Currently viewing the category: "France"

French for Fen-Phen

By On · Add Comment · In benfluorex, blood sugar, fen-phen, fenfluramine, France, hyperlipidemia, Inserm, lipid lowering medication, magic bullet, Mediator, pulmonary hypertension, type 2 diabetes

France in the health news again as a second major scandal to hit the country in the last few months has surfaced. This one having to do with a widely prescribed lipid lowering medication called Mediator, which is now being implicated in the deaths of 1,300 and the hospitalization of over 3,000. According to a spokesperson for National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), the numbers may be even higher than that.

Mediator, known pharmacologically as benfluorex, was originally licensed to combat hyperlipidemia and control blood sugar in type 2 diabetics. But because the drug also acted as an appetite suppressant, it was routinely given to people just wanting to lose weight.

As a result, between 1,000-2,000 are thought to have died from using the drug, which is structurally similar to fenfluramine, the dangerous half of the popular weight loss combo, Fen-phen. If you don’t remember, in the 1990s fenfluaramine was found to damage heart valves and lead to pulmonary hypertension–definitely not worth the weight loss–and as a result it was pulled off the market in 1997.

Same thing happened to Mediator in 2009, when it was pulled off the European market. The drug was also shown to damage heart valves and cause pulmonary hypertension. To make matters worse, the drug’s manufacturer is being probed on suspicion of dishonest practices and deception. You don’t say? Yes, according to France’s national health insurance system, a whopping 303,000 patients used Mediator in 2006 alone, with 145 million sold before the drug was pulled. Woowee!

Well, looks like the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on shady drug manufacturing practices or stupidity. Not knowing all the details yet, I am guessing the makers of Mediator knew of the dangers to the public, and kept quiet–bad, bad, bad drug dealers. And as for the people looking for a magic bullet…well, what can I say that I haven’t said before? No free lunch, folks–so I guess it’s 1,300 dead to learn a lesson. Just wondering when the next American lesson will come. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…statins.

Silicon Breast Implant Scare in Europe and So. America (Part 2)

By On · Add Comment · In Britain, cancer, Costa Rica, Europe, France, Jean-Claude Mas, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), PIP breast implants, Poly Implant Prothese, silicone implants, South America
See Part One here.

PIP was placed into liquidation in March 2010 with losses of 9 million euros after the French medical safety agency recalled its implants. In a subsequent inspection of its manufacturing site, officials found it was using industrial silicone not approved by health authorities, and only about a tenth as expensive as approved gel.

An investigation found a majority of implants made by PIP since 2001 contained the unapproved gel. Industrial silicone is used in a range of products from computers to cookware.

While all breast implants can burst, especially as they get older, “these implants have a particular fragility” and appear to pose risks of rupture earlier in their life spans than other implants, said Jean-Claude Ghislain of the French health agency AFSSAPS. France’s state health care system normally pays for implants for medical reasons, such as after a mastectomy, but not for cosmetic implants. About 80% of those with the PIP implants had them for aesthetic reasons.

A PIP lawyer says the company recognizes that its products were defective but argues that it is being unduly singled out.

“The implants had flaws but the PIP implants are not the only ones on the market that had problems,” said lawyer Yves Haddad. “The reality is that everyone who makes implants has a percentage of failures.”

According to him, company founder Mas is in France but does not intend to make public comment.

What can I say? Shocking is all that comes to mind. My heartfelt sympathies go to the women affected by this shameful act. Hopefully, everything will be sorted out quickly and decisively; but most importantly, may all the women involved get resolve with the most minimal consequences.
*Most of this piece consists of excerpts coming from various sources including Reuters, Associated Press, BBC and ChannelNewsAsia

Silicon Breast Implant Scare in Europe and So. America (Part 1)

By On · Add Comment · In Britain, cancer, Costa Rica, Europe, France, Jean-Claude Mas, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), PIP breast implants, Poly Implant Prothese, silicone implants, South America
Jean-Claude Mas

Hold onto your hats with this one, folks–it doesn’t look pretty. The chief executive of a French company whose questionable breast implants are under international scrutiny is on the Interpol police agency’s most-wanted list.

According to recent reports Jean-Claude Mas is wanted by Costa Rican authorities for crimes involving “life and health.” It bears a photo of the 72-year-old Mas but does not elaborate on his alleged crimes or link to Costa Rica.

France’s health ministry Friday advised 30,000 women with breast implants (silicone) made by the now-bankrupt Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) to have them removed, saying that while there is no proven cancer risk, they could rupture.

Tens of thousands of women in over 65 countries around the world have the same implants, made from industrial rather than medical quality silicone, although some reports have the number as high as 300,000 worldwide. Most of them live in South America and western Europe.

250 British women are suing for compensation after being fitted with the suspect breast implants. Some 42,000 women in Britain are thought to have the implants, according to a government watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The silicone gel implants, made by PIP, appear to have an unusually high rupture rate and fears about possible health risks are spreading.

French and British authorities appear to be taking very different approaches to the potential dangers. France has take the costly (euro60 million or $78 million) and unprecedented steps of offering to pay for the 30,000 women to have their implants removed.

In Britain, Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said:

“Women with PIP implants should not be unduly worried. We have no evidence of a link to cancer or an increased risk of rupture. If women are concerned they should speak to their surgeon.” 

According to Davies, removing implants “carries risks in itself.”  She does say, however, that women with these implants should be checked by their surgeons. 

