Game over ? The Marseille IHU, directed for a long time by Didier Raoult, has been the scene of numerous social and health abuses, according to extracts from a report relayed by the newspaper Provence, Wednesday, July 6. This document is produced by the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas), which depends on several ministries, including that of Health. It covers a wider field than a previous report, already scathing, published a few weeks ago by the drug agency (ANSM).
Patients treated at the IHU are notably given “prescriptions that do not comply with the Public Health Code, which is likely to fall under a criminal qualification”, according to an excerpt from this report. These prescriptions include in particular a treatment against Covid-19 based on hydroxychloroquine. Despite the ineffectiveness of this drug against this disease, Didier Raoult has promoted it since the start of the pandemic, which has made him a celebrity in the media.
According Provencethe Igas report concludes that the IHU doctors were under pressure from their management to prescribe this treatment, as well as ivermectin, another drug whose anti-Covid benefits have never been proven.
On the scientific level, the report also denounces poor research practices: the IHU teams certainly publish a lot, but in journals of mediocre quality. This research would often be conducted in a biased manner, again under pressure from management. Young researchers come to “voluntarily water down the results and data or remove things that don’t work, so as not to be pressured”according to an excerpt from the report.
This evokes, more broadly, a very authoritarian functioning of the management of Didier Raoult, who set up a “submission logic”. Out of 300 employees surveyed, around 50 said “from a situation ranging from discomfort to great suffering linked to their professional activity”.
This leak comes as this report has yet to be finalized with, in particular, the responses from the Marseille IHU. It also takes place a week before a meeting of the board of directors to appoint a successor to Didier Raoult. A scientific committee recommended the name of Pierre-Edouard Fournier, a researcher who had already been part of the IHU for a long time. But this choice has already been criticized, both internally and externally, as not marking a sufficient break with the practices of its predecessor.