IHU of Marseille: a search as part of an investigation opened in 2022

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: 18:41 p.m., May 31, 2023

A search was conducted Wednesday at the IHU Méditerranée Infection, founded by Professor Didier Raoult, as part of an investigation by the Marseille prosecutor's office on suspicions of unauthorized clinical trials, but which does not concern at this stage the treatment of Covid-19. The judicial investigation that motivated this search, revealed by the Journal du dimanche, had been opened in July 2022 on charges of "interventional research involving a human person (RIPH) not justified by its usual care without obtaining the opinion of the committee for the protection of persons and the authorization of the ANSM, forgery in writing and use (of forgery)", said the Marseille prosecutor's office in a statement.

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Survey extended to four other research projects of the same type

This investigation had just been extended Monday to four other searches of the same type, including for facts of "illegal interventional research on a minor or protected major" and "interventional research by legal person on a person without his consent," said the prosecutor. It had been opened after reports from the National Agency for Drug Safety (ANSM), which had seized the justice in spring 2022 after having issued a scathing report largely confirming revelations from L'Express and Mediapart.

In an investigation into facts prior to the Covid-19 crisis and the controversies that had accompanied Didier Raoult's promotion of hydroxychloroquine, the ANSM castigated "serious shortcomings" within the IHU. The Agency referred to trials initiated several times without obtaining the mandatory opinion of an independent committee or, sometimes, the consent of all the patients examined, as for example for rectal samples taken in the early 2010s from children with gastroenteritis without the consent of their parents.

No indictment at this stage

No indictment has taken place for the moment in this investigation, had said the prosecutor of Marseille to AFP at the end of May. For his part, Health Minister François Braun assured Wednesday in the Senate that "justice is taking its course" in this case, questioned on "an inertia of the public authorities" by Senator Bernard Jomier (ecologist, related PS).

And if Professor Raoult owes his sulphurous notoriety to Covid-19, which he proposed to treat with hydroxychloroquine, this investigation targeting the IHU Méditerranée Infection does not however concern "the therapeutic management of tuberculosis and Covid-19 mentioned by the Igas-IGESR inspection mission" (General Inspectorates of Social Affairs and Education, Sport and Research). Facts that this mission considered as "likely" to constitute "unauthorized clinical research", recalled the prosecutor's office.

Doctors denounce the lack of sanctions

In September 2022, the damning report of the Igas-IGESR inspection mission led to a new referral to justice by the Ministers of Health François Braun and Research Sylvie Retailleau. "These facts are the subject of an additional analysis in progress by the Marseille prosecutor's office, particularly in view of recent developments," the prosecutor's office said. This search on Wednesday comes three days after the publication by 16 learned societies of medicine of a forum denouncing the absence of sanctions against the treatments proposed by the IHU teams to patients with Covid-19, treatments they qualify as "the largest known 'wild' therapeutic trial". "There has never been a therapeutic trial (...), it's just an observational study," Didier Raoult replied Tuesday on BFMTV, after denouncing "a forum of fools".

In their open letter published on the website of Le Monde, these companies involved in research criticize the teams of the IHU Méditerranée Infection "the systematic prescription to patients with Covid-19 (...) medicinal products as varied as hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin or azithromycin (...) without a solid pharmacological basis, and in the absence of any evidence of efficacy". More seriously, according to them, these prescriptions were continued "for more than a year after the formal demonstration of their ineffectiveness".

A "pre-print" published by Raoult last March

Professor Raoult, who had gained media fame by holding positions now discredited on Covid-19, including the supposed effectiveness of treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, published in March a "pre-print", that is to say a non-peer-reviewed version, of his study on more than 30,000 Covid patients. The Minister of Health on Wednesday threatened sanctions against all signatories of this study, denounced as a gigantic illegal clinical trial.

Retired since the summer of 2021 from his position as university professor-hospital practitioner, Didier Raoult was replaced a year later at the head of the IHU by Pierre-Edouard Fournier. Now professor emeritus, he comes to the IHU "from time to time", according to a spokesman for the institution.