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Five years after the Levothyrox scandal, the victims’ associations have just won an important battle: the French subsidiary of the Merck laboratory has been indicted for aggravated deception.
On the cell phone of Sylvie Chéreau, this Wednesday, October 19, founder of the Collective of Victims of Levothyrox d’Occitanie, many messages of congratulations. She has been fighting against the new formula of the drug and her Merck laboratory for years. The indictment of the latter is a victory. In 2017, Merck changed the formula of Levothyrox, the only drug available in France for thyroid patients. Except that several thousand of them complain of serious side effects.
In 2020, the laboratory is sentenced for lack of information. This Wednesday, October 19, he is indicted for aggravated deception. The lab says it will “take cognizance of all the elements of this file and provide all the necessary details in order to establish that no criminal offense (…) has been committed”. For patient associations, this is only a first step. They hope that justice will also look into the case of the ANSM, drug agency, which they accuse of having turned a blind eye.