The penalty is more serious on appeal. The doctors’ order prohibited Didier Raoult from practicing medicine for two years, starting on 1Ahem In February, it mainly sanctions its unfounded promotion of hydroxychloroquine against Covid, according to a decision revealed on Thursday, October 3 by The Parisian and consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Marseille scientist is accused of having violated several articles of the public health code, by encouraging the prescription of a treatment based on hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19 without reliable scientific data. In December 2021, this earned him a simple reprimand from the national disciplinary chamber. The medical order considered this sanction too lenient given “the seriousness of the breaches” and appealed.
On appeal, the national disciplinary chamber of the medical order ruled that “Professor Raoult did not base his public positions on confirmed data, did not act with caution and promoted an insufficiently proven treatment”in its decision of October 2.
But, as in the first instance, he considered that Professor Raoult did not make his patients run “an unjustified risk”among other things because the prescription of hydroxychloroquine respected the usually recommended doses and because “he knowingly discarded (…) patients who had the highest risk factors ».
“Weightless words”
Professor Raoult, on the other hand, is criticized for his study carried out at the University Hospital Institute (IHU) of Marseille on approximately 30,000 patients without the green light from the health authorities, and for its publication that does not respect the “scientific rigor”. Through his criticism of widespread vaccination and confinement, “harmed by comments lacking consideration of the measures adopted by health authorities in order to protect public health”also considers the order of doctors.
The sanction is also directed at“lack of brotherhood” from Didier Raoult towards his colleagues or other establishments. he held “comments that go beyond the scope of freedom of expression”for example by contrasting their results with those of Parisian hospitals where “they were counting the dead” or claiming that another doctor had “they carried out trials in which children [étaient] dead “.
Asked on Thursday morning, his lawyer Fabrice Di Vizio responded to AFP that he had not yet been able to find out about this decision. Retired since the summer of 2021 from his position as a university professor-hospital doctor, Didier Raoult was replaced a year later at the head of the IHU. In addition, the Marseille prosecutor’s office is investigating suspicions of unauthorized clinical trials.
