A court on Thursday found the French state responsible in the case of birth defects linked to an anti-epilepsy drug produced by pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. The French court ordered the state to compensate three families who filed complaints after pregnant women took the medicine and gave birth the children with congenital malformations, autism or learning difficulties. The court ruled that Sanofi and doctors who prescribed the drug Depakine were also responsible, in a scandal that has left between 15,000 and 30,000 children affected, studies have found. fan-ech/sjw/pma