Weight-loss-drug-linked-500-deaths-France.

A diabetes drug used as weight loss suppressant in France over 30 years is believed to have killed 500 people.The drug Mediator that was produced by pharmaceutical firm Servier was used by millions but was banned in November 2009 over fears it was linked to heart trouble.Drug samples in a Servier laboratory. The French Health Authority has warned the drug Mediator may have caused 500 deaths
Drug samples in a Servier laboratory. The French Health Authority has warned the drug Mediator may have caused 500 deaths
Now the French Health Minister has called on patients who took the drug to go for an urgent check-up.
'Our message to all those who took Mediator is that they must see a doctor - particularly those who took it for three months over the past four years,' Mr Xavier Bertrand said.
It follows a warning issued by France's drug safety body Afssaps on Mediator's active ingredient since launching in 1976.
A statement from them said: 'Analyses by expert epidemiologists estimate that about 500 deaths could be attributable to benfluorex.'
The drug has also been banned in the United States, Spain and Italy. The drug was never authorised in the UK.
However, the pharaceuticals giant Servier rejected the deaths estimate describing it as 'theory founded on extrapolation.'
'Simply observing a valve problem in a diabetic person does not allow it to be attributed to medicinal treatment which remains a very rare cause,' it said in a statement yesterday.
However Irene Frachon, a doctor who this year published a study warning about the drug, said 'Mediator is responsible for a health disaster'.
She said the health authorities in France had been late in withdrawing the drug despite several alerts.
She estimated on in 2,000 who took the drug were at risk of serious ill-effects, some of whom would require open-heart surgery.
Afssaps pulled it from the market last November and the European Medicines Agency followed suit. A similar drug also sold by Servier, the appetite-suppressor Isomeride, was withdrawn in 1997 after tests showed it raised the risk of high blood pressure, Afssaps said. That drug spawned several lawsuits against Servier.
A Servier spokesman confirmed that four patients had lodged complaints about Mediator since 2009.

Posted in: