Servi­er be­gins manslaugh­ter tri­al over weight loss drug

French phar­ma Servi­er be­gins tri­al to­day, as the com­pa­ny stands ac­cused of manslaugh­ter and de­ceit over a di­a­betes weight loss drug linked to as many as 2,000 deaths.

The drug, Me­di­a­tor (ben­flu­o­rex), was pulled out of French phar­ma­cies in 2009 af­ter 33 years on the mar­ket. A year lat­er, the French med­i­cine safe­ty agency an­nounced the drug was sus­pect­ed of caus­ing mul­ti­ple deaths, spark­ing out­rage, a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a se­ries of re­forms to the coun­try’s sys­tem of reg­u­lat­ing the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try.

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