In a French study, 7% of patients who took Mediator presented with medicinal valve disease.
The link between taking Mediator and valve disease is becoming clearer. A new study published in the European Heart Journal shows that 7% of patients exposed to benfluorex presented the characteristics of a drug-induced valve disease.
This new study is important since it concerns 835 so-called “all-rounder” patients from ten French centers, and the results were compared with those of a population of 376 diabetics who had not taken Mediator. In the latter group, only one patient presented with drug-induced valve disease, or 0.26% of the sample. Pr Christophe Tribouilloy, author of this study, told the Medical Press Agency (APM) that he considered this figure of 7% to be “quite high”. A previous study on health insurance data had shown that among patients exposed to the Pick, the number of hospitalizations for valve replacement was multiplied by four.
These new data establishing a very clear link between the pick and valve damage should revive the debate on compensation for victims. Last spring, the methodology of the panel of experts responsible for examining claims for compensation from victims of the Mediator had been publicly contested. The committee made up of medical experts qualified in pulmonology, cardiology and bodily injury repair would have regularly reduced the level of severity of valve disease established in the echocardiographic reports of patients, most of the time without having available the video documents of origin… In June, only 152 opinions in favor of compensation had been issued by the National Office for Compensation for Medical Accidents (Oniam) out of nearly 8,000 claims. And more than 990 refusals had been notified.
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