The study had cast opprobrium on Professor Didier Raoult.
Three practitioners who co-signed the publication which describes undeclared clinical trials on Covid patients during the pandemic are the subject of a disciplinary procedure at the initiative of the government, reports AFP.
Three practitioners seized
Confirming information from La Provence, the press agency reports that, from mid-December, the disciplinary jurisdiction of university hospital staff (JDHU) was seized by the Minister of Research, Sylvie Retailleau, and the former -Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau.
At the heart of this new part of the Didier Raoult scandal, three practitioners who co-signed the study on “clinical trials carried out outside regulatory frameworks”, according to the ministry.
Professors Matthieu Million, head of the day hospitalization department at IHU-MI (Institut hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection), Philippe Parola, head of the acute infectious diseases department, and Philippe Brouqui, infectious disease specialist, are targeted.
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The JDHU has several sanctions ranging from warning to revocation, including reprimand, lowering of scale or even automatic withdrawal.
The hydroxychloroquine study
Their article, published online in the journal “New Microbes and New Infections”, presents the results of an analysis of more than 30,000 patients treated in 2020 and 2021. It demonstrates the supposed benefits of hydroxychloroquine in the early treatment of Covid.
Also read: What does Didier Raoult risk, singled out by doctors for a “wild” therapeutic trial?
According to the ministry, this treatment results from “inappropriate and dangerous prescriptions, the methodology of which is questionable, and constitutes a new breach of ethical and professional rules”.
VIDEO.
Professor Raoult explains himself to the deputies
Justice seized
After the publication of the study in 2022, the ANSM (National Medicines Safety Agency) took legal action.
In question, the fact that the publication had not obtained the authorizations “necessary and obligatory to guarantee patient safety”.
Widely discredited by his peers, Professor Raoult was retired from his hospital duties in August 2021 and no longer directs the Marseille institute.
The infectious disease specialist cannot therefore be the subject of a referral, underlines the ministry.
Carrying out or having research involving humans carried out without authorization is punishable by "one year's imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros", specifies the Public Health Code.