The Levothyrox, manufactured by the German laboratory Merck, is one of the most prescribed drugs in France: 3 million patients suffering from thyroid disorders take it daily.
At the end of March, the laboratory put a new formula on the market at the request of the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) “in order to ensure a more constant active substance content from batch to batch” explains the lab. In this new formula, lactose has been replaced by mannitol and anhydrous citric acid has been added, “excipient which is used as a preservative to limit the degradation of levothyroxine over time” adds Merck.
Patients demand a return to the old formula
As a result of this change in formula, many patients felt significant side effects. This is particularly the case of actress Anny Duperey who has published an open letter on this subject.
At the initiative of another patient operated on for thyroid cancer in 2016, a petition calling for the return to the old formula of the drug has been uploaded. To date, it has collected nearly 200,000 signatures.
But patient mobilization does not stop there. At the initiative of the French Association of Thyroid Patients, a gathering is organized this Friday September 8 at 11 a.m. in front of the National Assembly. The following will participate in this gathering: Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy (head of the health center of the Paris TGI, lawyer specializing in health issues); André Cicolella (French chemist, toxicologist and researcher in environmental health, specialist in health risk assessment); Philippe Even (former dean of the Paris medical faculty and president of the Necker Institute); Chantal Lhoir (president and founder of the French association of thyroid patients -AFMT) and Michèle Rivasi (European deputy ecologist, associate biologist).
The AFMT is organizing this meeting to demand a strengthening of pharmacovigilance and the abandonment of the new formula of Levothyrox, as has been done in the Netherlands. And to meet the needs of patients and deal with the emergency, the AFMT requests that the health authorities obtain stocks of the old drug formula in Germany.
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-1597155771.jpg "Levothyrox: extension of the old formula until the end of 2021")