MHRA in Britain says that France has reported rupture rates of around 5% for PIP implants, compared with 1% in the UK. Eight cases of cancer have been reported in women with the implants but the French authorities say these are not necessarily linked to faulty implants.

French  Health Minister Xavier Bertrand urged French women to have the implants removed as a “preventive measure,” but said that it was not “urgent.” The French Government did not move quickly enough for thousands of French women that marched on Paris to demand more attention to worries about what might be happening inside them. Images of leaky, blubbery implants and women having mammograms have been splashed on French TV. 

The implants were exported from France to Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina, and Western European markets including Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy. Local investigative police in Costa Rica said a man identified as Jean Claude Mas Florent was arrested by national police in Costa Rica’s Cartago province on June 1, 2010 for reckless driving under the influence of alcohol, a crime that can carry a jail sentence. He was given a court date in November 2010 but fled the country. It was unclear if there was any link between that arrest and the Interpol notice.

Concerns in France first surfaced about two years ago when surgeons started reporting abnormally high rupture rates, leading to a flood of legal complaints, the company’s bankruptcy and a scandal that has spread across the world.  

In the U.S., concerns about silicone gel implants in general led to a 14-year ban on their use, in favor of saline-filled implants. Silicone implants were brought back to the market in the U.S. in 2006 after research ruled out links to cancer, lupus and some other concerns.

Australia’s healthcare watchdog says about 8,900 of the implants were used in women there, some of whom had complained about splitting and leaking.

Germany’s medical safety board advised women with PIP implants to consult their doctors for checks, but stopped short of recommending their removal.

Go to part two here.

How Thin is Too Thin?

By On · Add Comment · In anorexia, body mass index (BMI), France, French women, thin, underweight
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which women are thinnest of them all? If you’ve guessed the French, then you’ve guessed right. Indeed, French women are the thinnest in Europe, according to new research conducted by France’s National Institute of Demographic Studies. The kicker, though, is that only half of them think they are too thin. So how thin is too thin?

Five percent of all French women are officially “underweight,” according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards. On the plus side, France is the only European nation whose women and men are both solidly in the normal weight category. But the proportion of overly thin women in France has long been the highest among all European nations.

The significance of this study is that it sheds light on what one culture sees as the norm with regard to body weight. In other European countries such as Britain, Spain and Portugal, women there tend to over-estimate their skinniness–that is, more women think they are too thin than actually are, according to the WHO standards. WHO uses body mass index (BMI) as an indicator for body weight. BMI is calculated by taking one’s weight in kilograms and dividing it by the square of one’s height in meters. The range of normal weight is 18.5-to-24.9.*

In France, however, only 50% of the women falling below 18.5 BMI think they are too thin. In that culture thin is obviously in. So while many European nations, and America, have a problem with obesity and overweight people, France has the opposite problem…and it is a problem.

We all know that anorexia is a health hazard, so France’s cultural attitudes toward weight perpetuate its own public health issues. The real scary part for the French is that despite being the thinnest women in Europe, many French women consider themselves “too fat.” For French women, “the body is related to beauty, and beauty to being thin,” said one of the scientists conducting the study

It just goes to show you that no culture is immune to body image issues. Too thin is unhealthy, and it doesn’t really look good, at least by health standards. But in France, it’s the look to go for. So I guess when you hear next how healthy the French are, keep this little fact in mind; they may be thin, but too thin isn’t necessarily good for the health.

*Check your own weight status on this BMI calculator (using British units weights).

Mandatory Vaccination Nightmare

By On · Add Comment · In France, government, hepatitis B, hepatitis vaccination, mandated vaccinations, side effects
You all know how I feel about mandated vaccinations–it’s damn near Orwellian! Here’s a little story about what can go wrong when the government steps in and decides what they think is best for it’s peoples’ health, and then forces them to comply.

From 1994-1998, the right-wing government which controlled France at that time mandated a national hepatitis vaccination campaign to “protect” its people against this dreadful microbe. 20 million citizens were vaccinated against hepatitis B which can infect the liver. As it turned out, approximately 1,300 people allegedly contracted serious side effects from the vaccine–one woman died. Now two drug companies are facing charges that they withheld important information regarding side effects of the vaccine, French officials reported yesterday. Smithkline Beecham, now GlaxoSmithKline GSK, and Pasteur Merieux MSD-Aventis Pasteur, now Sanofi Pasteur MSD, are accused of aggravated deceit for their roles in the mass vaccination campaign. Both companies deny any wrong doing.

OK, I’m not going to play judge, jury or hangman on this post. I will contend that, perhaps, the drug companies did nothing wrong; they just provided a product. It’s really up to the consumer to weigh the risks. My main problem here lies with the fascist government that not only backed mass vaccination, but ordered it. How dare any government tell its people what they must put into their bodies. What an absolute violation of human rights. It seems to me that the French government, the one in power during the hepatitis vaccine mandate, is liable for criminal conduct–forcing anyone to undergo a medical treatment is simply barbaric.

Now welcome to the world we live in: Mandatory vaccinations are increasingly introduced into legislation here in the good ol’ US of A. Mandatory HPV vaccinations for girls in Texas, mandated flu vaccinations in New Jersey–what the hell is this world coming to?

Are you a big believer in the “this world was a cesspool before vaccinations” philosophy? Great! Go ahead and inoculate your heart out. And you trust that the government knows what’s best for you? Great? Enjoy your life. But don’t tell me what to put in my body, or my child’s. It’ll be a cold day in Hades before I accept what the corrupt political machine tells me I have to do to maintain my health. Heck no–I’d rather move to France.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.