But they lived that lived the Fopim the Fund of

It played you or it Tickle you "asked doctor Knock. To "Prescribe", the diagnosis is clear: hair to scratch the medical world, the little revue disturbs laboratories and supports there where it is evil in the French drug control system. Tomorrow, Igas (General Inspection of Social Affairs) must make public its report to understand how and why alerts have not worked for nearly fifteen years on the Mediator. This an antidiabetic agent used as an appetite suppressant is suspected of having between 500 and 2,000 dead. It is by reading "Prescribe", revue until then rather confidential, that Irène Frachon, the physician who made burst the scandal, realized the danger of the drug from the laboratoires Servier. More than 100 complaints were filed.

Today, the independent magazine subscriptions explode, website is saturated, and the Department of health responds to each of its publications. Xavier Bertrand, even received, avenue de Ségur, the Chief Editor of the periodical to ask his analysis on the case Mediator. "It was the first time in thirty years that a Minister was receiving us," fun Bruno Toussaint, the Director of the writing of "prescribe". The former doctor wants to keep cool heads to this beautiful journalistic success. Not a question of change of editorial line, although for the launch of its issue of January, the monthly organized emergency a press conference. It is true that this time, the editors of the journal have little taken gloves, and attacked in direct two other drugs by requiring their withdrawal from the market: a - buflomédil - vasodilator, and an anti-inflammatory nonsteroidal. According to their analysis, these drugs would be at least "no demonstrated therapeutic interest" and could even, to the buflomédil, avoir "adverse neurological and cardiac, sometimes fatal". "". Rather than withdraw the drug from the market, the authorities have decided to withdraw only the strong determination .... How many victims need still to affected firms or the Afssaps agency of health products, Editor's note to decide to withdraw the drug from the market ", concludes"prescribe ".

Battering

For the uninitiated, the vocabulary, the strength of the attack may come as a surprise. Health professionals subscribe to "Prescribe", them, there are used for a long time and trust him. "They work really well, it is somewhat"Chained duck"of the health system", comments on a doctor. "This is a critical review," said Didier Tabuteau, responsible for the Chair in Health Sciences po Paris and former Director of the Agency of the drug from 1993 to 1997: "regardless of the reliability of the system, be a review of expertise which organizes the contradiction and legitimate questions," he says.

And questions, the small magazine by the scandal of the Mediator arrived to not deprive of to ask. In 1997, "Prescribe" warned against the dangers of the Mediator and returned to load several times in the 2000s. Six years ago, it will also be the first to tackle the Di-antalvic. Shots of battering which seriously annoy the French Agency of sanitary safety of health products (Afssaps). In 2005, after an umpteenth editorial bloody writing "Prescribe" on the possible "deafness" Afssaps, with alarming of the Mediator balance sheets, the Agency sends a letter to the newspaper denouncing "the trial of intent" and indignant "the seriousness of the charges." Mail that writing is quick to publish, in her responding in a style to it: "In each of these recent examples, the first recipient of the excessive slowness of the Afssaps, its timidity and its opacity is the pharmaceutical firm which markets the drug in question and whose sales continue." The first victims are the patients. "Today, the atmosphere has hardly improved: when seeking the Agency about"Prescribe", the request is followed by a long silence, and then closes the door:"Please send your questions by mail. Which will remain unanswered...

"We share", recognizes Bruno Toussaint. In the mapping of the medical and biomedical journals, "Prescribe" is indeed a "Oeni" (object unidentified editorial). Or review of research and scientific analysis, as Anglo-Saxon journals, such as "Nature" or the "Journal of medicine", or professional journal. But a little of both: the ethics of the counter-analysis of the scientific intelligence... With however a good brand to it: its independence. "The characteristic of"Prescribe"is to be funded entirely by subscriptions without subsidy, neither sponsor, nor advertising," says of outset Bruno Toussaint, when asked to describe the publication. Other journals were launched time on the niche of the information, without publicity, independent of that provided by pharmaceutical companies on their products. But they lived that lived the Fopim, the Fund of