New disavowal for Didier Raoult. The very first study by the former boss of the IHU of Marseille (IHU) and 17 of his colleagues praising the supposed effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19, posted online on March 20, 2020 at the start of the first confinement , was retracted by its publisher on Tuesday.
The Elsevier group, which publishes the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, launched an investigation with the help of an independent advisor specializing in ethical issues. Several problems emerge, as detailed at length in an explanatory note: breach of research regulations, lack of “informed consent” from patients included in the study, etc. The authors were invited to explain, but without convincing.
“Four years for that when it should have been retracted in the first month, finally! », Rejoices the pharmacologist Mathieu Molimard, spearhead of the mobilization against the various publications of Didier Raoult for several years. “We knew for ten days that this study was going to be retracted, but nothing came out. I did not expect them to take up all the scientific and ethical misconduct that we had pointed out,” explains the practitioner from Bordeaux.
Other IHU publications on this subject had been removed, but around ten are still online. Conversely, over the past four years, numerous studies carried out abroad with robust methodology have concluded that hydroxychloroquine, whether combined or not with the antibiotic azithromycin, is not effective against Covid-19.
At the beginning of November, Didier Raoult was – symbolically – banned from practicing medicine for two years. Although officially retired, he announced that he planned to appeal. The microbiologist is also the target of an investigation by the Marseille public prosecutor’s office, after an administrative report revealing « serious dysfunctions of the IHU-MI concerning the quality of its research and care activities” in September 2022.
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