On the wall, we can see his portrait, family photos, a photo alongside Emmanuel Macron. On the top floor of his IHU, in Marseille, Didier Raoult, 68, receives us in his office. From the start, he was enthusiastic: "We were taken in a bath of solidarity of incredible intensity".
But do not contradict the most famous professor in France, otherwise you will be shot. Before his hearing this Wednesday by the commission of inquiry on Covid-19, he evokes the epidemic, the new disappointments of hydroxychloroquine and answers on his controversial methodology.
Should we expect a second wave?
DIDIER RAOULT. Predict, I don't know how to do it. But I know you have to watch New Zealand. It is a temperate country, climatically close to ours. This weekend, we entered the summer, them, in the winter. As we do for influenza, we will try to deduce what can happen here by looking at how the virus behaves there. There is a mirror effect. If the number of cases soars there, it will be feared in the fall that the epidemic will return to France.
PODCAST. Coronavirus: who is Didier Raoult, convinced that he has the miracle cure?
You create a follow-up cell for your patients. What is its purpose ?
To see if there are respiratory and neurological sequelae and how they evolve. We also see people who do not recover their sense of smell. Much remains to be known about the disease. Why are the under 15s little affected? Is there prior immunity? My hypothesis is that part of the population was naturally immunized against Covid even before the epidemic began! This could affect between 40 and 70% of people.
Newsletter - Essential news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Because they got another coronavirus?
Why I do not know ! To observe and say "what", I am a star. "How", I get there from time to time, but "why", never! The works begin. What is certain is that speaking of natural immunity, I will be turned on by the laboratories working on vaccines.
You don't believe in the vaccine?
Against emerging diseases, there are zero, despite the billions spent. It is therefore statistically unlikely that a vaccine will be available against this coronavirus. But I'm not saying it won't happen.
The trials on hydroxychloroquine are stopped one by one. Do you continue to prescribe?
Yes! You can show me all the studies you want, I have treated over 3700 patients with this drug. 0.5% mortality, no cardiac toxicity… What more do you want? We wanted to demonize hydroxychloroquine, it's crazy. Me, in my soul and conscience, I will not change. I made sure that I had the right to continue using it. I have an email from the DGS (Editor's note: Directorate General of Health) which proves it to me.
VIDEO. What is chloroquine, a miracle cure for coronavirus according to Professor Raoult?
A general practitioner is however summoned by the Order for having delivered them…
Let him take a lawyer! Doctors are free to prescribe, depending on the risk they take for their patients.
So nothing makes you doubt?
We have seen real patients, we are not nickel-plated feet. Infectious diseases are our job. We built the IHU for that. When I was a child in Africa, I ate tons of these malaria pills. In 2019, 36 million tablets were sold in France. Let's stop telling bad guys about their dangerousness.
Conversely, the WHO speaks of "scientific breakthrough" concerning another drug, Dexamethasone ...
It is a mess for you, the media. Against inflammation, everyone gives corticosteroids. It should never have been part of a study per se.
This English study, Recovery and now the French Discovery say that "your" treatment is useless ...
They are ignorant. In Recovery, they administered four times the dose we give to our patients. No one uses such a quantity. In France, the Discovery trial did the opposite, by delivering only 400 mg of hydroxychloroquine against 600. They could have asked me for my opinion, it might have been more effective.
Your methods also question. You publish too often in scientific journals to be of high quality, say your colleagues. What do you say?
Nothing ! Are you wondering how Mozart did it? I'll even tell you, in addition to 150 publications a year, I have written ten books at the same time. We are not all equal. In this country, we love to behead people.
You are now known, how do you see the future?
Already, I will not do politics. I will continue to do my job, to transmit and teach. I get up every day and am happy. Look at what we have accomplished at the IHU. It is not for nothing that we wrote this quote from Horace at the entrance: "exegi monumentum aere perennius", "I built a monument more durable than brass".