What use are medical experts and the reports they regularly produce at the request of official bodies or the government? Nothing, answers in substance Professor Olivier Saint-Jean. As World Alzheimer’s Day opens on Monday, this head of the geriatrics department at the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital denounces, in the columns of Releasethe ineffectiveness of “these drugs that are prescribed en masse to our elderly patients”.
For ten years, the one who fights against the medicalization of old age has been trying to make himself heard by the authorities. In vain. In the report he submitted in 2006 to INSERM, the daily recounts, he demonstrates that the level of evidence provided in the studies to attest to the benefit of the drugs is nil. “For years, they were even more prescribed, it cost the community nearly 300 million euros a year, when it was useless. Worse, they could even be toxic, ”insists the specialist in the newspaper.
During these years, the High Authority for Health (HAS) reassessed these products, judging their effect to be very limited. But nothing helps. Or almost. Taking account of independent expert opinions, the public authorities decided to lower the reimbursement rate from 65% to 15%. “But as the patients are in long-term illness, they are supported at 100%”, specifies the journalist, Eric Favereau.
If it is up to the Ministry of Health to decide on the total reimbursement, Olivier Saint-Jean is still waiting for the studies on the long-term effects of the products from the manufacturers.
Beyond the conflicts of interest that can shed light on decisions deemed inconsistent, there is also what the geriatrician calls “the medical posture”.
“How to announce the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease without then saying to the patient: ‘but I am giving you a treatment'”, he explains.
For him, nothing justifies the continuation of the prescription of useless drugs. It is towards a comprehensive care based on specialized centers and home support that we must now turn.
