* DIDIER RAOULT (1): As discussed in an article from SCIENCE.org ("Failure At Every level" by Cathleen O'Grady, 7 March 2024), during the COVID-19 pandemic Didier Raoult, the head of a French scientific research institute, made a global splash by promoting a study that showed a drug named hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) -- known to be effective against malaria and rheumatism -- was effective in treating COVID-19 as well. The exercise did not end well for Raoult.
Raoult had become well-known for his work on rickettsia -- bacteria transmitted by fleas and ticks, responsible for some types of spotted fever and typhus -- and his discovery of giant viruses. He accumulated national decorations in both France and his birth country of Senegal, and also received prestigious scientific awards, including the 2010 Grand Prize from the French biomedical research agency INSERM. He published prolifically, with more than 3200 papers indexed on PubMed, becoming one of the most cited researchers in his field.
In 2011, Raoult became head of the new "L'Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire en Mediterrane Infection (IHU Mediterranean Infections)", associated with the University of Aix-Marseille. It was one of the of six modern research hospitals established by then-President Nicolas Sarkozy's government. In 2018, the IHU got its own imposing building. Michel Dubois, a sociologist of science at the French national research agency CNRS comments that IHU had political as well as scientific power: "When you open this institute, when you create a building, you need some leverage at the political level."
In 2020, as worry over the emerging COVID-19 pandemic set in, the media was eager to know what Raoult and his IHU were doing in response. Antoine Bristielle -- a social scientist at the Jean-Jaures Foundation, a think tank -- says:
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Almost every day, you were able to watch a new interview with Raoult. It became a self-reinforcing phenomenon ... the media were interested in what he was saying, so he came to be really powerful in the French population. And then, of course, the media wanted him because he was able to attract large audiences.
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In videos posted online by the IHU, Raoult was typically seated in an office, wearing a lab coat, somewhat unkempt in appearance. He spoke soberly and quietly, giving a reassuring message: The new coronavirus has a mortality rate not too different from commonplace respiratory infections, and a treatment will be coming soon.
On 11 March 2020, French health minister Olivier Veran invited Raoult to join the Science Council advising the government on its pandemic response. A few days later, Raoult and his team published a paper in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, reporting that the IHU had found HCQ combined with the antibiotic azithromycin to be an effective COVID-19 treatment.
Raoult posted his claims in online media, and the hype over HCQ immediately spread all over the world. In the USA, Fox News amplified Raoult's message, passing it on to then-President Donald Trump, who started pushing HCQ as a cure. Bristielle says:
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Raoult was saying: "I understand everything! I have a solution!" -- and people want that kind of information in troubled times.
... If someone has such a presence in the media landscape, politicians have to listen to him, otherwise they will be really distrusted by the population.
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On 26 March, Veran issued a decree allowing HCQ to be prescribed to COVID-19 inpatients -- even though some members of the science council told him the IHU HCQ paper was dodgy. [TO BE CONTINUED]
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