a complaint filed for "trading in influence"

It will be said that the war around Levothryox will not make a prisoner. The site France Info reveals that a group of a hundred patients would have filed a complaint for "influence peddling" at the health center of the Marseille court, in charge of the case. Through their lawyer's voice, the plaintiffs say they suspect there is a conflict of interest between the drug manufacturer Merck and the drug agency (ANSM), which caused the change of formula. [19659002] The complaint is based on a revelation of the site Les Jours published last February. Levothyrox's request for a change of formula, sent in 2012 by Afssaps (now ANSM) to Merck, bears the signature of Pr Philippe Lechat, then director of the agency's drug evaluation. But the cardiologist had worked for the laboratory in the past. In its right of reply, the ANSM replies that the work in question ceased in 2004 and concern another area of ​​expertise (betablockers), hence the absence of a conflict of interest with regard to the rules in force.

Suspicions of influence

Gauthier Lefèvre, lawyer of the collective of the victims of the Levothyrox Grand Est Reims and custodian of the complaint, does not hear it that way. "When the Merck laboratory gives you its official version, which is to say" it's a completely independent authority that gave us the go-ahead ", we realize that in reality, it is not an authority so independent that that ", he denounces on the site of France Info adding to have discovered that Merck worked on the new formula well before 2012.

Filigree, the plaintiffs suspect the ANSM to have made Mercury's commercial interests prevail over a strict public health logic.The old formula of Levothyrox contains lactose, poorly tolerated by the vast majority of Asians.The new formula, more stable and lactose-free, could participate in a strategy of conquest of the Asian market A suspicion that it will return to justice to decide.

A year and a half of scandal

Since the beginning of the case of Levothyrox, in February 2017, the badociations of patient s the most virulent (AFMT, local collectives) are firing all wood. The new formula, requested by the ANSM to improve the stability over time of this narrow-margin drug, has given rise to a number of disturbing side effects. Now 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 media management of the crisis. The third part of the pharmacovigilance survey of the ANSM, unveiled Friday, has also not identified possible patients at risk or a higher rate of adverse effects with the new formula. Faced with this medical stalemate, the conflict tends to shift to the judicial field.