False negative Covid tests. doctors and pharmacists are required to serve a suspended sentence

5 to 12 month suspended prison terms and a 3 to 5 year practice ban were sought in Nice on Friday, December 9, against healthcare workers who gave nearly 500 false negative Covid tests. The correctional court judged “forgeries and use of falsehoods, fraud and putting others at risk» a pharmacist, biologist and doctor working in the laboratory, who are accused of giving negative tests without conducting analyses.

The investigation began after cancellations at customs and 497 officially negative tests issued in September and October 2020 for patients at the Eurofins laboratory in Montauro (Var), Peymainad and Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), which were found during searches. To the main defendant, head of the laboratory Romain Zanchi.biologist pharmacist, Bac +10“, he is accusedforged» 413 results of the tests, while the subcontractor responsible for carrying out the analyzes did not have time and means to carry them out. According to their defense, under pressure from patients worried about not seeing their results, the three men decided to declare them negative eight to 10 days after the samples were taken.

“After 48 hours, the samples were no longer usableRomain Zanchi explained. “Furthermore, according to the doctrine at the time, patients were no longer contagious after 7 days– he added, disputing the danger to customers’ health. Romain Zanchi, who is still under judicial supervision and has been unemployed for 2 years, has appealed his radiation ordered by pharmacists.

Lawyers petitioned for release

The three men are also accused of asking the Primary Health Insurance Fund (CPAM) to reimburse the tests when the tests were not done, for an estimated loss of €25,500. “I had to set them freeRomain Zanchi admitted.

45-year-old doctor Guillaume Collet, who headed the Eurofins branch in Nice and entered 43 false negatives, said:a wave of violence that fell on my lab”, going as far as death threats. “So I had to make some tough decisionsHe added, assuring him not to be.not fraudulent“. For the third defendant, Romain’s father, Gérard Zanchi, “because the competition was fasterthat the results were falsified.

For the public prosecutor.health professionals deliberately falsified the results. Law, ethics, the providential principle all dictated a different course of action“. Defense attorneys petitioned for release, and the decision was reserved for February 20.