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Controversy around a symposium on Covid-19 to be held this Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 March. It brings together anti-vaccine figures in particular and must take place at the Marseille University Hospital Institute directed by Pr. Didier Raoult. Founding organizations of the institute requested the relocation of this meeting.
Their request will have been in vain. The symposium will indeed take place within the Mediterranean Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU MI), led by Didier Raoult, despite the call from the founding members of this institute – among them the University of ‘Aix Marseille and the Research Institute for Development, joined by Inserm.
The National Institute of Health and Medical Research said in a statement: The founding members have not been consulted and are in no way associated with this meeting. They therefore ask the management of the IHU to give up holding this meeting within its establishment. »
The conference is titled ” Covid-19 first assessment of scientific knowledge and controversies “. The floor will be given to speakers whose positions have been challenged by the scientific community, the American Robert Malone for example, an anti-vaccine figure; another promotes ivermectin, a molecule not recommended for treating Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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Didier Raoult, whose positions on the epidemic are against the scientific consensus, indicated on Twitter to host the congress ” for the sake of freedom of expression, without censoring or condoning it. The director of the IHU MI, who should leave his post in the fall of 2022, will inaugurate the colloquium with a speech.
A decision that others perceive as yet another exit from the road, yet another provocation, which will be housed, in fact, in an institute largely financed by public funds.
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