French company convicted of manslaughter over deadly diet pill

Servier hit with $3.1m fine over the sale of Mediator, a weight-loss drug linked to hundreds of deaths.

A French drugmaker has been found guilty of manslaughter and deception over a weight-loss pill which is on the market for 33 years and blamed for hundreds of deaths. One of the country’s biggest health scandals came to a conclusion in a Paris court on Monday as the Paris court’s presiding judge Sylvie Daunis said Servier had “misled consumers” about the Mediator pill and “weakened people’s trust in the health system”. Daunis said: “Although they knew about the risks for many years … they never took the necessary measures.”