Marine Martin

Marine Martin

Marine Martin, born on June 26, 1972 in Toulouse, is a French whistleblower. She is the chairwoman of the French Association ("APESAC"), she is also an expert patient at the ANSM and a member of the college of advisors of the Prescrire journal.

Biography

In 2002, her son was born with birth defects and neurobehavioral disorders. Trying to understand the causes, she discovered in 2009 the connection between the Depakine she took during her pregnancy and the birth defects/autism of her son, thanks to scientific documentation. Then, she became a whistleblower for the Depakine (Valproic acid) case, an anti-epileptic drug prescribed to women suffering from epilepsy or bipolar disorder.

In 2011, she decided to create the APESAC association to inform the victims of the danger they endured, alert the media and public authorities in order to change the conditions of prescription, enforce pictograms on the drugs boxes and demonstrate the transgenerational effects of Valproate by publishing a study in Birth Defects Research review.

Positions taken

Valproate case

She sued Sanofi, in civil court proceedings in 2012 and in criminal proceedings in 2015, and then sued the State in 2016 in the administrative proceedings.

Her association APESAC was the first French health association to initiate a Class Action complaint in 2016. In November 2016, she obtained a compensation scheme specifically dedicated to Depakine victims adopted by the French agency ONIAM, as it had been done for Mediator.

In April 2017, she released her book Dépakine, le Scandale: je ne pouvais pas me taire, in which she recounts her struggle. She also published alongside Catherine Hill studies listing the number of victims of Depakine thanks to data collected by APESAC. This book was awarded a prize by the journal Prescrire at the same year.

At the beginning of 2019, she made public the data collected by her APESAC association on the transgenerational effects of Depakine. The children of Depakine children are likely to develop birth defects or neurodevelopmental disorders. Meanwhile, the work she undertook at the ANSM led to a report published in April 2019, classifying the danger of other antiepileptics drugs for pregnant women.

In February 2020, the criminal case judge indicted Sanofi for aggravated deception and endangering the lives of others, following the lawsuit lodged by Marine Martin. In August the same year, involuntary manslaughter was added to the charges, following the addition of four cases of deceased children. In October 2020, still in the context of the criminal case, the ANSM was indicted for endangering the lives of others and involuntary manslaughter. In October 2021, Sanofi's request for the cancellation of the criminal report was rejected by the Paris investigating chamber, thus maintaining their indictment for "aggravated deception", "involuntary injury" and "involuntary manslaughter ".

In December 2021, she published a study on the transgenerational effects of Valproate with the help of international scientists: Catherine Hill, Susan Bewley, Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Women's Health at King's College London, Alastair H. Maclennan, Director of the Cerebral Palsy Research Group at the University of Adelaide and Dr. Alain Braillon.

On January 5, 2022 her association won the first class action in health matters against SANOFI, judged responsible for a lack of vigilance and information on the risks of Depakine. The court agreed, among other things, that Sanofi had produced and marketed a defective product.

Institutional work

In 2014, alongside with her British counterparts from the OACS (Organisation for Anti-convulsant Syndrome), she obtained the European re-evaluation of the drug at the EMA, imposed the implementation of a protocol based on that of Isotretinoin, and had the SPC (Product Characteristics Summary) modified.

In 2016, she obtained from the ANSM that studies be carried out to determine the exact number of victims. Three reports were published: the first estimated the number of children born with malformations at 4,000 (published in 2016); the second stated that between 2007 and 2014: 14,000 women had been pregnant on Depakin and that only 8,700 children were born alive (published in 2016). The last one states that 30,000 children were born with neurobehavioral disorders in France since 1967 (2018).

In 2016, she negotiated to have pictograms placed on Depakine boxes, as well as on all teratogenic drugs, warning of the dangers of the drug during pregnancy, which came out in April 2017 by decree, and then in 2018, she imposed it at European level.

Marine Martin continues her fight, awaiting the various judgments. The whistleblower, who has become an expert patient at the ANSM, "remains in the crosshairs of Sanofi [...] which is trying to cancel her appointment ".

In May 2021, Sanofi was refused by the administrative court of Montreuil, to have Marine Martin removed from her position as a patient expert at the ANSM.

Bibliography

Works

"Dépakine, le scandale. Je ne pouvais pas me taire". lisez.com. 2017

• Enfant Dépakine, 2020

Articles

• Proposals for Engaging Patients and Healthcare Professionals in Risk Minimisation from an Analysis of Stakeholder Input to the EU Valproate Assessment Using the Novel Analysing Stakeholder Safety Engagement Tool (ASSET), in Drug Safety, july 2021
• Transgenerational adverse effects of valproate? A patient report from 90 affected families in Birth Defects Research, december 2021

See also

• Sanofi

References

This article "Marine Martin" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Marine Martin. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---