Two Marseille IHUMI/AMU papers retracted by Scientific Reports

Yesterday, October 30, 2023, Scientific Reports retracted two papers from the group of Didier Raoult. Both papers described studies in which stool samples were taken from malnourished children in African countries, and both were retracted because of the lack of ethical approval from these countries to obtain samples.

The two retracted papers are:

• Increased Gut Redox and Depletion of Anaerobic and Methanogenic Prokaryotes in Severe Acute Malnutrition – Matthieu Million et al. – Scientific Reports (2016) – doi: 10.1038/srep26051 [Retraction Notice] [PubPeer]
• Gut Microbiota Alteration is Characterized by a Proteobacteria and Fusobacteria Bloom in Kwashiorkor and a Bacteroidetes Paucity in Marasmus – Thi-Phuong-Thao Pham et al. – Scientific Reports (2019) – doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-45611-3 [Retraction Notice] [PubPeer]

Both papers list authors affiliated with the Aix-Marseille University (AMU) and IHU-Méditerranée Infection (IHUMI), in Marseille, France, and both papers list professor Didier Raoult as a corresponding author. Raoult has a whopping 455 papers listed on PubPeer for concerns ranging from suspected image manipulation to lack of ethical approval to carry out human research.

The French permit to study humans in Niger and Senegal seems insufficient

The 2016 paper analyzed stool samples obtained from 79 children in Senegal and Niger, while the 2019 paper described fecal strains from 22 children in the same two countries. A number of these children were malnourished, and the goal of the studies was to analyze which stool bacteria are associated with malnutrition.

Both studies only obtained ethical permission from a Marseille, France, committee attached to the Coroner service.

The 2016 paper stated: “All aspects of the study were approved by the local ethics committee ‘Comité d’éthique de l’IFR 48, Service de Médecine Légale (Faculté de Médecine, Marseille, France) under accession number 09–022, 2010. Informed consent was obtained and the nature and possible consequences of the studies were explained. Only verbal consent from patients or parents was required for this study according to French bioethics decree Number 2007–1220, published in the official journal of the French Republic and to article L1211-2 of the French Code of Public Health. Professor DIALLO and Professor ADEHOSSI certified that this study was not in opposition to the declaration of Helsinki and in accordance with Senegalese and Nigerien laws respectively (certificates available on request).”

From the 2019 paper: “The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Institute Fédératif de Recherche 48 (IFR48), Marseille, France under agreement number 09-022. All experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations of the institution.”

It appears that both studies used the same ethical approval number, i.e. 09-022, given by the Marseille coroner-associated service. There was no indication of approval by any of the French Comités de Protection des Personnes (CPPs), regional bodies that must approve research on human subjects. Unlike an Institutional Review Board (IRB) in the US, French institutions cannot approve their own research on humans. But permission for these studies from a CPP did not appear to have been forthcoming. [Side note: there is a discussion on whether obtaining stool samples would qualify as doing human research. This would require IRB approval in the US, but the Raoult lab has stated that stool samples are ‘excrement’ and that they do not need IRB approval to study them.]

Either way, no permission was obtained from an official French IRB (CPP). The researchers simply received a permit from a local coroner, then went to Africa to collect samples, without saying whether they had obtained permission from the local authorities in Senegal and Niger to carry out research in those countries. They were also unable to provide the journal with evidence of such permission.

Both retraction notices state: “The Authors were not able to provide documentation of appropriate approval from an ethics committee in either Niger or Senegal, where the participants in this study were based.”

Neocolonial science

Ideally, this issue should have been caught during peer review, and as part of the editorial process after acceptance of the manuscript. There are many other studies from the Raoult lab (which published an incredible 3,500 papers!) that have been reported for similar problems.

In several of these papers the AMU/IHUMI researchers went to countries in Africa to obtain and analyze human stool samples without any approval from those nations, and often without local researchers as authors.

I wrote about this unethical practice two years ago here on my blog. As I explained there, these studies may fall under the definition of ‘neo-colonial’ science, also called ‘helicopter’ research.

So far, the Raoult lab has mostly gotten away with these practices by bullying and intimidating anyone who dared to raise critical questions (as I experienced myself), and by publishing most studies in scientific journals that were under their own control.

Despite some damning reports about the functioning of the Raoult lab, the French authorities have largely looked the other way. And now that Raoult is retired, there are no signs that there will be any consequences for this lab’s unethical studies. At least some scientific journals, such as Scientific Reports, are now beginning to retract these papers.