In Toulouse, 42 Levothyrox patients file a complaint against Merck

The 42 patients badigned the Merck laboratory to the tribunal de grande instance of Toulouse to claim compensation,
expertise and maintenance of the marketing of the old formula. According to their lawyer Jacques Lévy, the summons was filed on July 6, the hearing is already scheduled for July 19.
Levothyrox, a medication prescribed against hypothyroidism, changed formula in France in March 2017. From July and August, thousands of patients began to report side effects sometimes very annoying (fatigue, sore throat). head, insomnia, vertigo, joint and muscular pains and hair loss)

Recognition of non-pecuniary damage

"For several months the plaintiffs suffered serious disturbances in the total ignorance of the causes of the latter", it is thus "manifest that the whole of the victims is entitled to obtain repair of the damage suffered, in the first place, an injury of anxiety", one can read in the badignment of which the AFP obtained a copy.
Moreover, "by not informing patients of the risks that could be caused by the new Levothyrox, it is undeniable that the latter suffered moral damage that should be repaired".
Thus, the plaintiffs claim the payment of 15,000 euros to each of the claimants for the injury of anxiety and 15,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
In addition, they claim the maintenance of the marketing of the old formula and ask the court to order an expertise in order to determine the bodily injury suffered by the plaintiffs.
Last June, the Court of Appeal of Toulouse had confirmed the sentence pronounced in Toulouse in November, which ordered the Merck laboratories to deliver "without delay" the old formula of the drug to 25 patients of Haute-Garonne.
The third pharmacovigilance report on Levothyrox, released Friday by the Agence du médicament, still does not explain the wave of adverse effects attributed by some patients to the new formula of this drug for the thyroid.