Scientific fraud and ethical breaches: the team behind the fall of Didier Raoult

Today, they form a team of nine enthusiasts who tirelessly track down scientific fraud. But before the Covid-19 crisis, they did not know each other… or from very far away. At the time, their common point was to express themselves on Twitter in order to share scientific studies which seemed relevant to them, to question the weaknesses of others, even to criticize more frontally those presenting manifestly questionable data or conclusions. . “It all started in March 2020, remembers Lonni Besançon, researcher in data visualization at Linköping University (Sweden). At the time, Guillaume Limousin (“Sonic Urticant“on Twitter), a mathematics professor also committed to ethics, identifies many profiles who share common struggles and invites them to discuss together”. Little by little, some discover an unusual passion: the critical analysis of scientific articles, but also the desire to use their skills to better analyze and popularize the impressive quantity of scientific articles on Covid-19. .

This is how Lonni Besançon, Véronique Saada, biologist at the Gustave Roussy Center in Villejuif, Fabrice Frank, computer scientist, Nans Florens, nephrologist at the University Hospitals of Strasbourg, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, epidemiologist at Sydney’s West (Australia), Jérôme Barrière, oncologist at the Saint-Jean polyclinic in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Éric Billy, researcher in immuno-oncology at the Novartis NIBR*, Alexander Samuel, doctor in molecular biology and Jacques Robert, professor emeritus of oncology at the University of Bordeaux and former President of the French Cancer Society, were gradually led to work together. A small group that is ultimately very heterogeneous: hard to imagine that they could work together. “Precisely, the fact that we all come from different worlds has been a strength, it has created a very enriching complementarity”, explains Véronique Saada.

Work at the origin of the fall of Didier Raoult

Their latest collective work is the publication, in Research Integrity and Peer Review, of a scientific study showing that at least 456 publications of the IHU of Marseille, of which a large part is signed by its former director Didier Raoult, present ethical or legal breaches. With in particular the use of the same authorization number for 248 studies, whereas such a number cannot – in almost all cases – be used only once.

The beginnings of this long-term work, started in 2021 by Fabrice Frank, then gradually enriched by the rest of the team, were reported in an investigation by L’Express. The preliminary conclusions, already extremely serious at the time, helped to trigger the investigations of the National Health and Medicines Agency and that, jointly, of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS), which led to the departure of Didier Raoult and a (partial) reorganization of the IHU. The authors nevertheless wish to insist on a point which seems crucial to them: “Our approach has never been part of an anti-Raoult movement, but in an analysis which is in favor of more ethics in biomedical research”.

Moreover, if this scientific study represents their most important feat of arms, they have tackled many other problems in the past. From April 2020, Lonni Besançon and Eric Billy, helped by other researchers, thus embarked on the analysis of a worrying phenomenon: the extremely rapid publication of numerous scientific studies relating to Covid. Their work, published on June 5, 2021 in BMC Medical Research Methodology, show that more than 200 scientific studies were accepted by scientific journals less than a day after receipt, while this process of proofreading and verification normally takes months. They also reveal conflicts of interest and flagrant ethical breaches, since the authors of these studies very often had editorial roles in the offending journals.

At the same time, Lonni Besançon is embarking on another collaboration, this time with Gideon Meyerowitz‐Katz. Their goal ? “Debunk” several works according to which containment would not have had an impact on the spread of Covid-19. In March 2021, they publish in Scientific Reports a detailed critique of one of these studies. They obtain, eight months later, to be retractedthat is to say, withdrawn from the journal in which it had been published.

At war against embezzlement and misinformation

In May 2021, Lonni Besançon, Gideon Meyerowitz‐Katz and Alexander Samuel also publish an open letter defending Elisabeth Bik. This Dutch microbiologist, specialist in scientific integrity, has been fighting scientific fraud for years. By taking an interest in the work of Didier Raoult, she spotted a large number of errors which were later confirmed and formed the basis of numerous investigations aimed at the IHU. Enough to attract the wrath of the former director of the IHU of Marseille, who decided to sue him. “He insulted her again this week, saying in an interview that she’s ‘crazy’ and that she’s ‘completely crazy'”, recalls Fabrice Frank.

At the start of 2022, Jacques Robert, the only member not to be on Twitter, joined the group after having published a column in the Bulletin du Cancer. “I denounced the betrayal, by their passivity and their softness, of the institutions – the CNRS, the INSERM and the Universities – vis-à-vis scientific fraud, he summarizes. My platform attracted attention of Jérôme Barrière, whom I had known when he was internal, who posted it on his Twitter account.

The two decide to get closer, including leaning on a study by Stéphanie Seneff and Peter A. McCullough, two American researchers and figures of conspiracy across the Atlantic, published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. “That’s when I thought that making threads on Twitter was taking too long, remembers Eric Billy. I calculated that explaining or criticizing a scientific publication in a way that is clear and accessible to the general public took about two hours. I understood that we were wasting a little time and that it was better to invest it in writing debunking work for scientific journals”. Finally, the whole group joins forces to go through the “Seneff publication” in order to find errors and manipulations. “This work spread lies about the toxicity of anti-Covid vaccines; we then led the fight to have it retracted… Without success so far, even if we have managed to publish, in the same journal, a refutation point per point of the article in question”, rejoices Jacques Robert.

Insults, harassment and little support

In the meantime, Lonni Besançon, Eric Billy, Fabrice Frank, Alexander Samuel and other researchers, including Elisabeth Bik, began working on the “Gautret study”, the first IHU study supposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19. The results of their analysis, published in May 2023, confirm that the work of the IHU is wrong and do not demonstrate the effectiveness of this molecule. “One of our motivations in the fight against scientific disinformation was also to demystify the association between anti-Covid vaccines and cancer, remembers Véronique Saada. This false information, widely relayed in conspiracy networks, pushed Jérôme Barrière to write a column that we co-signed, with 50 oncologists, and which was published in L’Express.”

This work, which they carry out on a voluntary basis, has drawn them numerous criticisms and insults on social networks, and has sometimes even provoked campaigns of harassment, in particular from fans of the IHU or conspiracy theorists firmly convinced by studies fraudulent. “What is certain is that all of this has brought us nothing, neither financially nor in any other way”, underlines Fabrice Franck. Faced with the ingratitude of the task, some have sometimes given up, or even been tempted to give up. “But there is an energy that has been maintained in the group, because each time someone faltered, others took over, that was one of our strengths”, rejoices Véronique Saada. “Without teamwork, we can’t achieve anything”, insists Eric Billy.

Another factor of their motivation was the timidity of many French scientific figures who did not dare to criticize frauds which were however obvious. “It was something that struck us, even if it was not so surprising: the academics, the PU-PHs and other professors were often absent. Apart from a few, there was an omerta”, they add collectively. “Of course, there are always careers at stake in these situations, I took 10 years in the closet, from 2005 to 2015, for opposing the director of the Institute of the Cancer Center, illustrious Jacques Robert. Fortunately, we still received a lot of support behind the scenes.” Alexander Samuel recalls, for example, that doctors from the IHU and AP-HM, worried about the excesses of their colleagues, did not hesitate to contact their group in order to thank them, sometimes even to provide them with information. For if scientific embezzlement remains numerous, there are still, very fortunately, many researchers ready to defend ethics and scientific integrity.

*Eric Billy is acting in his personal capacity.