Sylvie Chéreau, creator of a collective of victims in Occitanie, was the guest of France Bleu Occitanie this Thursday, April 18, 2024, while a new scientific publication shows that Levothyrox contains impurities.
The French association of thyroid patients revealed this Wednesday April 17, 2024 a new scientific study which ensures that there is impurities in several batches of medicines based on levothyroxine. Sylvie Chéreau, resident of Comminges, south of Toulouse, who is 55 years old today and who founded the collective of Levothyrox victims in Occitanie was the guest of France Bleu Occitanie this Thursday, April 18.
“I am very angry”
Sylvie Chéreau has been taking medication since her thyroid operation in 2003. “Without this medicine, I die”, she explains. When in 2017 the formula of the drug produced by the Merck laboratory changed, she experienced an ordeal: “I’m tired, I have cramps, mental confusion, no strength.” When she understands that it is the new formula that makes her sick and that she is changing, everything is better: “I can drive, live again. But I’m going to Spain to get boxes.”
With this scientific publication “we are going forward”she assures. “We were told that we were nocebo, that makes me angry. We are not inventing the side effects. This drug should not have been on the market as it was.” And Sylvie Chéreau goes further: “We were guinea pigs. This study is an additional contribution to the file, so it is very important for us. And that means that the National Medicines Safety Agency did not do its job. It’s thanks to our fight that we can still have the old formula.” Merck announced last September that the old formula would be delivered until 2025. “I am sure that there were batches with a lot of variability, changes in formula, it is not possible otherwise. Merck was reaching the end of the patent with the old formula and changed things without telling us , I am convinced of it”, she concludes.
