trial of the Pick, named after this drug from the Servier laboratory prescribed as an appetite suppressant, responsible for the death of around 2,000 people.
” I beg you to do justice “. At Mediator appeal trialpulmonologist Irène Frachon called on the Paris Court of Appeal on Tuesday to “ lay the terminals ” facing ” cynicism » Servier laboratories, « on behalf of victims around the world “. Camped at the helm, the Brest University Hospital doctor who revealed the extent of the Mediator health scandal retraced her fight to have this drug banned and then to help victims obtain compensation. Marketed as an antidiabetic in 1976, but improperly prescribed as an appetite suppressant until it was banned in 2009, Mediator has had serious cardiovascular effects on thousands of patients, sometimes resulting in their death.
Since January 9, the Paris Court of Appeal has been re-judging Servier and its former CEO, two years after the condemnation of the laboratory to a fine of 2.7 million euros for ” aggravated deception ” And ” manslaughter and manslaughter “. The Mediator and the other drugs of the same family, it is the ” biggest scandal in the French pharmaceutical industry ” And ” it’s 33 years of my professional life “Summarizes the 59-year-old pulmonologist.
► Read also: Mediator: portrait of a whistleblower
The pulmonologist retraces her scientific questions, since her arrival as ” young intern “at the Béclère hospital in Clamart, near Paris, in 1990, in a department specializing in a disease” very rare and extremely serious », pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). His boss informs him of many young women who die very quickly. We think it’s related to exposure to an appetite suppressant », Isomeride, marketed in France by Servier since 1985 and which was finally withdrawn from the market in 1997.
She continues with her first doubts in 2007, facing Joëlle, a patient suffering from ” Severe PAH “unexplained,” under Mediator for diabetes “. Then his discovery that this drug is transformed in the body into norfenfluramine, a substance from the family of amphetamines with appetite suppressant properties, like Isomeride. Comes next ” agency headquarters “medicine for” obtain a suspension decision », which arrives at the end of 2009, but is not followed by any communication vis-à-vis patients and doctors.
Irène Frachon describes decades of “ frenzied denial of the dangerousness of a product from Servier. She has no words harsh enough for the laboratory: a ” extraordinarily violent and delinquent firm “, which uses a ” procedural vindictiveness to muzzle speech “. ” The lessons learned are almost nil in terms of the functioning of the institutions, the Servier laboratory, the question of conflicts of interest “, she believes, deploring that this situation fuels” the distrust and conspiracy of our fellow citizens “.
(With AFP)