Did Professor Didier Raoult violate the code of medical ethics by promoting hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19? The disciplinary chamber of the Order of Physicians makes its decision on Friday in Bordeaux, which can go as far as radiation. Since the end of 2020, the 69-year-old Marseille infectious disease specialist has been the target of two complaints filed by the Bouches-du-Rhône Order of Physicians and the National Council of the Order of Physicians (Cnom).
He is accused of having promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19, “without established scientific data”, which is akin to “quackery”, said the rapporteur of the disciplinary chamber during an audience on November 5 in Bordeaux, disoriented far from Marseille. He was also accused of having taken “reckless risks” by treating patients with this treatment “not proven by science”, she added.
Decision posted at 4 p.m.
Filed on the basis of several reports initially made by the French-language infectious pathology society (Spilf), the complaints also accuse Professor Raoult of having violated, by his communication, article 56 of the code of ethics, by “missing to his duty of brotherhood ”towards other physicians.
These complaints were examined by the Disciplinary Chamber of the New Aquitaine Order of Physicians, made up of 8 physicians and chaired by an administrative magistrate. Her decision will be posted at 4 p.m. in its premises in Bordeaux but without the reasons, she said on Thursday.
Didier Raoult is retired
In the event of recognized infringements, the chamber could pronounce against the current director of the Mediterranean Infection Hospital-University Institute (IHU) a sanction ranging from a simple warning to a radiation, passing by a reprimand or a temporary prohibition of ‘exercise.
Present at the beginning of November before the chamber out of “respect for this institution”, Didier Raoult, retired since August 31 as a university professor and hospital practitioner, felt “not concerned” by possible “sanctions”.
He still defends hydroxychloroquine
“It is the doctors who complain about us, not the patients”, he had launched to the lawyer of the plaintiffs, assuring to have received “more than 600,000 patients” within the IHU during the health crisis, “without any complaint ”from them. He had defended “the success” of his treatment combining hydroxychloroquine and azythromicine to treat patients with Covid-19, despite the lack of proven effect even today.
His lawyer Me Fabrice Di Vizio had pleaded for the rejection of the procedure, asking the disciplinary body “to declare the complaints inadmissible”. In addition to this procedure, Professor Raoult is also targeted, with the IHU he created in 2011, by several other surveys on the conditions under which the institute conducted its studies around Covid-19.
Investigation of experiments against tuberculosis
These investigations were opened this year by the University of Aix-Marseille, another founding member of the IHU, by the hospitals of Marseille (AP-HM) and by the national drug agency (ANSM), after an article by L ‘Express on “possible breaches of the regulation of clinical trials”.
The IHU and its director are also accused, in an article in Mediapart, of having carried out “a savage experiment against tuberculosis”. The ANSM announced at the end of October that it was going to “carry out an inspection” within the IHU, the AP-HM launched an investigation, while the Marseille public prosecutor’s office asked for an “evaluation” of the legal consequences to be given to This folder.
Finally, on November 4, it was the Minister of Health Olivier Véran and his colleague from Higher Education and Research, Frédérique Vidal, who asked the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs and the General Inspectorate of ‘education, sport and research to carry out “a control mission” at the IHU. Prof. Raoult should only stay at the head of this institute for a few months, which started the process of selecting a new director a week ago, without however giving a precise date of taking office.