“Six million people have been poisoned in France in four years” by fluoroquinolones, denounces a patient association

Fluoroquinolones are a class of antibiotics that can be used for serious bacterial infections. They are marketed under multiple names such as Oflocet, Ciflox or Tavanic. But they can be the cause of undesirable, irreversible or even fatal effects. According to a patient association, six million prescriptions in breach of medical recommendations have been made over the past four years. Patients whose health has seriously deteriorated are asking the courts to open a criminal investigation into the responsibility of doctors and health authorities. A complaint has been filed with the Paris public health center and the Versailles prosecutor’s office, and a dozen others should be filed this week.

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Many doctors continue to prescribe these fluoroquinolones for common infections: cystitis, otitis or sinusitis. Among the patients, Jean-Baptiste tells franceinfo that he took one of these fluoroquinolones, which his doctor had prescribed to him, he will learn later, unjustifiably. In the weeks that followed, his health deteriorated. He feels tingling, insomnia, neuropsychiatric disorders, pain in the legs and arms, to the point of not being able to walk. He is now in a wheelchair and can no longer work.

“It’s called risk management”

Another patient, Philippe Coville, today suffers from serious neuropathies, after taking fluoroquinolones in 2021, again outside medical recommendations for this type of drug. He has since created an association for help and information on the deleterious effects of fluoroquinolones, and opened with other victims a Facebook page which brings together nearly 200 people.. According to him, “six million people have been poisoned in France in four years”. He has just lodged a complaint and has begun to collect testimonies, already “about fifty in France, and about fifty in ‘other European countries’.” Philippe Coville asks “that the justices of all the countries of Europe take up the subject to shed light on what happened and so that responsibilities are established”. He points “the responsibilities of doctors”, but not only.

“Health authorities continue to hide a situation of widespread neglect”.

Philippe Coville

at franceinfo

For 18 months, Philippe Coville has been trying to alert the health authorities, without much result. He wonders in particular why, in four years, only one alert letter has been sent to doctors. “We should have repeated the safety messages. It’s called risk management.” Especially since a study published last May commissioned by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), confirms that more than two thirds of prescriptions in France are made for indications not covered by the recommendations: “Given the severity of some of these effects, such as damage to the nervous system (peripheral neuropathies), neuropsychiatric disorders, musculoskeletal system disease (pain and swelling in the joints, inflammation or even rupture of tendons, muscle pain and/or weakness), and their long-lasting, disabling and potentially irreversible nature, the EMA reassessed the benefit/risk ratio of fluoroquinolones in 2018-2019. This reassessment led in particular to restricting their therapeutic indications and updating their safety profile.

The Ministry of Health called to “change the legislation”

The French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT) calls for its part on franceinfo the Ministry of Health to set up a system for doctors to justify each prescription of fluoroquinolones. “In cases of urinary tract infections, in sinusitis, we should no longer see a single prescription of fluoroquinolones as first-line treatment”, says to franceinfo Mathieu Molimard, professor at the CHU of Bordeaux and responsible for the communication of the SFPT. But according to him, there is no today “the tools to block prescriptions. We must go further and change the legislation.”

Contacted by franceinfo, the Ministry of Health explains that it recently published a thematic file on the site of the ANSM, the medicine agency and have requested that messages appear in prescription assistance software . A warning message was also sent a few days ago, on March 7, to all city pharmacies and the hospital.

The ministry also assures that other actions are being developed, including “the sending in the coming weeks of a mailing to all health professionals who can prescribe these antibiotics”. Finally, according to the ministry, the recommendation of the HAS “is being adjusted so that fluoroquinolones are no longer prescribed in simple cystitis in men as is already planned in simple cystitis in women.”