Trump pins coronavirus hope on a climate skeptic

Scott Waldman, E&E News reporter Published: Friday, March 27, 2020

Raoult has a history of challenging science outside of his field of expertise, including claims that Darwin's theory of evolution was wrong and that climate models are overblown.

"Climate predictions are absurd," he wrote in a 2013 piece for a French publication, Le Point, in which Raoult declared he "hates climate forecasts." [and] that those who take action against climate change — as well as those who do the research to examine it — have taken "more of a religious approach than a science."

"Our sense of guilt explains the transformation of the debate into something of an unscientific nature," he wrote.

While Raoult has no climate credentials... he published a book this month called "Epidemics, Real Dangers and False Alarms."

SLATE REPORTS:

... While his fans applaud the 3,000 scientific articles Raoult has co-signed, his critics argue that these staggering numbers do not add up. Do the math, they remark, and it turns out the Marseillais researcher publishes more papers in a month than most productive researchers publish in a career.

Raoult’s method, according to one critic, is to task a young researcher at IHU with an experiment, then co-sign the piece before it is submitted to publication. “Raoult is thus able to reach this absolutely insane number of publications every year,” according to one anonymous source quoted by the site Mediapart. More disturbingly, the critic added, “it is simply impossible for Raoult to verify all of these papers...”
Combining ... hydroxychloroquine—and an antibiotic, Raoult treated 24 patients at IHU in early March who had tested positive for COVID-19. After six days, the virus had vacated the bodies of three-quarters of those same patients. [THE OTHER QUARTER QUIT THE STUDY !]

On March 16, Raoult announced the results not in a scientific journal but in a YouTube video, in which he declared the jig was up for the virus.