How Professor Perronne became the other apostle of chloroquine

• In "Is there a mistake THEY didn't make?" ", Recently released, the head of the infectious diseases department of Garches hospital gives his very personal vision of the management of the health crisis.
• Among his repeated attacks, he claims that hydroxychloroquine, a treatment promoted by Didier Raoult, would have prevented 25,000 deaths if it had been widely prescribed in France.
• Before this controversy, Christian Perronne was already controversial in the medical community for his opinions on Lyme disease.

His critical-conspiracy book released in early June on the health crisis tears up like good bread ( Is there a mistake that THEY did not commit , at Albin Michel). Number 1 on Amazon ahead of the gourmet-crunchy recipes of Cyril Lignac. His media interventions, first limited to the microphones hired by André Bercoff on Sud Radio or Jean-Marc Morandini on Cnews, were all over the top, including on mainstream channels. The man accuses without shuddering his medical colleagues of having killed 25,000 French people by refusing to prescribe the famous combo so decried hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin.

A frantic activity finally rewarded by a referral to the college of ethics of the APHP, its employer, and to the Council of the National Order of Physicians (Cnom) at the end of last week. Internal confidence: “It would have been incomprehensible that we did nothing in view of the proportion that is taking the case. Doctors are required to the confraternity, and there, one hears violent remarks which are moreover repeated. "

An unnatural alliance with Raoult

It was therefore quite a successful performance by Christan Perronne, head of the infectious diseases department at Garches hospital. The Professor with a resounding CV - ex-advisor to the Ministry of Health, former president of what has become the High Council for Public Health -, who has gone under radar so far, is now familiar with the popularity of the Marseille idol Didier Raoult . The fate of the two men is moreover inseparable from the chloroquine debate against the rest of the world. A paradoxical alliance since it does not rest frankly on an old camaraderie of medicine born to decorate the walls of the refectory of phallus in erection.

Thus, unable to withstand the temptation to dig this platform of Point 2015 in which Didier Raoult cutting his classmate. "Our specificity is that we have at the National Council of Universities and at the High Committee for Public Health, a colleague who has taken a leading position in Lyme, without specific scientific background in this area, other than his beliefs and the support of his disciples . It has no readable scientific output. He ignited alternative theories and even convinced a major weekly that there was a plot to conceal (for what reason?) The extent of the disaster. "

Very good work from the team of Christian Perronne, at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches.https: //t.co/12TT4Rk3so pic.twitter.com/FWigG5ngPT

A clinical study discussed and finally withdrawn

Five years later, Didier Raoult and Christian Perronne have replayed the Guignols running gag on the Balkany couple in their own way. "Hydroxychloroquine?" Of course it works, I have a witness who can prove it. When Raoult is the last to believe in his remedy, He finds invaluable support from Perronne, who files a preprint study on the effectiveness of the treatment promoted by the director of the IHU Mediterranean. And too bad if it is also questionable on the merits because of its multiple biases, as demonstrated among others this excellent article by our colleagues from Futura-Sciences .

"This is a study that has neither tail nor head with patients who wander from one group to another", storm Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, coordinator of the network of young infectious diseases in France, who initiated the petition asking the Council of the Order to act against Professor Perronne. "We have nine patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin who are moved to the control group because they have not received the treatment for the allotted time (48h) when they end up in intensive care!" This distorts all the data. Besides, the preprint has been removed from Medrxiv when it never happens. "

🚨 #CoronavirusFrance: the shock book.

🗣 Pr Christian #Perronne: "Young people in my department have been under pressure and are very anxious: they have been threatened by phone, they are afraid".

📺 #LaMatinaleLCI from @PascaledeLaTour channel 2⃣6⃣. pic.twitter.com/GzlGqe8uz7

Perronne's furious response in L'Obs  : “We were forced to withdraw it because we took buckets of manure on the head, but the article is still in the proofreading committee in an international newspaper. My teams received threatening calls from colleagues asking if they had thought about their careers by signing such a paper. According to our information, some have thought about it so much that they asked to have their names removed from the list of study participants even before it was published, because they had questioned its methodology from the start.

Another signatory to the study, Djillali Annane, head of the resuscitation service at Raymond-Poincaré hospital, the same as Perronne, half-confirmed some reservations: "I did not ask for my name to be withdrawn but that before submission for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, the statistical analysis plan be reviewed with an expert statistician. A precaution that will not change the case, according to Pierre Tattevin, president of the Society of Infectious Pathology of French Language, which brings together a large majority of infectiologists practicing in France.

“Chloroquine, we wanted to believe it, but it doesn't hold water. All the major international studies carried out in the state of the art show it, the WHO says it, all the authorities say it. How can a great Professor like that, at the end of his career, camp on positions that are not tenable? Go tell people who have lost loved ones that they could have been treated, it has a terrible impact. I do not understand what took him. Even if we imagined that chloroquine was the miracle treatment, which it is not, we could never have cured 80% of people. Even beyond delusional conviction, it is a lie told to the victims of the Covid-19. "

The bad picture

Those who have given up understanding do not hesitate to talk about megalomania, which is a way of interpreting a photo published on social networks whose veracity has been verified. We see Professor Perronne in the background, and in front of him a dozen young women from behind with messages of support on their blouses. "A big thank you, Mr. Perronne, a great man, Mr. Perronne, a big bravo, Mr. Perronne", and so on. The staging caused some discomfort internally. "For the majority of nurses in his department, we can guess quite the dependence on Perronne," jokes a colleague. I don't think they have much choice. Let us beware of using big words here: even his detractors admit that Professor Perronne has no bad background. "There may be pressure, but he's not going to shoot anyone. Beside Raoult, Perronne, he's a nice guy. He is respectful and leaves people alone. "

