A few days ago, the president of Harvard was forced to resign by administrators who were major donors to the university, after having allowed an anti-Semitic campaign to develop which itself continued long months of wokist and conspiratorial excesses of all kinds. . This appeared for the first time as a signal of fed up and of the resistance which is in the process of being organized against these unhealthy excesses which, beyond the academic world, extend into the most various of our Western societies. It is always very difficult for proponents of rational arguments, by definition always slow to develop, to effectively combat movements dedicated to destabilizing the established order or common sense through the use of simplistic tools and anxiety-provoking sophisms. and the use of scapegoats.
In other words, the fight is asymmetrical. When populists win a battle, the response is immense. When the proponents of reason win the war, it is amid general indifference. So, when Covid hit the world at the beginning of 2020, the medical community, taken by surprise, convinced the public authorities, while waiting to find the cure, that general confinement was essential. This was respected on almost the entire planet, an unprecedented event in the history of humanity. In France, in the great tradition of the healers of yesteryear, a sort of Prolix (reread the famous Diviner of Asterix) with a very studied look, Professor Didier Raoult, on the basis of studies carried out in defiance of all the most basic ethical, deontological and scientific rules, has provoked a gigantic false hope, around the prescription of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
Praised without caution by countless political leaders of all persuasions, from Mélenchon to Le Pen via Estrosi, Sarkozy or Royal, he received the immediate and multifaceted support of all the pharmacies and conspiracy movements, notably anti-vax, happy to find in him an unexpected spokesperson for their thesis. Three years later – an eternity – an article published in The world on May 28, 2023 by representatives of eminent research organizations made a damning indictment of Didier Raoult’s approach, methodically dismantling the most serious failings that were committed. This article appeared, like many others before it, to general indifference.
A call for vigilance for the future
And for good reason ! Three years later, the messenger RNA vaccine saved the planet, HCQ is no longer prescribed in the treatment of Covid, the highly publicized statue of the commander ad nauseam has long since fallen and the name of Didier Raoult is no longer mentioned among the general public. However, at the end of December 2023, a study published by researchers from the Hospices Civils de Lyon which brings together 13 large public hospitals concluded that HCQ was not only ineffective, but that it cost the lives of thousands of patients.
It is not up to me to comment further on this work and its necessary development. On the other hand, there is at least one lesson to be learned: it is a call for vigilance for the future. Professor Raoult’s approach will therefore have generated false hopes, caused deaths, made a considerable part of the population doubt the positive effects of vaccination, and things could have been even more serious if the public authorities did not have authority puts an end to this charade.
This story has a moral: to fight tirelessly, so that reason triumphs over passion. It is up to the government parties to take action against the populist parties. But it is also up to citizens to hear this message. We cannot constantly prove the defenders of reason wrong in principle, and show permanent indulgence towards those who develop the most irrational theses on the grounds that they would be more spectacular, less boring in somehow. In this era where there are countless tipping points, common sense reminders are essential to everyone.
Jean-François Copé, former minister, mayor (LR) of Meaux
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