Dr Didier Raoult, the French researcher behind Donald Trump’s claims that the world has found a cure for the coronavirus Covid-19 in a common antimalarial and immunosuppressant called hydroxychloroquine, renounced his collaboration with the French government in a spectacular meltdown that is par for the course for this controversial medical professional. Raoult, who with his long and unruly white locks bears a striking physical resemblance to Trump’s former personal physician Harold Bornstein, also recalls the latter doctor in his constant use of superlatives.
But unlike the mild-mannered Bornstein, Raoult is a vociferous figure, a vocal climate change denier who has been questioned on his research techniques. The microbiologist, who runs possibly the world’s foremost infectious disease department at the Méditerranée University Hospital in Marseille, has frequently been the subject of criticism, if not alarm. Once, when asked why he sports a menacing skull and cross bones ring on his pinkie finger, Raoult said it was “parce que ça les fait chier” (“to fuck with them”).
The Riviera doctor broke with French president Emmanuel Macron’s strategic coronavirus scientific study group on March 24 because he disagreed with the president’s moderate approach, preferring a massive rollout of chloroquine, manufactured as Plaquenil by French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. Raoult wants to treat all Covid-19 patients at his institute with the drug, and ignored standard protocols to test it in his trials. Sanofi has told the French government it stands at the ready to produce the drug en masse.
