In France there is nothing else to talk about, but the news has then spread all over the world and now also in Italy.

A type 2 diabetes drug, also used to suppress appetite in overweight or obese people, is suspected to have caused the deaths of nearly 2,000 people in France.

The drug, whose name is Mediator , produced by Servier Laboiratoires, had been withdrawn from the market in 2010, after strange deaths had occurred among the patients who used it. It is suspected that up to two thousand and one hundred people have died and that in all almost five thousand people have been harmed.

The drug was also sold in the rest of Europe since 1976.
In Italy it was known as Mediaxal .
The active ingredient of the drug is benfluorex, a derivative of methamphetamine .
But in the other countries the drug had been withdrawn at the beginning of the 2000s.
For example in Italy since 2003.

France, on the other hand, has delayed its withdrawal until 2009.
Why, the relatives of the victims are now asking?

FRAUD ABOUT DIABETES DRUG IN FRANCE: THE REASONS BEHIND THE SCANDAL.

In fact, a trial that will last seven months has been initiated, but in the meantime the pharmaceutical company is accused of fraud and involuntary manslaughter.

This diabetes drug was on the market for about 33 years, before it was withdrawn following reports from some doctors who had reported cases of lung disease and heart attacks.

In fact, it seems that the active ingredient underlying the diabetes drug Mediator caused progressive damage to the heart valves and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Hence the cases of death and serious illness.

But the accusations also involve the French Medicines Agency, which was supposed to collect the reports and withdraw the product well before 2009, following the example of other European countries.

The Agency has defended itself for now like this: it explained that before 2009 there were no scientific studies that talked about the damage of benfluorex.
So the reports weren’t enough?
Meanwhile, however, people used it in good faith against high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar and even to lose weight.