Is France Once Again Looking for a Scapegoat?

Michael M Lederman; Jeffrey S Flier; Peter Hale; Ashley T Haase; William Powderly; Peter Reiss; Guido Silvestri; Rafick P Sekaly; Mirko Paiardini; Drew Weissman; Daniel R Kuritzkes; Leonard H Calabrese; Peter Agre; Gustavo Reyes-Teran; Alan L Landay; Sharon Lewin; Douglas D Richman; Paul Volberding; Peter W Hunt; Mauro Schechter

doi:10.20411/pai.v6i2.490

Is France Once Again Looking for a Scapegoat?

Pathog Immun. 2021 Dec 29;6(2):149-152. doi: 10.20411/pai.v6i2.490. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Michael M Lederman¹, Jeffrey S Flier², Peter Hale³, Ashley T Haase⁴, William Powderly⁵, Peter Reiss⁶, Guido Silvestri⁷, Rafick P Sekaly⁷, Mirko Paiardini⁷, Drew Weissman⁸, Daniel R Kuritzkes⁹, Leonard H Calabrese¹⁰, Peter Agre¹¹, Gustavo Reyes-Teran¹², Alan L Landay¹³, Sharon Lewin¹⁴, Douglas D Richman¹⁵, Paul Volberding¹⁶, Peter W Hunt¹⁶, Mauro Schechter¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio.
² Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
³ Foundation for Vaccine Research, Washington DC.
⁴ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
⁵ Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
⁶ University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁷ Emory University, Yerkes Primate Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
⁸ Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
⁹ Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
¹⁰ Cleveland Clinic, Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
¹¹ Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
¹² National Institutes of Health, Mexico City, Mexico.
¹³ Rush University, Chicago, Illinois.
¹⁴ The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne, Melbourne Australia.
¹⁵ University of California San Diego, San Diego, California.
¹⁶ University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
¹⁷ Universidade Federal do Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Abstract

On September 10, 2021, a special tribunal established by the French government launched an inquiry into the activities of former health minister Dr. Agnes Buzyn who was charged with "endangering the lives of others". It is surprising to learn of this accusation and inquiry into the actions of a public health official whose response to the epidemic was, to all appearances, exemplary.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cour de Justice de la Republique; PCR; epidemiology; facemasks; inquest; pandemic response; public health.