Covid: study by Didier Raoult on hydroxychloroquine invalidated

After more than four years of controversy, the founding study of the IHU of Marseille on the use of hydroxychloroquine against Covid, signed in particular by Professor Didier Raoult, was officially invalidated, the publisher of the journal which published it in March 2020.

“Concerns were raised” related to compliance with the journal editor’s “publication ethics,” “the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants, as well as concerns raised by three of the authors regarding the methodology and conclusions,” said Elsevier, the publisher of the scientific journal International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, in a long note justifying this retraction.

The article, signed by 18 authors, notably Philippe Gautret, then professor at the IHU, and Didier Raoult, intended to demonstrate the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, combined with an antibiotic – azithromycin – against Covid-19 .

Treatment hopes

If this publication had fueled hopes of a treatment, it was quickly singled out by other scientists and ethics specialists for potential errors, even manipulation, which was subsequently proven by investigations by health authorities and certain media. .

Scientific studies later demonstrated the ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine against Covid, the use of which has sometimes been associated with serious adverse effects, particularly cardiovascular ones.

Elsevier, which has retained the services of an “impartial expert acting as an independent advisor on publishing ethics”, detailed its detailed investigation into the article on Tuesday, and its damning conclusions on non-compliance with the rules as much as the manipulation or interpretation of results.

Global scandal

The publisher also claims that the authors have not argued convincingly in their defense. His official retraction of the study invalidates the results.

The Gautret study was “the cornerstone of a global scandal” and its retraction “constitutes a late but essential recognition of the scientific excesses which led to the endangerment of patients”, welcomed the French Society of Pharmacology in a press release. and therapeutics (SFPT), chaired by Professor Mathieu Molimard.

The SFPT called for a broader questioning of the work carried out under the supervision of Professor Didier Raoult, in particular on hydroxychloroquine.

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