News agency
COVID-19 – Aid Hospitals Marseille (AP-HM) requested a new internal investigation on Friday, November 19, following new accusations against Mediapart Targeting the institute headed by Professor Raoult on the conditions under which research will be conducted on hydroxychloroquine.
According to the news site, “a number of members” of the Mediterranean University Hospital Institute of Infection, headed by Professor Didier Raoult, denounced, today, Friday, the pressures they exerted and the “falsification of scientific results”, in order to “prove the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19.”
The Associated Press responded in a press release, “The reported facts, if proven, would constitute serious imbalances,” taking “an initiative of an internal investigation in order to confirm the veracity of the facts reported by the press.”
concretely, explain Mediapart“More than a dozen people (biologists, clinicians, interns or assistants)” members of the IHU denounced “falsification of biological results allowing inference of the beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine by biasing PCR test results in a study comparing IHU patients taking the treatment and patients not taking the CHU spectrum.” “.
The positivity threshold for PCR tests has been changed.
“Results ‘do not go in the direction of Didier Raoult,’ the positivity threshold for PCR tests was adjusted, making a higher number of negative results for patients following in Marseille negative,” he explains. Mediapart, citing the testimonies of these IHU members during interviews in October with relevant employers, be it Aix-Marseille University, AP-HM or even Inserm or the Institute for Development Research (IRD).
In an article by MediapartAll of these testimonials are anonymous.
AP-HM had already requested an internal investigation within the IHU, on October 22, after another article, Always Mediapart, regarding the supposedly illegal “clinical trials” against tuberculosis conducted by the Professor Raoult Institute since 2017. The AP-HM has justified this investigation with the “gravity and extent of the facts reported”.
“There were no trials, only treatment options by doctors,” Didier Raoult replied on October 28 to C8.
Didier Raoult, who retired at the end of August as a university professor and hospital practitioner, should leave the IHU at the end of June at the latest. The six founding members of the union and the head of this institute announced in mid-September the launch of the appointment of a new director, whose appointment is scheduled no later than June 30.
The recruitment process must be formally approved by the IHU Board of Directors on Tuesday.
See also on HuffPost: Florian Philippot and antioxidants to support Didier Raoult in Paris