On Wednesday June 24, the divisive Pr Didier Raoult, director of the Marseille University Hospital Institute for Infectious Diseases (IHU), answered questions from deputies for 3 hours within the framework of the parliamentary committee on the coronavirus crisis. A platform for the infectious disease specialist who took the opportunity to defend his work and denounce the “conflicts of interest” of the medical world as well as the “archaic” organization of research in France.
The deputies wanted to hear him on the management of the health crisis, but the very media-friendly Prf Didier Raoult only spoke to them about science. Before the members of the Covid information mission with the powers of a commission of inquiry, the Marseille infectiologist did not say a word about the decisions taken by the government or the President of the Republic. In line with his analysis “public health is 70 to 80% politics and 20 to 30% medicine“He declined to comment on the decisions made.”The containment decision is political because we don’t have any medical data or ecosystem data on it, he declared, taking the recommendation of Dr Delfraissy the president of the Scientific Council questioned a few days earlier by the commission. Medical decisions are preempted by politics.“For him, politicians manage the organization of society, doctors treat and scientists seek, even if he recognizes that health policy is at the crossroads of these three universes. But despite everything, he seemed to spare Emmanuel on several occasions Macron – the President of the Republic – and Olivier Véran – the Minister of Health, ensuring that he has always been in a permanent exchange with them or their cabinet. “With the multiple pressures it’s hard to have a continuous line when the wind is blowing in all directions“, he said when asked to comment on the sometimes contradictory statements of the executive on the contagion of the virus among children or the testing policy in France.
Professor Raoult is less tender with his colleagues. For him, the Scientific Council formed at the request of the President at the beginning of March is not one. “Normally we make people who are not used to collaborating work together and we base the exchanges on data, data and nothing but data.he exclaims. I proposed 10 names of the best coronavirus specialists in France but none were present! A scientific council must talk about science, it is not up to it to think about confinement.“According to Didier Raoult, the other members of the Board knew each other and were used to working with each other”I was a UFO” he confessed. An inter-self that he considers harmful and a waste of time according to him.
Dark looking array
During the three-hour interview, the director of the Marseille University Hospital Institute for Infectious Diseases (IHU) evaded questions about the responsibility of politicians but was inexhaustible on medical issues. Passionate, he forgot the questions and his audience leaves to multiply digressions, anecdotes but especially the technical aspects which sometimes make it difficult to understand. However, his charge against his colleagues was very frank and brutal. According to him, the Scientific Council and many health players are “in a situation of conflict of interest”. Faced with these serious accusations, the rapporteur of the parliamentary mission Éric Ciotti asks him to designate people, but the doctor avoided answering by inviting him to consult the public database. Transparency-health and more particularly the tool “Euros for docs” which facilitates the reading of these data of declarations of links between companies and actors of the health sector in France.
Similarly, the researcher cast heavy suspicion on the entourage of the Minister of Health. “I am skeptical about the choice of drugs and the minister’s entourage [NDLR : de la santé]”. At the request of the rapporteur, Pr Raoult directly implicated the director of the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) as well as the president of the High Authority for Health (HAS) without naming them. When asked about politics, the doctor refused to say that Olivier Véran was “under the influence” because “he arrives in the middle of a crisis in a cabinet he did not choose“.
On another scale, Professor Raoult judged “archaic” the organization of national reference centers (CNR) – laboratories specializing in the fight against communicable diseases. He particularly regretted the under-equipment of the laboratories and noted that there is a race for discoveries linked to technology in which Europe seems to be “missing it”, except for its title. “The IHU is competitive with the Chinese but our tools are outdatedhe breathes. What they do in 20 minutes we need 2h40.“But what, in his view, most affects the effectiveness of French research is the war that the directors of the CNRs are waging among themselves.”These are badgers that will bite you if you approach their niche!” he ended up letting go to explain his bitterness: “I was forbidden to do tests!“.
He claimed to have realized that the French failure in the face of the health crisis during the affair of the contaminated envelopes in 2001. This year, he recalled, American politicians received envelopes trapped with anthrax who killed 5 people a week after the September 11 attacks. According to the researcher, the Institut Pasteur – which has strains of this disease – had neither the human resources – he mentions the withdrawal of technicians – nor the tools to quickly create tests – unlike his Marseille institute. -he. A sin of pride? Often flattered by parliamentarians, the researcher tried to keep a cool head while defending “that he is a great scientist“but he did not venture any prognosis on the evolution of Covid-19.”We do not know“has often backtracked in his answers when asked about the virus’s appearance, spread and behavior.”I’m a good observer, not a prophet – even though I’m bearded!” he laughed.
Recommendations and tensions on hydroxychloroquine
On the question of research funding, Professor Raoult asked the deputies to ensure that the budgets voted in the National Assembly go well to the researchers because according to him the directors of the laboratories have “no accountability”. In the same way, he asked for a review of the research funding model which “often depends on the development of new molecules that are then marketed”, yet he recalls that discoveries are increasingly rare and that research is interested in more and more to a new use of old molecules.
In its line of sight: hydroxychloroquine – the molecule of which he is an ardent defender is at the heart of many controversies. On several occasions he defended his work, not hesitating to suggest a plot of pharmaceutical lobbies. This is how he explains the proliferation of studies “unpublished and without data” in the media – “brainwashing“, the death threats he received – the Canard enchaîné reported in March that the doctor had filed a complaint ‘against X’ but told him that this hostile person received a lot of money from the pharmaceutical industry – as well as the recent scandal of the publication of a study in The Lancet indictment against hydroxychloroquine then withdrawn face “to doubts“on its relevance to the scientific community.”The same week, they received three studies on hydroxychloroquine: ours where it is studied on 3,700 patients without deploring deaths, that of the American ‘nickel feet’ and another from the association of rheumatologists who attest that there are no cardiac riskshe assures. The Lancet refused two studies and published that of nickel-plated feet! It may be luck or terrible incompetence, The Lancet could have done an editorial to say that other studies say otherwise. I don’t know if it’s a deliberate choice“He advances mischievously.
Faced with repeated questions from MPs about the choice not to respect the standard of double blind randomisation, the researcher questioned this method. According to him, it has not proven its effectiveness compared to the older method and would be, according to him, “a standard imposed by the pharmaceutical industry before recognizing that it is more expensive and takes longer to implement. place than the comparative method”. Then after 3 hours of interrogation, the professor who had been very courteous with the elected officials ended up getting angry: “Methodology is not science it is a tool, he lets go. When we test on more than 1,000 people, we are trying to prove something else. [NDRL : que l’objet de son étude]” he said without explaining his thought. “In infectious disease there have been very few treatments found based on randomisation, just one for HIV which has been useless! It’s nonsense! I’m not the only one to think so. Those who preach the opposite have not done so since there are no randomized comparative trials in France!” he blurted out.
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