American Society for Microbiology publishing ban In 2006, Raoult and four co-authors were banned for one year from publishing in the journals of the
American Society for Microbiology (ASM), after a reviewer for
Infection and Immunity discovered that four figures from the revised manuscript of a paper about a mouse model for
typhus were identical to figures from the originally submitted manuscript, even though they were supposed to represent a different experiment. In response, Raoult "resigned from the editorial board of two other ASM journals, canceled his membership in the American Academy of Microbiology, ASM's honorific leadership group, and banned his lab from submitting to ASM journals". The paper was subsequently published in a different journal.
COVID-19 On 17 March 2020, Raoult announced in an online video that a trial involving 24 patients from southeast France supported the claim that
hydroxychloroquine and
azithromycin were effective in treating COVID-19. On 20 March, he published a preliminary report of his study online in the
International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. The French Health Minister,
Olivier Véran, was reported as announcing that "new tests will now go ahead in order to evaluate the results by Professor Raoult, in an attempt to independently replicate the trials and ensure the findings are scientifically robust enough, before any possible decision might be made to roll any treatment out to the wider public". Véran refused to endorse the study conducted by Raoult and the possible health ramifications, on the basis of a single study conducted on 24 people. The study was retracted on 17 December 2024 over a lack of
informed consent for patients and after scientists—including three of its co-authors—raised concerns over methodological problems. The French media also reported that the French pharmaceutical company
Sanofi had offered French authorities millions of doses of the drug for use against COVID-19. Raoult was one of 11 prominent scientists named on 11 March to a committee to advise on scientific matters pertaining to the epidemic in France. He did not attend any of the meetings and resigned from the committee on 24 March saying that he refused to participate. He denounced the "absence of anything scientifically sound", and criticised its members for "not having a clue". He defended chloroquine as a benchmark drug for lung diseases, saying that it had suddenly been declared dangerous after having been safely used for 80 years. Following reports and a complaint filed in July by the French-speaking Society of Infectious Pathology (Spilf), the departmental council of the French Order of Physicians opened a formal case against Didier Raoult.
Accusations of falsified images, and legal threats On 5 May 2021,
Elisabeth Bik (who specializes in identifying manipulated images in scientific papers) raised concerns about dozens of Raoult's papers—including ethical, procedural, and methodological problems in a March 2020 paper reporting success in a small hydroxychloroquine trial. Raoult's lawyer subsequently announced that Raoult was accusing and suing the scientific integrity consultant of harassment and blackmail. The French non-profit association Citizen4Science, formed by scientists and citizens, published a press release and a petition that day, denouncing the harassment of scientists and defenders of science integrity, specifically defending Bik and calling on French authorities to intervene and for journalists to look into the matter. Several French newspapers immediately reported Citizen4Science's initiative. The petition was signed by thousands of scientists and others throughout the world. By 22 May 2021 Raoult had begun legal proceedings against Bik. There followed various articles in international mainstream media supporting Bik, and an article in
Science updated on 4 June 2021 in issue 6546, reporting over 3,000 signatures for the Citizen4Science petition. On 18 May 2021, Lonni Besançon, a French postdoctoral
research fellow at
Monash University, wrote an open letter supporting Elisabeth Bik. The letter was co-signed by more than 2200 scientists and 30
scholarly societies. On 1 June 2021,
CNRS published a press release denouncing the "judiciarization of controversy and scientific debates", condemning Raoult's legal proceedings against Elisabeth Bik. On 10 June 2021, French Senator
Bernard Jomier carried the Citizen4Science press release and petition to the
French Senate through a written question to French Minister of Health
Olivier Véran, requiring action to protect bearers of science integrity. In December 2022, publisher
PLOS marked 48 articles by Raoult with expressions of concern "about the reported
research ethics approval information and the article's adherence to PLOS research ethics policies". In 2022, five papers received an expression of concern from publishers, warning that they may contain errors or be otherwise untrustworthy. In 2020, another paper was retracted after image manipulations were unmasked. The trial was started without seeking the mandatory approval of the French clinical trial regulator, and continued despite its strenuous objections to its protocol when they eventually sought permission. Many of the patients in the trial were minors, homeless, or illegal residents, and therefore could not legally consent to a trial. Several suffered severe side effects such as
kidney failure from the known toxicity of one of the four antibiotics combined in the trial, and at least one patient contaminated several family members because the treatment was simultaneously ineffective and poorly monitored by IHU. A subsequent investigation by the French drug safety agency (
ANSM) identified grave ethics and safety breaches in IHU clinical trials. Its report was forwarded to the Marseille prosecutor for potential criminal prosecution, and ANSM additionally threatened to suspend all on-going clinical trials at IHU. The prosecutor opened a formal inquiry for falsification and forgery of documentation and for unjustified medical procedures. In May 2023, researchers representing sixteen French organizations wrote that Raoult and his subordinates engaged in "systematic prescription of medications [...] to patients suffering from Covid-19 [...] without a solid pharmacological basis and lacking any proof of their effectiveness," and that those drugs continued to be prescribed "for more than a year after their ineffectiveness had been absolutely demonstrated." In January 2024,
BMC Microbiology retracted an article after Raoult and his co-authors failed to provide evidence of approval from an appropriate ethics committee. The
American Society for Microbiology then retracted seven papers by Raoult and other authors for breaches in human ethical research where the IHU institute gave itself permission to perform studies, but did not get CPP permission, as is required in France. In October 2024,
PLOS ONE retracted several articles due to concerns about compliance with the PLOS Human Subjects Research policy, compliance with the PLOS Animal Research policy and
PLOS ONE's guidelines for articles reporting observational and field studies. ==Honours and awards==