About fifteen learned societies publish Sunday in “Le Monde” a forum to denounce “probably the largest wild therapeutic trial known to date”, carried out by the IHU Méditerranée Infection during the Covid-19 crisis.
Professor Mathieu Molimard, head of the pharmacology department at the Bordeaux University Hospital, is one of the scientists behind a column published on Sunday May 28 in the journal The world. He signed the text on behalf of the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics which, like the 15 other signatories, criticizes the teams of the Institut hospitalo-universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée Infection in Marseille for having systematically prescribed hydroxychloroquine to more than 20,000 patients with Covid-19.
>>> A new report points to social and health abuses at Didier Raoult’s IHU Méditerranée
This systematic prescription continued for more than a year and a half and even though, from the spring of 2020, international studies ruled out the use of this drug. “It has been shown in large therapeutic trials that the administration of hydroxychloroquine was associated with an increased risk, the risk of being intubated and of dying (around a 13% increase)”, says Professor Mathieu Molimard.
“Despite these repeated publications showing the lack of benefit of hydroxychloroquine, despite the formal demonstration of the ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, the IHU continued.”
Professor Mathieu Molimardfranceinfo
The signatories of this forum make a second criticism of the teams of the controversial Professor Didier Raoult, former director of the IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille: having given hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to almost all their patients, even asymptomatic, with standard prescriptions on which the doctor just had to tick boxes or cross out a drug. “The prescriptions seem, for the ones I was able to collect, all the same. So everything is pre-printed. There is no need to change anything”, reports Professor Molimard. According to him, “it proves that it is systematic and it proves that we are really on the protocol”.
The purpose of a research protocol is to carry out a clinical trial. “It’s a clinical research yes”says head of the pharmacology department at the Bordeaux University Hospital. “There is a desire to publish. We are clearly not in care, we are clearly not in the direct interest of the patient. On the other hand, there is an interest in publishing.”
“The point of publishing is what makes money.”
Professor Mathieu Molimardfranceinfo
The doctor explains that the Sigaps system (Scientific Publications Query, Management and Analysis System) allows authors of publications “to bring money back to their institutions. So, he continues, when you do iterative releases, you report, you report, you report… It’s a business model.”
The signatories denounce a “wild clinical trial”because according to them, the IHU has “break the rules” by not requesting any authorization from the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), the guarantor of patient safety. However, it is mandatory to carry out a clinical trial. Despite this breach of the rules, the IHU Méditerranée Infection has published studies based on the data collected and is preparing to publish new ones. “And that’s the problem we are pointing out in this forum”, reacts Dr. Amélie Boissier Descombes, president of the association of victims of unauthorized clinical trials.
“We are quite worried with all my hospital-university colleagues who have taken up this subject since we are faced with the inaction of our supervisory authorities.”
Doctor Amélie Boissier Descombesfranceinfo
She calls on the health authorities for a reaction and sanctions, because she says, “We are in 2023 and, unfortunately once again on the occasion of new publications from our colleagues in Marseille, we see that there is no sanction, no strong reaction from our supervisory authorities and that This is why it is a subject that is very worrying for us”. François Braun, the Minister of Health and the National Medicines Safety Agency claim to have seized the public prosecutor last year and that the investigation is still ongoing.
Professor Raoult castigates a “tribune of imbeciles”
A “tribune of fools”reacted to franceinfo Professor Didier Raoult. “Let the health authorities come and investigate hydroxychloroquine”he continues, believing that his protocol works, and that international studies have been “rigged”. He assures that the IHU teams first treated. He also asserts that the clinical studies published or in the process of being published are “retrospective work”.