“We are here to ask the government and elected officials to take their responsibilities,” says a signatory

Invited Monday on franceinfo, doctor Jérôme Barrière, signatory of a forum to fight against false medical information, calls for a strengthening of the law.

“We are here to ask the government and elected officials to take their responsibilities, in the name of public health,” launches, Monday January 29 on franceinfo, Jérôme Barrière, oncologist and co-signatory of an article published in The Express to combat false medical information.

Learned societies and unions representing tens of thousands of doctors and researchers are sounding the alarm by signing a forum to warn against disinformation. The goal: to fight against supporters of conspiracy and anti-vax theories, present in particular on social networks and who attack doctors including Jérôme Barrière, victim of attacks by rapper Booba whom he had accused of having shared false information on the Covid vaccine.

Doctors targeted by insults, defamation and threats

“To date the threats have only been virtual as far as I am concerned,” specifies the doctor who notes that since Covid, “doctors who take a stand, who try to inform, are regularly the targets of insults, defamation, threats…”

As a doctor, Jérôme Barrière believes that the medical profession cannot let anyone say anything: “We cannot allow it to be said in prime time, for example on television or on social networks, that anti-Covid vaccination would cause lymphoma, for example. All of this is based on nothing”.

The oncologist notes that those who say this kind of thing “often have no opponents”. “The media, a minority, not all, are not worried for example by Arcom. So we are also here to say that something must be done.”

The bill against sectarian aberrations

Among the measures that Jérôme Barrière would like to see put in place, there is a “strengthening the law”. He mentions the bill against sectarian abuses examined by Parliament and recalls the part introducing “the notion of an offense for those who incite people to abandon or denigrate recognized medical treatment”.

The doctor would also like there to be a “reflection on the propagation of false news in the press which is normally prohibited in the event of disturbances to public order” but which could also be in the event of “endangering the lives of others through the propagation of uncontrolled false information”.