One might believe it to be a bad gag as the sequence of events appears as absurd as it is distressing. Didier Raoult who writes “Thank you little brother” to Booba. The rapper, who threatens and insults copiously (“lobotomized”, “son of a bitch”“Is a headbutt to your grandmother a barrier gesture?“) the doctors and researchers who call on him not to relay disinformation, in particular the oncologist Jérôme Barrière. All of this revolves around a video from the spokesperson for an anti-vax association which accuses anti-Covid-19 vaccines of transmitting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and messages from the former director of the IHU of Marseille suggesting that they also cause cancer. But how did we get there?
It all starts on January 17. That day, Didier Raoult, in full promotion of his new book, published a message on the X platform (formerly Twitter). He accuses anti-Covid-19 vaccines of being “agents of cancer, in particular lymphomas and leukemias” because they contain “considerable quantities of DNA” and promises that his next intervention will focus on demonstrating how these same vaccines “produced unknown proteins which perhaps explain the unexpected occurrence of Creutzfeld-Jacob encephalopathy (sic)”, better known as mad cow disease. Two false pieces of information that have been circulating for almost three years.
“You are delirious, Professor Raoult”
Claims that messenger RNA vaccines increase the risk of developing or worsening cancer have already been repeatedly dismissed by learned cancer societies around the world. A collective of around fifty oncologists – including Jérôme Barrière – had also published an article in L’Express in 2023 on this subject. The text, written after analysis of the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Database) post-vaccination adverse event reporting database and the scientific literature published until the beginning of March 2023 – i.e. several thousand scientific articles in the largest journals international organizations – refuted these allegations point by point.
Since then, no data has called these conclusions into question. “There is still no sign coming from epidemiological surveillance, which is extremely vigilant regarding vaccines: when there are concerns, we know it quickly, nothing is hidden and to claim the opposite is serious, because false” , confirms Dr. Barrière, interviewed by L’Express. The oncologist is not the only one to be saddened by Didier Raoult’s message. “You’re delirious,” says Steve Pascoloimmunologist at Zurich hospital and one of the pioneers of research on messenger RNA vaccines, before recalling that there is DNA in all vaccines and that some are even based on DNA (chickenpox, smallpox), without any case of cancer induction having been reported.
As for the link between the injection and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, there is, again, no scientific evidence to support it. “This disease is caused by a prion – a type of protein – and takes years to appear, there is no physiological possibility that could explain why it develops a few days or weeks after an injection, says Dr. Barrier. And there is no alert from epidemiological surveillance concerning a possible link between vaccine and Creutzfeldt-Jakob.”
Messages that hit the mark among anti-vaxxers… including Booba
The fact remains that Didier Raoult’s message still meets its audience. Only a few minutes later, Marc Doyer, the spokesperson for Verity France, an association which has been relaying false information about Covid for years, exults. He broadcasts, still on X, a video to thank the former director of the IHU of Marseille, convinced that he will provide the proof that he has been looking for for so long. Because Marc Doyer is convinced: the Pfizer anti-Covid-19 vaccine killed his ex-wife – who died in 2022 – by causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. “Today I am speaking to the assassins: because I have been warning for months. It turns out that I was right,” he says in front of the camera.
But it was the next day that his message received unexpected visibility, since Booba decided to relay the video on his X account with 6.3 million subscribers. “I’m taking the risk… I know he’s telling the truth and you know it too. Far too many people are in his situation. Open your eyes, it’s now or never,” the rapper wrote on January 18, in a message which has 2.4 million views, 3,000 shares and 80,000 likes to date. Several researchers and doctors then tried to warn the singer. “Sir. You share content that is not based on any serious scientific data. Your account is followed by millions of people. Don’t you think that you should maintain a certain reserve before giving your opinion on a subject that you do not understand not?”, writes Jérôme Barrière in particular. The message is cordial. The responses he provokes are of rare violence.
“You idiot,” Booba first retorts. “Shut up murderer!“, he then adds. To an independent researcher who reminds him that he is speaking to a cancer specialist specializing in the subject, the rapper uses even more flowery language: “I’m speaking to a lobotomized imbecile and you… ‘I’m an FDP and I can prove it.’ he writes to the oncologist, before attacking other specialists, including Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the UFMLS union. At the same time, a horde of Internet users are engaging in massive cyberharassment consisting of thousands of insults and threats against these specialists. However, the next day, Didier Raoult congratulates Booba. “Thanks for the support, little brother,” he wrote. Should we be surprised, given that Didier Raoult has long been at war with the researchers – including Jérôme Barrière – who participated in his downfall?
The fight against disinformation under attack
“I have received nearly 1,000 messages, 80-90% of which are negative. I haven’t slept much in recent days, my loved ones are worried about my safety and fear that someone unbalanced will react to the messages accusing me to be an assassin, confides Jérôme Barrière, stunned. The oncologist deplores the slow drift of for having disseminated anti-vax content, today this is no longer possible”. He also points out the responsibility of the media which invite disinformers without contradictors. A danger which underlines the importance of the future law against sectarian aberrations in health, currently under discussion in the National Assembly.
Dr Barrière questions, above all, his public health information action on social networks. “I do all this for free in my free time, because I believe in this cause, but we have everything to lose whereas on the other hand, when we scratch a little, they always have something to sell: books, contributions for an association, perlimpinpin products, he denounces. But I also refuse to accept that obscurantism wins and that we allow anyone to say anything, that fear takes power and that we say ‘better to keep quiet’, because we would all lose.” Fortunately, doctors and researchers who defend scientific information have received messages of support, including those from many strangers, but also Aurélien Rousseauformer Minister of Health and Prevention, who was keen to provide his “total support” to those who are “fully committed to illuminating the debates in the light of science and evidence”.
.