“I understood that it was not an error, but a modus operandi” – L’Express

Until a few years ago, scientific fraud hunters were complete strangers. They came to the forefront during the Covid-19 crisis because of – or thanks to – the inflation of poor quality scientific publications. They are the ones who dissect the studies, verify the methodologies and their compliance with the law and ethical principles. Out of passion, out of love of science or out of certainty that this subject of public interest deserves their full attention, they spend hours trying to ferret out errors and abuses. This is the case of Fabrice Frank, a former biologist who became a computer scientist and, by necessity, an independent researcher.

Its first investigations in the field of ethics were motivated by the declarations of Didier Raoult, the former director of the IHU of Marseille, who claimed at the beginning of 2020 to have the solution to end the pandemic in a few weeks. His initial curiosity quickly turned into suspicion and led him to discover – with other “hunters” – potential fraud in more than 400 IHU studies, but also to publish several works in journals to denounce these abuses. His work was even praised by the magazine Scienceone of the most prestigious scientific publications in the world, twice. The first for his contribution to the fall of Didier Raoultthe second, more recently, for obtaining a damning report that the University of Aix-Marseille (AMU) tried to hide for almost two years. Recently revealed by L’Express, this latest discovery forced the university to take unprecedented measures.

L’Express: How did you receive the reaction of the University of Aix-Marseille, which announced that it will take ethical measures and monitor the excesses of its agents on social networks?

Fabrice Frank: I find it extremely lukewarm, even if it’s more than they’ve done so far. So it’s both extraordinary and almost nothing. The AMU is nevertheless aware of the excesses of the IHU on the scientific, financial and human levels at least since the publication of the Igas report [NDLR : Inspection générale des affaires sociales]in September 2022. However, their own internal report had to be revealed for them to react. In 2023, Eric Berton, president of the AMU, affirmed that his hand would not shake when making decisions. Well I’m waiting. It has been almost five years since serious abuses were revealed. And they continue.

Eric Chabrière, professor at AMU and IHU, was convicted last week for contempt [NDLR : M. Chabrière a annoncé son intention de faire appel] towards a police officer. The latter had summoned him as part of an investigation for online harassment. And what does this professor do the day after his conviction? He attacks another gendarme on X (formerly Twitter). François Crémieux, the general director of Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM) expelled him from the hospital in 2021. What exactly is the university waiting for?

Precisely, the AMU indicated that it reserved the right to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him.

We are told: “Perhaps we will slap his fingers.” I will judge when there are sanctions, if there are any. And it seems to me that something very important is missing too: a word for the victims of harassment on social networks. This is seriously lacking. Because there are researchers and doctors who have been insulted and threatened. Some – some especially, because women are attacked even more – have been traumatized or placed on sick leave, with consequences on their work and their private lives. There are also terrified people within the IHU and the AMU themselves who do not want to speak, or on condition of anonymity, as the Igas report has demonstrated.

You have also been targeted on numerous occasions. How do you experience this?

I am more protected than others. I don’t have a scientific career, so it can’t be broken. Professionally, I am my own boss. And then I live in Essaouira (Morocco), I am in the sun and close to the ocean. When things get too far, I go to the beach and go surfing. But I have seen very intelligent, very strong people collapse overnight. So during periods of intense harassment, I ask loved ones to watch over me, to take care of me. If they alert me, I go away for a few days, completely cutting off the Internet.

Of course, I received anonymous calls. But I have a technique: I go to the toilet and flush. Generally, they don’t insist. People also intimidated me on social networks, accusing me of pedophilia and threatening to notify the Moroccan police. It’s still astonishing. Since then, I no longer go out without a USB stick in which I compiled all of this. If I am arrested based on these lies, I will be able to show who is attacking me and why.

Fortunately, there are also good sides. The review Science has just saluted, once again, your work. Doesn’t this confirm that the scientific world recognizes the value of your investigations?

It’s a recognition, it’s true. But the first thing I said to myself was: “What am I doing in Science ” I didn’t invent anything, I don’t have a scientific prize, I’m not a great researcher. This illustrates the level of abuses in Marseille. Otherwise, a journal like Science wouldn’t have written three lines about me. I remember the first interview with the journalist from Science. She couldn’t believe that such serious things could happen and agreed when I said: “If this were in the United States, many people would probably be in prison…” In France, this would not be the case. doesn’t seem to pose a problem. And the abuses continue. The very fact that someone like me is getting involved in all of this shows the seriousness of the problem. It shouldn’t be up to me to do all this. These articles put it all into perspective.

