User:PantherMyrtille/Marine Martin

Marine Martin, born on June 26, 1972 in Toulouse, is a French whistleblower. She is the chairwomen of the Association d'Aide aux Parents d'Enfants souffrant du Syndrome de l'Anticonvulsivant ("APESAC"). She is also a patient expert at the ANSM and a member of the college of advisors of the journal Prescrire.

Biography
In 2002, her son was born with malformations and neurobehavioral disorders, and she sought to understand the cause. In 2009, she discovered the link between Depakine and malformations/autism, thanks to the CRAT (Centre de Recherche des Agents Tératogènes / Teratogen Research Center) website. She then became a whistleblower   for the Depakine (Valproic acid) scandal, an anti-epileptic drug prescribed to women with epilepsy or bipolar disorder.

In 2011, she decided to create the association APESAC based in Pollestres, to inform victims of the danger and alert the media and public authorities to change the conditions of prescription, impose pictograms on the boxes of drugs and demonstrate the transgenerational impact of Valproate by publishing a study at Birth Defects Research.

Depakin Affair
Since 2011, she has sought to denounce the Depakine scandal and in 2015, under the Touraine government, she obtained an investigation by the IGAS (General Inspectorate of Social Affairs) which pointed to the inertia of the Sanofi laboratory and the public authorities.

She sued Sanofi, with the help of her lawyer Charles Joseph-Oudin (who specializes in compensation for victims of health products and, more broadly, personal injury), in civil proceedings in 2012 and in criminal proceedings in 2015, and then sued the State in 2016 in the administrative court.

Her association APESAC was the first French health association to file a Class Action complaint in 2016. In November 2016, she had a compensation scheme specifically dedicated to Depakine victims adopted by the ONIAM   (Office National d'Indemnisation des Accidents Médicaux), as had been done for Mediator.

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

At the beginning of 2019, she will make public data collected within APESAC on the transgenerational impact of Depakine  that the children of Depakine children are likely to develop malformations or neurodevelopmental disorders. At the same time, the work she undertook at the ANSM (Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament et des Produits de Santé) is leading to a report, published in April 2019, classifying the danger of other antiepileptics in pregnant women.

In February 2020, the investigating judge in the criminal case indicted Sanofi for aggravated deception and endangering the lives of others, following the complaint filed by Marine Martin. In August of the same year, 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 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 publishes a study on the transgenerational impact 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 APESAC won the first group action in health matters against SANOFI, judged responsible for a lack of vigilance and information on the risks of Depakine. The court found, among other things, that the French pharmaceutical group Sanofi had produced and marketed a defective product.

Institutional work
In 2014, together 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 had been born alive (published in 2016). The last one states that 30,000 children have been born with neurobehavioral disorders in France since 1967 (2018).

In 2016, she negotiated to have pictograms placed on the boxes of Depakine, as well as on all so-called 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.

The same month, she and her association APESAC joined the Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte

Works

 * Dépakine, le scandale. Je ne pouvais pas me taire, edition Robert Laffont, 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, july 2021
 * Transgenerational adverse effects of valproate? A patient report from 90 affected families in Birth Defects Reseach, , december 2021

Related Works

 * Effets indésirables - Victimes des médicaments, Clotilde Cadu, edition Hugo &amp;amp; Cie, 2016
 * Effets secondaires - Le scandale Français, Antoine Beguin et Jean-Christophe Brisard, édition First, 2016
 * Guide des 4000 médicaments utiles, inutiles ou dangereux, Bernard Debré and Philippe Even, edition Cherche Midi, 2016
 * Un député et son collab' chez Big Pharma, Cyril Pocréaux and François Ruffin, edition Fakir, 2018
 * Ce pays que tu ne connais pas, François Ruffin, edition Les Arènes, 2019
 * Les résistantes, Florence Méréo, edition HarperCollins, 2019
 * Mauvais traitements - Pourquoi les femmes sont mal soignées, Delphine Bauer and Ariane Puccini, edition Seuil, 2020
 * Les accords de Galéo, Salomé Martin, edition Sudarène Édition, 2019
 * Lanceurs d'alerte (bande dessinée), Flore Talamon - Bruno Loth, Delcourt (éditions), 2021

Related Articles

 * Charles Joseph-Oudin
 * Depakine Affair
 * Mediator Affair
 * Whistleblowers
 * Sanofi