‘Rogue’ Marseilles medical institute faces criminal investigation

Marseilles’ University Hospital Institute Méditerranée Infection (IHU) is under criminal investigation for work staff carried out under former director Didier Raoult, best known for his discredited embrace of an antimalarial as a treatment for Covid-19.

The investigation was requested by France’s research and health ministers, Sylvie Retailleau and François Braun, in response to a report from the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines.

The regulator found that inappropriate research practices were widespread within the institute and that “serious shortcomings” at IHU put patients at risk.

The Agence France-Presse news agency reported that Marseilles’ public prosecutor had opened a criminal investigation in July and that it would explore alleged forgery and unauthorised human research.

“Criminal” practices listed in the regulator’s report include a throat swab tuberculosis test that was trialled on minors and homeless Romanian men who spoke no French but who supposedly still gave informed consent for the study.

At the time of the alleged activities, IHU was led by Professor Raoult, a microbiologist who has faced widespread criticism for pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid despite a lack of evidence for its efficacy.

France’s Infectious Diseases Society launched disciplinary action against Professor Raoult for allegedly misleading his patients about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine.

Society president Pierre Tattevin said last year that IHU had “lost so much, in terms of scientific dignity, that we hardly see how they could recover”, describing the institute as “like a sect”.

The regulator found that the institute’s protocols from May 2022 still called for Covid-19 treatment with hydroxychloroquine, despite a two-year-old ban on such uses of the drug.

Other issues raised by the regulator included poor management, harassment and a gradual deterioration in the institution’s financial situation.

Professor Raoult, who has led the institute’s research unit since its founding in 2011, left his post at the end of August. He has been replaced by Pierre-Edouard Fournier.

Writing on Twitter, he said he regretted that the regulator “did not take into account the detailed legal and scientific response that I provided to them”.

In his formal response, Professor Raoult said the report “mainly focused on compiling derogatory comments” against him, which “shows a lack of distance” on the part of the regulator’s team, who, he claims, acted “more like a commando mission than an inspection in the service of the French state”.

The ministries said they would arrange a meeting with Professor Fournier and the IHU’s founding organisations to put into action a plan based on the report’s recommendations.

The future operation and funding of the IHU would be contingent on progress against the plan, which would be regularly checked, the ministries said.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com