Hundreds of deaths due to obesity tablets

A French medical study has confirmed that the "mediator" tablets prescribed by some doctors to obese may have caused the deaths of about 500 people over three decades in France.

According to a study conducted by the French Drug Safety Control Authority, 3,500 patients who took the drug Mediator, used to treat diabetes, were treated in hospital for taking the drug, which is based on the active substance Penflorics.

French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand invited patients who had taken the drug for more than three months to consult their doctor.

France has banned the trading of Mediator since Last November, but the French drug producer Servière is challenging the results, saying they are only conclusions based on speculation.

In 1979, Servière began producing a drug used in the treatment of diabetes, but was also often described as a hunger suppressor.

For his part, opposition French MP Gerard Babt said the issue was a scandal for France's health sector, stressing that it was incomprehensible why the country had been banned early on, as other countries had done.

In 2009, the European Drug Safety Agency studied the relationship between the drug and a defect in the function of one of the heart valves, and then recommended banning it in all European countries.