After the suspicious death of a patient, the investigation continues at the production site of the diuretic Furosemide, where the packaging error occurred.
The inspectors of the National Medicines Safety Agency (Ansm) are still this Monday, June 10 in the packaging plant of the Teva laboratories, in Sens (Yonne), to try to understand how sleeping pills could have been mixed with diuretics in several batches sold in France since March. Two suspect lots of the diuretic Furosemide Teva 40 mg, 95,000 boxes each, were indeed withdrawn from sale last Friday after the alert of a patient who said she suffered from unusual drowsiness.
A judicial investigation was subsequently opened this Sunday by the public health pole of the Marseille prosecutor’s office after the suspicious death of a 91-year-old man in whom the police found opened boxes of Furosemide. “The man would have succumbed to pulmonary edema, which could be consecutive to the cessation of treatment with Furosemide”, declared Sunday evening to AFP the prosecutor of the Republic of Marseille, Jacques Dallest, in view of the results of the ‘autopsy. Toxicological analyzes must take place “in the next few days”, he then indicated. Among the avenues considered, a malicious act appears “plausible”, confided François Chast, head of the clinical pharmacy service at the Cochin-Hôtel Dieu hospital in Paris.
Listen to Prof. François Chast: head of the clinical pharmacy service at the Cochin-Hôtel Dieu hospital (Paris): ” There may have been one or more malicious acts to deceive the vigilance of the laboratory. it is not possible that within a lot there are tablets which are sometimes good and sometimes bad. These elements translate that at one point it was a human hand that did what should not be done “
Finally, according to France 3 Picardie and Liberation, two new suspected cases, including one death, could be linked to the packaging error detected on the diuretic. Joined by the Agence Presse Médicale, the Ansm could not this Monday afternoon confirm or deny the existence of these two cases, indicating, however, to be in contact with the Directorate General of Health (DGS) on the subject. Also contacted by the MPA, the DGS was unable to comment on the file.
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