The Mediterranean Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU-MI), directed until mid-July by Professor Didier Raoult, is again in turmoil. The public prosecutor was seized by the Minister of Health, François Braun, and the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau, for facts “likely to constitute offenses or serious breaches of health or research regulations”, according a joint press release released Monday, September 5.
Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens told Agence France-Presse the same evening that she had opened a judicial investigation. The decision follows the publication on Monday of a report from the inspections of the two ministries (IGAS and IGSR) revealing “serious dysfunctions of the IHU-MI concerning the quality of its research and care activities”.
The new director of the institute, closely linked to Didier Raoult, Pierre-Edouard Fournier, and its seven founding members (including the University of Aix-Marseille, the Assistance Publique-Hospitals de Marseille, the Research Institute for Development or the army health service) will soon be summoned by their supervisory authorities to “implement a proactive action plan as soon as possible” who “will condition the continuation of the activity of the IHU-MI and its funding by the State”, according to the joint communiqué of the ministers.
“Governance Drift”
Another complaint was filed in April by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) for “serious shortcomings” and procedures “non-compliant with the regulations for research involving the human person (RIPH), in particular on the ethical level”. But the work of the IGAS and IGESR inspectors goes further than that of the ANSM, since, in addition to the numerous deviations from the ethical rules observed, it is interested, over the period 2017-2021, in the governance of the IHU-MI, its working conditions or its strategy. In more than 150 pages, a particularly negative assessment of Didier Raoult and “his” IHU, created in 2011, is drawn: “governance drift”, “Management style that generates discomfort at work”, “strategy to reexamine”, “deviant medical and scientific practices”… The report also questions the quality of scientific production, one of the prides of its former director, noting that the Marseilles institute produces more research articles in journals of lesser influence than the other IHUs.
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