The TGI of Paris appointed to carry out a civil expertise on the “Dépakine”, Bernard Rouveix, indicted in the case of the Mediator for illegal taking of interests.
“Dépakine” is the name of an antiepileptic drug currently on the dock. Indeed, according to Le Figaro of May 20, antiepileptic treatments and pregnancy would not mix. However, for years, future mothers would not have been informed of the risks of malformation weighing on their baby. And today, many children are paying the price for what is shaping up to be the next health scandal.
Children born with spina bifida
A family has just lodged a complaint against Sanofi, a laboratory that manufactures Depakine (sodium valproate), the treatment in question. The charges are, according to the daily which had access to the complaint, very heavy: administration of a harmful substance, unintentional attack on the integrity of the person, aggravated deception, endangering others, non-reporting of ‘serious side effects.
The mother, Marine Martin, has had epilepsy since childhood, and continued to take her treatment during her two pregnancies. And her two children were born (in 1999 and 2002) with spina bifida, a malformation linked to poor closure of the neural tube during fetal development. But it was not until 2009 that Marine Martin made the link between taking sodium valproate and the malformations of her children. And it is only after two more years that medicine will confirm the link between treatment and teratogenic effects. We are therefore in 2011.
Scientists worried in the 1980s
The situation hardly seems believable when we know that sodium valproate has been an authorized molecule since 1960, but above all, that it began to worry scientists from the early 1980s. Le Figaro cites a publication, published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in 1982, in which the deleterious effects of sodium valproate on fetuses were already discussed. As the daily underlines, in 2006, we could still read in the Vidal: “In an epileptic woman treated with valproate, it does not seem legitimate to advise against conception”!
An expert indicted in the Mediator
And when it comes to justice, the first controversies are also happening. Le Figaro further reveals that on May 12, the Paris tribunal de grande instance appointed, as part of a civil expertise concerning Dépakine, Bernard Rouveix, an expert indicted on July 17, 2013 in the Mediator case for illegal capture of interest.
During the investigation in this case, it also appeared that he had carried out studies for Sanofi, the laboratory which markets Dépakine. Yet it is he who will be responsible for assessing the two disabled children after their mother took Depakine during her pregnancies.
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