Didier Raoult admit to being wrong about hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19?

Without a doubt, the debate on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of the coronavirus will have punctuated this pandemic. It resurfaced at the start of 2021. In a letter published on January 4, Didier Raoult’s team seems to recognize that the “protocol” tested within IHU Méditerranée Infection to treat the coronavirus, has not reduced patient mortality. So has the famous anti-inflammatory drug lost its main defenders? It is not so simple.

The text went unnoticed until social networks took hold of it. In particular the detractors of the Marseille professor. This Saturday January 16, many internet users were delighted that Didier Raoult backtracked on his miracle cure. All quote in caption a text, written in English, and signed by the epidemiologist and his team. One passage in particular is noted. We read black on white that “Oxygen therapy requirements, resuscitation transfers and deaths did not vary significantly from group to group.” Thus, the authors admit that there is no significant difference between the patients treated with the protocol and the others. In short, this drug does not prevent dying from the coronavirus. A conclusion similar to that made by the WHO more than six months ago. Faced with what is described as a “turnaround” in all discretion, Internet users criticize the researcher for having “gave people hope” not just others calling for him to be prosecuted for “fraud, spreading false news and endangering the life of others”“.

Because for many of them, this MEA culpa on the sly was carried out precisely to escape future sanctions. The teacher “prepare his defense, can we read here and there. In reality, it is not quite that. On the contrary, Didier Raoult and his colleagues continue to defend their treatment. Because this analysis on mortality concerns only one of the studies carried out at the Marseille IHU. To understand everything, we must come back in March 2020. Professor Didier Raoult, already famous in his field but unknown to the general public, published his first study in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (IJAA), on hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin. It is she who will open for the first time the controversy on the effectiveness of this drug in particular prescribed against lupus. Strongly criticized, because not randomized with very few patients, it counts among its detractors the researcher Carlos Gustavo Wambier. He then asks the editor to publish his review. A murderous text that will not be published until January 4. It is to these accusations that Didier Raoult and his team respond. While they re-examined the data from this trial, their admission only relates to the impact on mortality. Further on, he reaffirms on the contrary his theory on the viral load, which he has continued to defend. In the sentence following the one spotted by Internet users, the epidemiologist writes indeed : “The length of hospital stay and viral persistence were significantly shorter in the treated group of patients.”. For him, his treatment would therefore always be useful. *

The hatchet is therefore far from being buried. And the tone is not about to subside. As soon as the controversy arose, the Marseille IHU defended itself from any change.“The first IHU study (Gautret et al) never drew conclusions on mortality but on viral load”, thus tweeted on Sunday Yanis Roussel, in charge of the establishment’s communication, recalling in passing the other studies carried out by this team on mortality. “We maintain every line of every one of our articles.” A hammered argument. And taken up by Didier Raoult himself, who split a tweet on the subject this Monday. “The effectiveness of HCQ + AZ in reducing the duration of viral carriage (…) has been confirmed”, he wrote. And to stick to its positions: “We never changed our mind.”