Me Noémie Klein, Maxime Bailly and Martin Vettes represent the interests of Philippe Coville, who already filed a complaint in October, and of a “dozen other patients” Who “consumed fluoroquinolone antibiotics and suffer from sometimes serious and potentially irreversible side effects”.
According to these tips, “despite several alerts on their dangerousness, in particular from Mr. Coville, and the restrictions of indications that came in late in 2019 with regard to their adverse effects known for years, these antibiotics remain today massively prescribed outside the scope of the marketing authorization (AMM)”.
A number of these patients “believe that they were not informed both of the off-label prescription of the antibiotic which was issued to them but also of the side effects from which they began to suffer immediately after their consumption”, write the lawyers again.
All of these patients hope through these complaints for “unintentional injuries” and “aggravated deception” to obtain the opening of an investigation by the public health center of the Paris court “in order to centralize the investigations”, while Mr. Coville’s first complaint, filed in Paris, was, according to one of the advisers, disoriented with the Versailles court.
Benefit/risk ratio reassessed
On its website, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) indicates that “Fluoroquinolones are a class of antibiotics that can be used in severe bacterial infections”.
“Like any medicine, fluoroquinolones can cause side effects”warns the ANSM, referring to “damage to the nervous system”of the “neuro-psychiatric disorders”, “a disorder of the musculoskeletal system”but also “Very rare but serious cardiac adverse effects”.
Since 2018-2019, the European Medicines Agency “reassessed” their “benefit/risk ratio”leading in particular “to restrict their therapeutic indications and update their safety profile”, reminds the ANSM.
On its website, the national agency indicates that fluoroquinolones “should only be prescribed after having carefully assessed their benefits against the risks of expected adverse effects, and after having informed the patient”.