Hydroxychloroquine back on the bench. Medical organizations denounce in a forum in which World published this Sunday the administration by “certain biologists and doctors of the Méditerranée Infection university hospital institute (IHU)” of various treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, to some 30,000 patients during the health crisis linked to Covid-19, while the treatment has proven to be ineffective.
A treatment administered “in the absence of any evidence of efficacy”
“The systematic prescription of drugs as varied as hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin or azithromycin to patients with Covid-19, whatever their age and symptoms, in pre-printed prescriptions, is first carried out without solid pharmacological bases, and in the absence of any proof of effectiveness”, denounced the signatories.
The experts point in particular, without naming him, to Professor Didier Raoult, who had established himself as one of the faces, widely controversial within the scientific world, of the Covid pandemic. The doctor had touted the purported clinical benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.
Among the signatories are in particular Professor Alain Fischer, President of the Academy of Sciences, Dominique Costagliola, one of its members, but also various medical organizations such as the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics or the French-language Infectious Pathology Society . .
“A great health scandal”
This forum arises more specifically to respond to the online pre-publication of health data from more than 30,000 patients, according to the JDD. Didier Raoult and 16 members of the IHU Méditerranée shared on April 3, on the specialized medicine site MedRxiv, the details of the treatments administered to 30,423 people who tested positive for Covid-19 during the first wave of the epidemic in 2020.
It reveals that all patients received hydroxychloroquine, regardless of their state of health and whether or not they had symptoms, and persists in reaffirming the effectiveness of the treatment.
For Professor Mathieu Molimard, head of the department of medical pharmacology at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, this study of an unprecedented scale has all of a “great health scandal”, denounced this Saturday in the JDD.
The doctor sees it as the “biggest wild clinical trial ever conducted, without significant reaction from the authorities.”
The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) tells the weekly to carry out “analysis” on this study and not to refrain from “taking legal action” if the data “highlight deficiencies in the regulation of clinical trials” .
A violation of the “elementary rules”
in the gallery of Worldthe scientists denounce what they call the “largest ‘wild’ therapeutic trial known to date”, pointing to the collection of health data from more than 30,000 patients “outside any ethical or legal framework” and “without medical justification”.
They denounce a breach of the “elementary rules” applicable to the medical world, and recall in particular that the administration of any treatment implies in advance “the demonstration of the therapeutic effects of drugs in humans” according to a set of “ethical and scientific standards” . accurate.
Doctors recall in particular the proven ineffectiveness of the treatment to fight Covid and deplore the fact that “systematic prescriptions” of hydroxychloroquine have continued, however, for more than a year after the publication of studies on the subject.
A call to the health authorities
The scientists also accuse the lack of reaction of the health authorities before the administration of this treatment to thousands of patients.
“It can only surprise that no legal and ordinal measure, essential for compliance with the law on the protection of people and the credibility of the investigation, has been taken against the authors of the publications that denounce these practices,” they denounce.
“We ask all competent institutions (control establishments, administrative and judicial authorities, High Health Authority, National Ethics Advisory Committee, National Council of the Order of Physicians, etc.) to become aware of the issues and assume their responsibilities” ., calls the signatories, assuring that “the safety of patients” and “their trust” in medicine are at stake.
Professor Didier Raoult left his position as director of the IHU Méditerranée Infection last September 1, pushed towards the exit at the end of a process started a year earlier. He is no longer a university professor-hospital doctor at the University of Aix-Marseille and at the University Hospitals of Marseille.
Source: BFM TV
