Didier Raoult and hydroxychloroquine are talking about them again.
The Public Assistance of Marseille hospitals announced on Friday the opening of an internal investigation after the revelations of our colleagues from Mediapart, according to which the scientist would have quite simply falsified the results of his research.
How would Didier Raoult have cheated?
Mediapart explains that it had access to the testimonies of more than ten members of the IHU in Marseille, collected last October from the University of Aix-Marseille, the AP-HM, the research institute for development and the 'Inserm. The study, which would have been the subject of falsifications, aimed to compare the results of PCR tests carried out on IHU patients, using Didier Raoult's treatment, and patients from the Nice University Hospital not taking hydroxychloroquine.
The results obtained "not going in the direction of Didier Raoult", the latter would have made sure to modify the positivity threshold of the tests of his patients to obtain a greater proportion of negative tests in the Marseille "guinea pigs" than in the Nice people. In Marseille, the threshold value of the detection test would have been lowered to 34 cycles while it would have been maintained at 39 cycles in Marseille. "A patient with a value of 37 cycles was therefore declared negative in Marseille (on hydroxychloroquine) but positive in Nice (control group without hydroxychloroquine)", writes Mediapart.
"The results of the PCR tests carried out in this study questioned because they were published according to a different methodology, underlines the Parisian professor Mathieu Molimard, specialist in clinical pharmacology at the CHU of Bordeaux.
For some, it was only indicated whether they were positive or negative.
The others were given in cycles.
I thought at first it was incompetence.
If the forgery is proven, it is a real scam.
It would be the biggest scientific-political-media scandal of recent years.
Contacted, the IHU of Marseille did not respond to our requests.
Justice is working on the case of wild trials
It is not the first time, far from it, that Professor Raoult has faced accusations.
Last July, the magazine L'Express published an investigation revealing the very suspicious conditions in which several studies have been carried out in recent years under the direction of Professor Raoult.
Tests were said to have been carried out without having obtained the necessary authorizations.
Treatments whose effectiveness would not have been proven would have been prescribed.
Some could even be toxic.
Read alsoVaccination, hydroxychloroquine ... These strange studies shared by Didier Raoult
Mediapart thus recounted last October the realization of a “wild experiment” against tuberculosis, during which the IHU prescribed a combination of four drugs whereas the ANSM had refused it. This treatment would even have resulted, according to our colleagues, "serious complications" medical in several patients, including a minor of 17 years. Didier Raoult has since contested the existence of research on the treatment of tuberculosis within the infectious and tropical diseases division.
The same month, L'Express looked into other studies deemed sufficiently sensitive to need to be authorized by a Committee for the Protection of Persons (CPP) as well as the ANSM. The research focused in particular on the subject of fecal transplants. One of the studies aimed to analyze the effectiveness of these transplants on 3,088 schizophrenic patients in the treatment of their depression. A particularly sensitive target population. No trace of these studies is mentioned in the European register of clinical trials. In the wake of all these revelations, the ANSM seized the public prosecutor, believing that the Institute had not complied with the legislation in force. “When we have worked without method, without ethics, there is only one step to take to work without morality,” says Mathieu Molimard.
The order of physicians is seized
Along with these investigations, Didier Raoult is also targeted by complaints filed by the Ordre des médecins des Bouches-du-Rhône and the National Council of the Order of Physicians.
These procedures were triggered in particular for the multiple speeches of Didier Raoult on hydroxychloroquine, promoted for weeks without any proof of its effectiveness.
This shows how the latest revelations risk giving another dimension to these complaints.
The scientist was heard for the first time on November 5 during a disciplinary hearing in Bordeaux.
The decisions will be made public on December 3.
Didier Raoult exposes himself to sanctions ranging from warning to delisting.