Exactly, how did a former biologist turned computer scientist end up there? What made you become passionate about scientific ethics?

I have always been passionate about research. At 14-15 years old I was already devouring magazines Research And For science. At that time, they were already talking about the potential of messenger RNA vaccines. When these arrived thirty years later, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, I said to myself: “The science is magnificent.” I also studied science and obtained a thesis in biology. But, ultimately, I took another path and got into IT, then into many other projects.

But this scientific culture made me want to get in touch with researchers and doctors during the Covid crisis. So I went to Twitter in January 2020 to see what people more knowledgeable than me were saying. And then, on February 26, I came across a YouTube video of a researcher with a long beard claiming that the pandemic was going to end thanks to hydroxychloroquine. I didn’t know this gentleman, so I did some research. I saw that in 2006, Didier Raoult was banned from publication in the journals of the American Society for Microbiology for a year and predicted the end of global warming. I said to myself: “Be careful, be careful.” A few days later, the IHU published its first study on hydroxychloroquine. You didn’t have to be a great scientist to see the trickery. It seemed obvious to me that he was going to be punished quickly and that this affair would not last three weeks. That’s not quite what happened…

What really made me decide to take action was when IHU professors or some of their fans began to violently attack major researchers like Dominique Costagliola (epidemiologist, biostatistician, Inserm Grand Prix in 2020), Elisabeth Bik (microbiologist and fraud hunter), Karine Lacombe (infectious disease specialist, head of the infectious diseases department at the hospital Saint-Antoine in Paris) or Amélie Boissier-Descombes (occupational doctor who is involved in the fight against medical misinformation).

Your first feat was to discover that hundreds of scientific studies from the IHU have the same authorization numberwhich is against the law, with rare exceptions. How did you do it?

One day, a person from Marseille – who wants to remain anonymous – sent me a private message saying: “You should do some research on the number 09-022 and Didier Raoult.” I returned from France and had to spend five days of quarantine – imposed by the Moroccan state – at home. So I got busy. And I discovered that 247 clinical trials had this same number, 09-022. I downloaded all the studies, looked at the list of authors, sample type, dates, countries and, most importantly, permissions. There were problems everywhere. For the record, this work caused me an injury! After five hours of reading straight, I got up, my limbs were numb, I slipped and sprained my ankle.

Months later, I wanted to check if there were other cases. And indeed, I discovered a number assigned to 39 studies, another to 14, etc. I understood that it was not an error, but a modus operandi. I used my computer skills to extract all the data on Pubpeer [NDLR : site qui recense les publications scientifiques et permet des discussions entre chercheurs]which allowed me to discover that 456 IHU studies present possible major ethical breaches.

Why are you investing so much time and effort into this fight?

One of the things that traumatized me the most was the discovery of the IHU clinical trialsince retracted, involving rectal swabs from thousands of babies. You talked about it in L’Express [NDLR : en 2021] and the ANSM investigation [Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament] confirmed that in 31 cases, the IHU was not able to provide proof of parental consent. The IHU management responded that it had the right to a percentage of error. I was heartbroken. Yes, everyone has the right to make mistakes, but these errors are found everywhere at the IHU. Not to mention we’re talking about babies. Other hunters and I have uncovered equally scandalous frauds. But when we alerted the authorities, we realized that they had known about it for a long time and had never done anything. For me, this is a textbook case of the failure of counter-powers at all levels. This could have been avoided and it disgusts me.

And then, I also feel like I owe a debt to medicine. I was born with a birth defect and almost died from it twice. Each time, I was taken care of by fantastic doctors. I’m standing. Life is beautiful.

Are you continuing to investigate the IHU?

I recently obtained a new administrative document from AP-HM which concerns hundreds of clinical trials. I don’t want to say more for the moment because I’m still working on it, but there are big surprises, such as lack of consent from patients, sometimes minors and/or foreigners. I also continue to inform the editors of scientific journals who have published problematic studies. And I work on other files unrelated to the IHU. Finding flaws has become a form of cat and mouse for me. This allows us to have another, more informed look at science. And it’s gratifying, too, because the vast majority of researchers are very happy that we are interested in their work and that we are alerting them to their flaws.