Eric Raoult's IHU accused of conducting irregular clinical trials for years

Europe 1 with AFP 11:00 a.m., October 28, 2021, amended at 11:00 a.m., October 28, 2021

The Marseille University Hospital Institute (IHU) has been conducting irregular clinical trials for tuberculosis treatments for several years under the direction of controversial professor Didier Raoult, according to the Mediapart site.

"Since 2017", the IHU of Marseille "has carried out a wild experiment against tuberculosis, causing in several patients, including a minor, serious complications", advances the investigation site, which quotes several employees of the Institute under cover of anonymity.

This experiment was "initiated by its director, Didier Raoult, and his deputy, Michel Drancourt", specifies Mediapart.

Marseille hospitals want to "follow up on this alert"

According to the site, which also relies on email exchanges and hospitalization reports, teams from the IHU tested a combination of four drugs whose joint effectiveness had never been evaluated. These trials were carried out despite the refusal of the French Medicines Authority, the ANSM, which must give its approval to research involving human beings, in particular clinical trials of drugs. “Several patients, including a 17-year-old minor, had serious medical complications caused by this treatment,” explains Mediapart.

Asked, the IHU of Marseille did not respond immediately. The ANSM, without mentioning these tests in particular, acknowledged that several studies had been carried out in an "inadmissible" manner by the body and that "adequate follow-up has been initiated by the Agency", without further clarification. The information from Mediapart comes in addition to revelations published during the summer by 

 according to which many studies carried out at the IHU have for years been freeing themselves from the rules governing experiments involving human beings.

Marseille hospitals, one of the six founding members of the IHU, for their part estimated in a statement to the press that if these "shortcomings" were confirmed, they "would be of real gravity by their supposed magnitude, by the time. during which they would have lasted, through the possible involvement of several professionals and, where appropriate, their full awareness and their repeated desire to register outside the regulatory framework ".

The AP-HM promised to get in touch with "all the stakeholders as soon as possible in order to analyze the follow-up to be given to this alert and to initiate, if necessary, all the investigations useful to know the reality of the facts", reserving the possibility also of entering the parquet of Marseilles.

The IHU and Eric Raoult once again in turmoil

The IHU and Eric Raoult met with strong media coverage at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, by promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the disease, despite the lack of proven effect. Several studies have been carried out by the IHU to support the interest of this treatment, but they have been criticized by many scientists as to their methodology and their conditions. 

More recently, Eric Raoult has been the subject of criticism for advertising a Brazilian study defending a treatment with hydroxycholoroquine, when these trials then caused a wide scandal for having been carried out on patients without their consent and for giving rise to the publication of truncated results.

Didier Raoult will leave the head of the IHU at the end of June at the latest, the founding members of the institute having wished to launch a succession process.

He retired this summer as a university professor-hospital practitioner.