A new internal investigation was requested by the Assistance Publique des Hospitals de Marseille (AP-HM), Friday, November 19, after new accusations from Mediapart targeting the institute headed by Didier Raoult, professor of microbiology, on the conditions under which The research on hydroxychloroquine would have been carried out. The AP-HM says they have taken “the initiative of an internal investigation in order to confirm the veracity of the facts reported by the press”.
According to the Mediapart website, “several members” of the Méditerranée Infection University Hospital Institute, directed by Didier Raoult, have “denounced the pressures exerted” by him as well as “the falsification of scientific results”, in order to “demonstrate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine” against Covid-19.
“The reported facts, if they were proven, would constitute serious dysfunctions.”
AP-HMin a press release
Concretely, explains Mediapart, “more than ten people (biologists, doctors, interns or assistants)” IHU members denounced “the falsification of biological results making it possible to conclude on the beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine by biasing the results of PCR tests in a study comparing patients from the IHU taking the treatment and patients from the CHU de Nice not taking it”.
“The results ‘do not go in the direction of Didier Raoult’, the threshold of positivity of the PCR tests was modified, thus rendering negative a greater number of results for the patients followed in Marseille”, explains Mediapart, citing the testimonies of these members of the IHU during interviews in October with their respective employers, whether it is the University of Aix-Marseille, the AP-HM or even Inserm or the Institute research for development (IRD). In the Mediapart article, all these testimonials are anonymized. Contacted by AFP, neither the IHU nor Didier Raoult wished to comment on Mediapart’s assertions and the opening of this investigation by the AP-HM.
The AP-HM had already requested an internal investigation within the IHU, on October 22, after another article, still from Mediapart, on supposed “clinical tests” illegal acts against tuberculosis carried out since 2017 by the institute of Didier Raoult. The AP-HM had justified this investigation by the “seriousness and potential magnitude of the reported facts”. “There were no trials, only therapeutic choices by doctors”, Didier Raoult replied, on October 28, on C8.
Didier Raoult, retired at the end of August as a university professor and hospital practitioner, should leave the management of the IHU at the end of June at the latest. The six founding members of the IHU and the president of this institute announced in mid-September the launch of the recruitment of a new director, who should be appointed no later than June 30. This recruitment process should be officially validated on Tuesday by the IHU board of directors.