How many more victims?

(...)Toulouse (France) (AP) - July the 5th of 2006. Arkopharma (e.g. Health From The Sun) phythotherapy group's ex-CEO Max Rombi has been sentenced this wednesday to pay a penalty for fraud but has been acquited of the charge of "unintentional" injury on two women whom have absorbed chinese herbs based products by the correctional court of Toulouse (France).(...)

Fourteen years of interminable procedures and ongoing sufferings to reach a complete 180 degrees turn of the sentence pronounced by the correctional court of Nice (France) in October 2005 (2 years in jail and 20,000 euros of penalty for homicides), and Max Rombi appealing the decision again.

Fourteen years of interminable procedures where the victims have been treated like if they made some kind of abomination by absorbing the pills Arkopharma sold and where the inculped are converted in "victims". After all why on hell did they absord those pills?

A little reminder then (src. AGMED lang. fr):

7 cases of renal failure including 2 deaths / 2,000 to 3,000 people exposed in France

110 cases reported in Belgium in March 2000

2 cases reported in the UK in 1999

17 cases in China including 12 deaths

10 cases in Japan

And these are only the cases officially reported of women having absorded aristolochia herbs (probably in the form of pills). There are certainly other women whom having absorbed pills commercialized by Arkopharma - Max Rombi's firm - and lost their kidneys are not fully aware of the cause of their renal failure. Some of these women might also be developing a urinal cancer and should be diagnosticated ASAP...