‘Failure at every level’: How science sleuths exposed massive ethics violations at a famed French institute

With six studies published in the 2010s, French microbiologist Didier Raoult added to his already vast publication record. He and his colleagues conducted a wide range of investigations into infectious diseases and their treatments. They took stool samples from patients on long-term antibiotic treatment, looking for alterations in their gut microbiome. They swabbed the throats of pilgrims leaving France for Mecca, searching for evidence of a bacterium that causes brain abscesses. And they studied samples of heart valves and blood clots from patients with heart inflammation to refine tests for the bacteria that cause the condition. But in January, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) journals that published the papers announced they were retracting all six , along with a seventh by Raoult’s colleagues. Aix-Marseille University had investigated the research, which was done at its affiliated Hospital Institute of Marseille Mediterranean Infection (IHU), a research hospital that Raoult led until his retirement in 2021. The investigation found the work had not been reviewed by one of France’s highly regulated national ethical committees. It was therefore in violation of French law and the Declaration of Helsinki, an international ethics document that guides clinical research. In a written statement sent to Science , Raoult says ASM retracted the papers without accounting for his team’s r...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research