I support Christian Perronne also pic.twitter.com/M3wOe51Oud

If the two sizes do not have the same character, they share the same attraction for conspiracy theories. In his book, which also relays a good number of widely accepted criticisms, such as government mismanagement of the lack of masks or the disorganization of health authorities, Christian Perronne takes up the attacks of Didier Raoult on the probity of his colleagues, that he judges bought by the big laboratories. “At the top of the state, personal relationships, services rendered or jobs well paid by the pharmaceutical industry sometimes turn into conflicts of interest more visible than usual. An official body, the High Council for Public Health (HCSP), was the theater for some of them. A prominent member of the High Council's Communicable Diseases commission received 90,741 euros from the pharmaceutical industry, including 16,563 euros from Gilead. However it is this High Council which made the famous opinion prohibiting hydroxychloroquine, except for the dying. "

"They let my brother-in-law die"

On the Cnews plateau, he goes even further, accusing the Nantes University Hospital, in a legal bickering with Raoult for this same story of conflict of interest, of having "let his brother-in-law die" by refusing to administer him the magic treatment. Contacted, the Nantes University Hospital, prefers “not to enter into this unfounded controversy. All the patients treated for Covid-19 within the establishment were treated in a collegial manner, prescribing treatments validated scientifically and adapted to each individual situation ”.

If he is still far from the fervor around Raoult, who exploded the audience records of BFM the other day during the remix of Rumble in the Jungle against Bourdin, the positions taken by Professor Perronne begin to earn him a some success on social networks. To the point of condemning his opponents to well-felt raids on Facebook and elsewhere on the part of admirers of the infernal doublet. "Receiving a message with my address and a warning like" justice will be done "is never fun," says Nathan Peiffer-Sadja.

🗨 "I'm going to get up and go" A

heated exchange between Didier Raoult and Jean-Jacques Bourdin live pic.twitter.com/hhxWDFz8rT

He accuses his colleagues of collusion with the laboratories

Tension has even increased a notch since the use of Remdevisir, Gilead's flagship product, was validated by the European Medicines Agency on June 15, despite a minimal impact on mortality. "Yes, there is a problem with the funding of medicine," admits the young intern at Bichat. "Interns say," go to conferences and publish research for a career ", but neither the state nor the faculties want to pay. An intern who earns 1,800 euros per month, if he has to pay 800 euros from his pocket to go to a congress, how does he do it? Well, it's the industry that pays. It is so hypocritical those who say "we must stop this immediately". How much can this affect medical decisions? Surely there is debate, but no doctor is going to let people die because a lab paid him a trip one day. "

The newspapers are starting to realize that there is a problem.
Thank you @DgCostagliola @MathieuMolimard @Pottegard "Although it grieves me, I must conclude that its publication is a new example of a complete bankruptcy of the peer review system" https://t.co/hXEjvu7fOF

"What Perronne says is quite demagogic, but it takes well," adds Pierre Tattevin. These links of interest that he talks about, all the doctors who practice for research units have them. But most of the time, it's to be able to experiment. He himself benefited from it. So, if the parade when we explain that chloroquine does not work, it is "you say that because you are paid by the competing lab", well ... Remdevisir, it is true that it is not very spectacular , but it is the only antiviral treatment that has shown some efficacy. But Perronne must not be the tree that hides the forest. He has always been an outsider. "

"Before him, the doctors looked down on me"

The Head of the infectious diseases department of the Rennes University Hospital here refers to the controversial role of Christian Perronne in research against Lyme disease. Defender of the theory sometimes peddled, but never proven, of the Nazi researcher refugee in the United States who would have trafficked ticks to make them more infectious before their "escape" from an American base in Connecticut, the specialist already accused in 2015 the middle medical to hide from the general public the damage caused by this silent and misdiagnosed disease. Snubbed by his peers, who taxed him at the time of obscurantism and unnecessary alarmism, Professor Perronne then fell as a blessing for thousands of patients "in medical wandering", like Armelle Cyuela.

@ ordre_medecins Patient associations watch very closely the fate reserved for Pr #Perronne. The petition of support is already massively followed. Do not touch those who care for us 🙂 @ laissonslespre1 @RTenfrancais @Mediapart @tvlofficiel https://t.co/ANcHFaj82r

Now president of the association Vaincre Lyme, she launched a (other) petition to defend Christian Perronne. “Before him, the doctors looked down on me, saying that my tests were worthless and that I was not sick. I ended up being hospitalized in Garches. He helped me at a time when I badly needed it. There are thousands of people who suffer terribly and dedicated his life to him trying to publicize this disease. So, on chloroquine, if he says it works, I'm 100% behind him. More than 80,000 signatories share his opinion. Popular support, always. "The damage is done in public opinion, concedes Pierre Tattevin. What we hope now is that the sanction is intimidating enough for Raoult or Perronne to think twice before coming epidemics before saying that they know better than everyone else. "

No complaint has yet been lodged with the disciplinary chamber. "We are waiting for the council of the Hauts-de-Seine interdepartmental order to rule, as is customary," delays the Cnom. As for the teams at Raymond Poincaré hospital, their backs are round. “We have other cats to whip and patients to take care of. For the rest, we put on blinkers, even if we are disappointed with the turn things take. "

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• Covid 19
• Coronavirus
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• Didier raoult