About a hundred patients have lodged a complaint for “influence peddling” in the context of the Levothyrox affair.
It will be said that the war around the Levothryox will not take prisoners. The site France Info reveals that a collective of a hundred patients would have lodged a complaint for “influence peddling” with the health center of the Marseille court, in charge of the case. By the voice of their lawyer, the plaintiffs affirm to suspect the existence of a conflict of interest between the laboratory Merck, manufacturer of the drug, and the drug agency (ANSM), at the origin of the change of formula.
The complaint is based on a revelation of the site Days published last February. The request for a change in the formula of Levothyrox, sent in 2012 by Afssaps (now ANSM) to Merck, bears the signature of Prof. Philippe Lechat, then director of the agency’s drug evaluation. However, the cardiologist had worked for the laboratory in the past. In his right of reply, the ANSM retorts that the work in question ceased in 2004 and concerns another area of expertise (beta-blockers), hence the absence of any conflict of interest with regard to the rules in force.
Suspicions of influence
Gauthier Lefèvre, lawyer for the collective of victims of Levothyrox Grand Est Reims and depositary of the complaint, does not hear it that way. “When the Merck laboratory gives you its official version which is to say” it is a completely independent authority that gave us the green light “, we realize that in reality, it is not such an independent authority as that “, he denounces on the site of France Info, adding that he discovered that Merck was working on the new formula long before 2012.
In the background, the complainants suspect the ANSM of having made Merck’s commercial interests prevail over a strict logic of public health. The old formula of Levothyrox contains lactose, poorly tolerated by the vast majority of Asians. The new formula, more stable and lactose-free, could be part of a strategy to conquer the Asian market. A suspicion that it will be up to justice to decide.
A year and a half of scandal
Since the beginning of the Levothyrox affair in February 2017, the most virulent patient associations (AFMT, local collectives) have been firing on all cylinders. The new formula, requested by the ANSM in order to improve the stability over time of this narrow-margin drug, has given rise to a large number of worrying side effects. However, the new formula is, from a pharmacological point of view, very close to the old one: same active principle, better stability.
For the health authorities, the undesirable effects are due to transient problems of dosage and especially to the media management of the crisis. The third part of the ANSM pharmacovigilance survey, unveiled on Friday, did not identify any patients at risk, nor a higher rate of adverse effects with the new formula. Faced with this medical impasse, the conflict tends to shift to the legal field.
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