The controversial French professor Didier Raoult was sanctioned Friday, by his peers, with a “reprimand” for having violated the code of medical ethics by promoting hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19, despite the lack of proven effect.
Since the end of 2020, the 69-year-old Marseille infectious disease specialist has been the target of two complaints filed by the Ordre des médecins des Bouches-du-Rhône (south of France), where he practiced, and the national council of the Ordre des médecins (Cname).
He was accused of having promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, “without established scientific data”, which is akin to “quackery”, the prosecution said during the hearing November 5 in Bordeaux.
The disciplinary chamber of the Order of Physicians of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (southwest of France), where the hearing had been disoriented, has not published its motivations, which it reserves for lawyers. This sanction is the second in importance, after the simple warning – the decision could go as far as the prohibition to exercise -.
“We expected” this decision because “it was difficult to pronounce a ban given that Professor Raoult no longer exercises”, explained to AFP Me Philippe Carlini, lawyer of the Order of Physicians, who no ‘will have the motivations of the chamber only at “the beginning of next week”. The council of the Bouches-du-Rhône order, where Professor Raoult worked, is due to meet on Monday to analyze this sanction.
Asked by AFP, a spokesperson for the Institut hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection (IHU), headed by Doctor Raoult, did not comment.
The researcher was also accused of having taken “reckless risks” by treating patients with this treatment “not proven by science”, added the rapporteur during the hearing.
Present at the beginning of November before the chamber out of “respect for this institution”, Didier Raoult, retired since August 31 as a university professor and hospital practitioner, felt “not concerned” by possible “sanctions”.
“It is the doctors who complain about us, not the patients”, he had launched to the lawyer of the plaintiffs, assuring to have received “more than 600,000 patients” within the IHU during the health crisis, “without no complaints ”from them.
In addition to this procedure, Professor Raoult is targeted, with the IHU he created in 2011, by several other surveys on the conditions under which the institute conducted its studies around COVID-19.