The list goes on. The media professor Didier Raoult and his IMarseille University Hospital Institute (IHU) (Bouches-du-Rhône) are at the heart of several cases which agitate the scientific and medical community. Accusations serious enough for several health organizations to launch investigations, in order to lift the veil on the methods of Didier Raoult at the IHU. Suspicions of falsification, abusive invoicing, wild experiments … Franceinfo traces the latest accusations against Didier Raoult, professor retired since August, and against the IHU, of which he remains the director until June 2022.
Falsified scientific results
Have PCR tests been biased in an IHU study? According to information from Mediapart (paid item), “several members” of the establishment headed by Didier Raoult have “denounced the pressures exerted” by it, as well as “the falsification of scientific results”, in order to “demonstrate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine” against Covid-19. The members cited are “more than ten”, specifies the site, and it is about “biologists, doctors, interns or assistants”.
Concretely, these researchers and caregivers denounce “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”. In detail, Didier Raoult and his team are accused of having taken different threshold values between Nice and Marseille, which normally makes the test results incomparable.
In reaction to these accusations, the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille (APHM) requested an internal investigation on Friday, November 19. “to confirm the veracity of the reported facts”. Neither the IHU nor Didier Raoult have so far wished to comment on this affair.
Breaches of the Code of Ethics
On November 5, Didier Raoult was summoned by the disciplinary chamber of the regional council of the Ordre des médecins de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in Bordeaux, to examine several complaints filed against him. An outsourced audience to avoid any conflict of interest. No less than seven articles from Code of medical ethics were violated by the Marseille infectious disease specialist in 2020, according to the Spilf (French-speaking Society of Infectious Pathology), whose complaint was consulted by 20 minutes.
Use of non-recommended drugs, rejection of other studies, personal promotion, but also “unjustified risk “ linked to hydroxychloroquine … Spilf’s complaint is substantiated as it accuses the Marseille professor of “charlatanism “, either the fact of “to offer patients or their entourage as beneficial or without danger a remedy or an illusory or insufficiently proven process”, according to the Code of medical ethics.
“He promoted a product of questionable effectiveness to the general public, and even more than that. We know it doesn’t work.”
Pierre Tattevin, President of Spilfon franceinfo
The disciplinary chamber, made up of a magistrate and eight elected doctors, has not yet delivered its verdict. The sanctions can range from a simple warning to the removal of the Order of Physicians, which would prevent Didier Raoult from practicing. The decision was put under advisement on December 3.
Unauthorized experiments
On October 22, the APHM had already requested an internal investigation within the IHU, after another article, still from Mediapart, on of supposed “clinical tests” illegal tuberculosis carried out since 2017. In particular: serious complications in several patients who took part in these experiments using drugs not recommended by the World Health Organization.
Mediapart reports on precarious patients, often foreigners, who took part in the experiment. The National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), which never gave its consent and even issued “reserves” on this research protocol in 2019, entered the Marseille prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, October 26.
Didier Raoult denies for the moment en bloc. “Let this be clear: there is no research on the treatment of tuberculosis within the infectious and tropical diseases pole of the APHM hosted by the IHU in Marseille”, he wrote on Twitter October 28. The Marseille prosecutor’s office must soon decide whether or not to open a preliminary investigation. If the violation is confirmed, it is punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros.
Ethical arrangements
The publications of Didier Raoult and his team are the subject of intense debate within the scientific community. In July 2020, The Express revealed that some of the IHU’s work violated the law governing experiments on human beings, including during studies on children and precarious people, such as the homeless and students. Experiments which were sometimes carried out without authorization from the ANSM, and validated by an internal ethics committee, which has no official value.
In addition, some articles signed or co-signed by Didier Raoult would include manipulated images, according to Elisabeth Bik, a researcher specializing in the investigation of scientific errors, cited by Release. In reaction to these peer-to-peer comments, a complaint was filed against the investigator on behalf of Didier Raoult, Eric Chabrière (his right-hand man) and the IHU for “aggravated moral harassment”, “attempted blackmail “and” attempted extortion “.
Exaggerated amounts charged
Several thousand dollars for a handful of tests and the prescription of treatment. It is the unpleasant surprise that we had many patients when they received their bill, after consultations at the IHU in spring 2020. “3,800 euros for three consultations, two electrocardiograms, three PCR tests and a blood test … It is not possible!” told one of them on France 2 in “L’Œil du 20 heures”, a year later. Very high amounts, justified by the establishment of a hospitalization package billed to 1,254 euros per day, or four to six times more than normal, according to a former Social Security controller interviewed by France 2.
These consultations brought in 6 million euros in 2020 to hospitals in Marseille, according to calculations by “L ‘Eye 8 p.m. “. But above all, they allowed the IHU to test hydroxychloroquine on a large scale, something impossible if the patients are not considered hospitalized. Disturbing fact: in 2020, more than half of day hospitalizations for respiratory inflammations took place in Marseille, a “total statistical anomaly”, according to the doctor Christian Lehmann, who revealed the case in Release.