A resident of Lunéville, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, filed a complaint against a dermatologist after the suicide of her son last July. The doctor had prescribed him Curacne, a generic of Roaccutane, an anti-acne treatment already suspected of having led to other suicides.
Last July, Jordan, 22, hanged himself in his room in Lunéville, in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Three months later, his mother decided to file a complaint against the young man’s dermatologist. Between January and June, he had taken a course of Curacne, a generic of Roaccutane, already suspected of having led to other suicides. “This is serious professional misconduct resulting in the death of my son Jordan “, says the mother.
Jordan was “an intelligent young man, very talented with lots of projects of the future (…), smiling, loving going out with his group of friends “, argued his mother. But as a result of this treatment”his behavior had changed a lot: he no longer slept at night, locked himself in his room for hours, suffered very strong muscle pain in the back and dryness of the mucous membranes “, she says.
Roaccutane withdrawn from the market in 2008, but generics still on sale
Jordan’s mother approached Daniel Voidey, president of the French Association of Victims of Roaccutane and Generics (AVRG). He himself had taken legal action after the death of his son Alexandre in similar circumstances in 2007.”We have recorded around sixty suicides in France and Switzerland related to taking these treatments and we received approximately 1,800 testimonials ” on their many adverse effects, he told AFP on Friday.
Several complaints have already been filed against the Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche, inventor of Roaccutane, as well as against the manufacturers of its generics, the Fabre and Expanscience laboratories. Roaccutane was withdrawn from the French market in 2008, then from the American market in 2011. Several generics such as Curacne (Pierre Fabre) or Procuta (Expanscience), which contain the same incriminated molecule, isotretinoin, are still on sale in France.
