What Igas investigators blame for Didier Raoult's research

• Investigations and inspection reports on the excesses of Didier Raoult's IHU are increasing.

• Pressure on doctors, consent from dubious patients, “rigged” study, the report of Igas, General Inspectorate of Social Affairs, published recently returns to these excesses.

• "20 Minutes" looks back on some highlights.

Pressure to prescribe chloroquine, misappropriation of patient consent, falsification, research involving the human person carried out in violation of the Public Health Code... The latest publication of the final report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) on the practices of the IHU of Didier Raoult, in particular about the Covid-19, teaches us a little more about what is reproached to the controversial professor from Marseille and his teams.

This, while the openings of judicial information against the IHU are increasing.

Of the consents in question

On the "wild experiments against tuberculosis", revealed by Mediapart last October, the mission criticizes the IHU for having been told that "often [l] e consent [des patients] were collected orally, hence the "ok patient" written on the cards.

In addition, this consent concerned non-French-speaking people, of whom the mission has no certainty that the content of the experiment was exposed to them, and several minors, "contrary to the protocol".

In addition, the consents collected were used “beyond the end of the study and with a substantial modification without it being known what these consents were used for”, observe the investigators.

So many "serious breaches with regard to the regulation of clinical research",

A “rigged” study to favor chloroquine

On March 5, 2020, when the pandemic was just beginning, the IHU obtained authorization from the ANSM (National Agency for the Safety of Medicines) to carry out research on the "treatment of SARS-Cov2 respiratory infections by hydroxychloroquine ".

So far so good.

Professor Didier Raoult then goes off to praise the merits of his treatment, even explaining it to Emmanuel Macron.

But almost immediately, many voices were raised against the results described in the publication

.

In August 2020, a joint study by Swiss and French researchers, published in the journal

, concluded that “the prescription of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 does not reduce mortality in hospitalized patients and even increases it when combined with azithromycin”.

And the Igas investigators may well have got their hands on one of the tricks used to obtain a favorable result for the IHU.

The study on which Professor Raoult is based was carried out on two distinct cohorts of patients: one in Nice, in conventional treatment, and one at the IHU in Marseille treated with the Raoult protocol.

“While it was indicated in the legend of the table that a CT≥35 is negative, Nice results of 38 or 40 are transcribed positive”, discovers the authors of the inspection.

In other words, a differentiated positivity threshold is applied to patients treated with hydroxychloroquine in order to enhance its effectiveness.

Despite the requests for clarification made, the investigators will not obtain any response from the IHU in this regard.

Pressure on recalcitrant doctors at the IHU 

Obviously, all the doctors at the IHU did not adhere to the "Raoult protocol" and were looking for "all the possible contraindications to hydroxychloroquine", reports the document according to the interviews conducted with them.

Although prohibited from prescription by decree in May 2022, the leaders of the IHU have continued their treatment policy using hydroxychloroquine, even if it means calling recalcitrants to order.

“Thank you for systematically stopping treatments for high blood pressure (a contraindication to hydroxychloroquine) to prescribe HCQ +++.

[…] I draw your attention to a certain drift that I have observed on the contraindications to hydroxychloroquine”, wrote on May 19, 2021 Professor Million (responsible for day care) to his teams in the whatsapp loop.

Similarly, to a doctor who was worried about making prescriptions without marketing authorization, the same Professor Million replied, “it's the hospital that covers”.

However, the Public Health Code clearly indicates that the "responsibility of the prescribing doctor" is engaged on the ethical, civil or administrative and criminal level.

Finally, the authors of the report note that it “is almost impossible for practitioners not to apply the IHU protocols or decisions of officials except to be ostracized or to have to leave without hope of a professional career”.

Here too, “such practices are likely to be criminalized”, conclude, once again, the inspectors.

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• Health

• Didier Raoult

• Investigation

• Covid-19

• Marseilles

• Paca

• Research