Association denounces devastating effects of Bayer's drug Androcur

©John Macdougall/AFP

Fighting against the ravages of the drug Androcur, the Amavea association has filed a complaint against X for “administration of harmful substance, unintentional harm to the integrity of the person, endangering the life of others, failure to report an adverse effect and aggravated deception”. A look back at yet another health scandal involving Bayer, which highlights a lack of interest in patients and failing public health.

Marketed since 1980, Androcur is prescribed to women when they need to limit the effects of male hormones, initially in cases of excessive hairiness. But not only that: contraception, acne, endometriosis, transgenderism, are all possible uses, today in the majority.

A survey by Radio France, returning to information from Monde, underlines that this excessive prescription was done even though serious side effects of the drug were known. Although very effective, it also creates meningiomas, tumors in the meninges. The association that filed the complaint deplores the dozens of women affected: “This meningioma had made me hemiplegic on the right side. I had lost the ability to speak,” says one of them, who is currently recovering.

The height of it all is that the increased risks of this drug have been recognized by the laboratory itself since 2004. But it was only three years later that Bayer alerted Afssaps (French Agency for the Safety of Health Products) to request a modification of the Androcur leaflet, as reported by France Info. And the said leaflet would not be modified by the agency until 2011.

In 2018, a study conducted jointly by the National Health Insurance Fund and the ANSM finally proved the link between taking Androcur and meningiomas. In June 2019, an information letter on the risks was sent to 40,000 doctors and 70,000 patients, but not to women who were already prescribed the drug. Many of them will therefore continue taking it for years, before learning of the flaw…  “I then turned to my doctor, who seemed to ignore this information. He continued to prescribe Androcur to me after having me sign a certificate, stating that he had informed me of the risk of meningioma. But I don't remember him explaining it to me very clearly”, one of them told Amavea.

Today, Androcur prescriptions have significantly decreased, but often, the damage is done. “It's something that grows and slowly decreases. And this decrease is not systematic. It occurs in a certain number of patients, and not in others”, explains Professor Johan Pallud, head of the neurology department at Sainte-Anne hospital, speaking of meningioma. The association considers that we are only at the beginning of the wave of complaints.

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