“We, signatories of this manifesto, urge health professionals to reconsider their links with the Servier pharmaceutical group, a laboratory indicted for extremely serious behavior at the origin of thousands of serious heart disease and death.” These words taken from a petition against the Servier laboratory were whispered by pulmonologist Irène Frachon. The one which revealed in 2009 the dangerousness of the Mediator, an anti-diabetic diverted as an appetite suppressant, leading to its withdrawal from the market, continues its fight against the pharmaceutical laboratory. And the least that we can say is that it does not go four ways. She is one of the 30 doctors who signed a manifesto intended to remind the pharmaceutical group of its “legal and moral obligations”. In other words, precisely push Servier to compensate the victims of the anti-diabetic drug. It was (belatedly) established by the health authorities that the Mediator is linked to valve disease and D’other heart problems.
A manifesto open to debate
Posted on Wednesday August 26, the text denounces the attitude “contrary to scientific and pharmaceutical ethics” of the Servier laboratory. The authors criticize the fact that the laboratory has been pursuing “for several years a judicial guerrilla war to delay both the criminal trial and especially thecompensation for victimscivil “.
The site takes care to put things in their context by recalling the scandal of the Mediator and draws up an inventory. “If the president of this laboratory claims in front of the microphones that he wants to face up to his responsibilities, his lawyers are stepping up the procedures to delay compensation for victims. At the same time, some learned medical societies continue to accept financial support from the Servier laboratory” , explains the manifesto in the section of the site entitled “About”.
This text in the form of an open letter to the Servier laboratory leaves a field open to debates and testimonies. A sign that the Mediator scandal raises ethical questions that go beyond the scope of the case, such as the relationships of interest that unite practitioners and pharmaceutical groups.
The manifesto has garnered the support of personalities such as the geneticist Prof. Axel Kahn, the philosopher Michel Serres or even Prof. André Grimaldi, diabetologist, former head of department at La Pitié-Salpêtrière. The latter accuses, in the columns of Le Figaro: “The Mediator affair marks a breach of trust, but without trust, doctors can no longer treat. We need an ethical leap.”
To consult the manifesto: manifestedes30.com/
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