She is nicknamed the French Erin Brockovich.
Irène Frachon, 59, made a name for herself in 2010 with a shocking book,
Mediator, how many deaths?
, in which she pointed to the responsibility of the Servier laboratories in the scandal of the Mediator, a drug which would have caused the death of nearly 2000 patients.
More than ten years later, the firm was found guilty of “aggravated deception” and “involuntary homicides and injuries” by the Paris court, and sentenced to a fine of 2.7 million on March 29, 2021.
Questioned by
Franceinfo
, Irène Frachon declared that it was “an immense satisfaction and a very great relief”.
“Servier knowingly marketed for more than ten years a product of which he had hidden the nature and of which he was not unaware of the risks.
To put it simply, Servier knowingly marketed poison to make money.
This has caused thousands of victims,” she said.
Who know, today "that what was done to them is illegal, that it is a crime".
Sense of duty
Born March 26, 1963 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), Irène Frachon is the granddaughter of Admiral Hubert Meyer, an actor in the liberation of La Rochelle and Royan during the Second World War, and of Jacques Allier, a banker who participated, in 1940, in the "battle of heavy water" alongside Minister Raoul Dautry.
She will spend her childhood in the Protestant faith and surrounded by these two grandfathers, models for her future life.
In video, the documentary
Irène Frachon, straight to the heart
“I would not have arrived there if the example of Albert Schweitzer had not awakened my medical vocation, if my Protestant education had not awakened the attention that I must pay to my neighbour, and if my two grand- fathers had not awakened my sense of duty.
During the war, they both did what they had to do, at their peril.
These are my fundamentals, ”she explained in an interview with
Le Monde
in 2016.
Unexpected twist
Irene Frachon.
(Nanterre, May 14, 2012.) AFP / Martin Bureau
She obtained her medical degree in 1988 and chose to specialize in pulmonology.
First in boarding school at the Antoine-Béclère hospital in Clamart, then at the Foch hospital in Suresnes.
In 1996, she moved to Brest and became a pulmonologist at the city's university hospital.
It was only a few years later, in 2007, that the life of this mother of four children took an unexpected turn.
One evening, one of his colleagues calls him and tells him about a diabetic patient with valve damage.
At
Liberation
, she says: “She was not well, she had valvular lesions, it reminded me of those patients who had taken Isomeride (
another appetite suppressant from Servier banned in 1997, Ed.
) and when I asked what she was taking, my colleague just blurted out: “Du Mediator.” This event marks the starting point of Irène Frachon's in-depth research.
She then seeks to find a link between these health problems and the taking of Mediator, a drug originally intended for overweight diabetics and quickly also prescribed as an appetite suppressant for people wishing to lose weight.
Her fight, she will lead it for nearly two years and will finally succeed in having the Mediator banned in 2009. But the lack of recognition given to the victims will push her the following year to write the book
Mediator, how many deaths?
, directly implicating the Servier laboratories and its president, Jacques Servier, who marketed the drug.
A book and an alarming report quickly relayed by the media.
An echo which will even push the industrialist to ask for the withdrawal of the subtitle, “how many deaths?”.
In November 2010, the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) officially confirmed the death of 500 patients due to the Mediator.
A balance sheet which will then climb to nearly 2,000 victims.
His responsibility in the case, the pharmacist will however deny it until his death.
However, his death in April 2014 will not prevent the investigation from continuing.
“Jacques Servier will never be condemned, but his companies, which bear his name, yes”, she assured
Le Figaro
the day after his death.
Between the recognition of the facts and the compensation of the victims, the case is far from being closed.
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A life on the big screen
In the meantime, the whistleblower has managed to deeply mark the spirits.
In particular that of the filmmaker Emmanuelle Bercot, who made
La Fille de Brest
in 2016 , a portrait dedicated to this doctor like no other.
“Irene Frachon is a bit like our Erin Brockovich.
He is an ordinary person to whom something extraordinary happened”, explained the filmmaker to us in November 2016.
I didn't wake up one morning thinking I was going to change the world
Irene Frachon
No way for the pulmonologist to get excited.
“I am not a heroine.
And I didn't wake up one morning thinking I was going to change the world.
I just acted like a doctor, faced with something so huge that it was impossible to be silent, ”she commented to
La Croix
in 2015. Especially since her fight is far from over.
At the bar
While the Mediator trial opened on September 23, 2019 in Paris, Irène Frachon assures
Liberation
"It's the tsunami coming."
The latter has also put on leave from the University Hospital of Brest to be able to be present at all the hearings.
His goal ?
"The end of an unbearable denial," she told BFMTV.
Servier confessed nothing, Servier recognized nothing, Servier pays because he has a knife to his throat and two Kalashnikovs in his back.
We are waiting for a criminal judge to decide on the offenses with which Servier is accused.
On Wednesday, October 16, 2019, for the first time, the pulmonologist spoke in front of the court.
“I narrowly escaped Servier's deception.
It hung by a thread, ”she charged at full speed.
Then to add: "I am like the victims, to this day, I am inconsolable."
The trial ends in the summer of 2020 after 517 hours of
hearing and an interruption between March and June due to the coronavirus crisis.
On March 29, 2021, the verdict fell: Servier laboratories and their former number two, Jean-Philippe Seta, were found guilty of aggravated deception and manslaughter and involuntary injury.
Servier was fined 2.7 million euros, Jean-Philippe Seta received a four-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 90,600 euros.
The group was also ordered to pay a total of more than 183 million euros in damages to the victims.
A conviction which obviously did not please anyone, neither Servier nor the Paris prosecutor's office, who respectively appealed.
Jean-Philippe Seta, were convicted of aggravated deception and manslaughter and manslaughter.
Servier was fined 2.7 million euros, Jean-Philippe Seta received a four-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 90,600 euros.
The group was also ordered to pay a total of more than 183 million euros in damages to the victims.
A conviction which obviously did not please anyone, neither Servier nor the Paris prosecutor's office, who respectively appealed.
Jean-Philippe Seta, were convicted of aggravated deception and manslaughter and manslaughter.
Servier was fined 2.7 million euros, Jean-Philippe Seta received a four-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 90,600 euros.
The group was also ordered to pay a total of more than 183 million euros in damages to the victims.
A conviction which obviously did not please anyone, neither Servier nor the Paris prosecutor's office, who respectively appealed.
was ordered to pay a total of more than 183 million euros in damages to the victims.
A conviction which obviously did not please anyone, neither Servier nor the Paris prosecutor's office, who respectively appealed.
was ordered to pay a total of more than 183 million euros in damages to the victims.
A conviction which obviously did not please anyone, neither Servier nor the Paris prosecutor's office, who respectively appealed.
The mountain gave birth to a mouse
Irene Frachon
Thus opens this Monday, January 9 the appeal trial.
And as in 2019, Irène Frachon will testify at the bar, even if she told AFP that she had "lost confidence in the ability of justice to condemn this type of offense commensurate with the seriousness of the offenses committed".
"The mountain gave birth to a mouse" in the first instance, she said, regretting "the modesty of the sentences", below the requisitions of the prosecution, and a missed opportunity to "give a strong signal" to the industrialists of the medicine that does not respect the rules.
However, we will have to remain patient to know the outcome of this appeal trial, which should last six months.
