Didier Raoult was banned from practicing medicine for two years from February 1, 2025. The sanction was pronounced by the national disciplinary chamber of the Order of Physicians on Thursday October 3. It is much heavier than the simple reprimand imposed at first instance, in December 2021. A decision that was too lenient according to the National Council of the Order of Physicians, which then appealed.
This time, the former director of the IHU Méditerranée is found guilty of having violated no fewer than 11 articles of the Public Health Code. The list is long: “promotion of a treatment (hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19) that is insufficiently proven” without having reliable scientific data or “exercising the necessary caution, having been harmed by comments devoid of weight (on vaccines and confinement) to the measures taken by the health authorities”, lack of brotherhood following his outrageous remarks towards colleagues who criticized him, etc.
A sanction too late and light?
Of course, the sanction constitutes a victory for the members of the medical and scientific community who have continued to demonstrate the seriousness of Didier Raoult’s actions. However, it is not to everyone’s taste. His fans, of course, are fuming on social media. And many researchers, doctors and defenders of ethics and scientific integrity believe the sanction is too late. Because the first slip-ups – which are sanctioned in this judgment – took place four years ago already. Four years during which Didier Raoult and his close supporters were able to brandish the absence of a decision from the Order of Physicians as a standard. Certainly, as Didier Raoult likes to say “Truth is the daughter of time”, but still.
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Many people also find the sanction too light. Only two years of ban, while Denis Agret, an anti-vax doctor and figure of the French complosphere, was removed from the Order? However, his faults do not seem much heavier. This leniency is explained, in part, by the decision of the disciplinary chamber not to consider that Didier Raoult caused his patients to run “an unjustified risk”. According to the disciplinary chamber, his prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine respected the doses usually recommended and he “knowingly excluded patients who presented the highest risk factors”. The fact remains that if he ruled them out, it is because he was aware of the famous risks.
The impact of the sanction may also raise questions. To condemn a doctor to no longer practice when he has not done so for years is symbolic, to say the least. Because Didier Raoult was not only pushed to retire from his position as university professor-hospital practitioner in the summer of 2021, but also ejected from his seat as director of the IHU in September 2022. Today, he It no longer has any hospital or university function. “I have not practiced for three years and I even withdrew from the council of the Order. All this is pure communication,” he defended himself to the Parisian.
A landmark case law
There is, however, legal satisfaction. Indeed, the complaint drawn up by the French-language Society of Infectious Pathology and addressed to the Order of Physicians accused Didier Raoult of having in particular violated article 15 of the code of medical ethics by conducting clinical trials without authorization and prescribing hydroxychloroquine without a marketing authorization.
READ ALSO: Retracted studies, media outbursts… The sulfurous retirement of Didier Raoult
At first instance, the disciplinary chamber rejected this argument. She retained him on appeal. She therefore recognizes that Didier Raoult did carry out an illegal clinical trial on nearly 30,000 patients who took hydroxychloroquine between 2020 and 2021, “the largest wild clinical trial in history” according to 16 learned societies, which is worth ongoing criminal proceedings. This clinical research “intended to test the effect of administering a drug outside the indications provided for in its marketing authorization” should not have taken place without the prior agreement of the health authorities , confirms the national disciplinary chamber of the Order in its verdict.
READ ALSO: Wild clinical trials: “Didier Raoult abused tens of thousands of people”
However, this decision did not come naturally. There are in fact several possible legal interpretations of article 15, including one considering that it is not possible to oppose it to a doctor who has not been criminally convicted for an illegal clinical trial. The Council of the Order has nevertheless decided. It thus creates a strong case law on the subject. This landmark decision sounds like a warning to all doctors and future doctors. Ultimately, it weighs much more than the two-year ban on exercise.
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