infectious disease specialist Didier Raoult denies having carried out a “therapeutic trial”

“There has never been a therapeutic trial”, defended himself, Tuesday, May 30, Professor Didier Raoult, former boss of the IHU in Marseille. The very controversial scientist was interviewed on BFMTV after the publication of a tribune of doctors accusing him of having led “the largest known ‘wild’ therapeutic trial” on hydroxychloroquine.

About his study published in April in preprint, that is to say not reviewed by peers, Didier Raoult said: “It’s just an observational study”adding that this study, which concludes on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine on the mortality of Covid patients, “can serve and it will serve for history”.

“I had every right, myself, but also others, to prescribe hydroxychloroquine”

Asked about the fact that he administered this specialty to Covid patients for several months after the ban by the High Council for Public Health, Didier Raoult replied: “I had every right, myself, but also others, to prescribe hydroxychloroquine”. The ban is “a political decision but which does not engage the personal responsibility of doctors”. The infectious disease specialist, who has been very controversial since the Covid-19 health crisis, even affirms that “thousands of people who could have been treated were not treated”.

On Sunday, 16 learned medical societies challenged the authorities in a newspaper column The world on “the systematic prescription, to patients with Covid-19 (…) of drugs as varied as hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin or azithromycin (…) without solid pharmacological bases, and in the absence of any evidence of efficacy”.