While World Rugby guidelines, supported by Premier Rugby and the RFU, state any player "suspected of losing consciousness should be immediately removed from the field", O'Driscoll argues the HIA test which North passed should be blamed for the fiasco, and not Northampton's medics.
"There's no excuse for what rugby is doing," he said. "It's damaging the game badly.
"They're carrying out an experiment which has been going on for four years where they're changing the rules at random.
"It does not work. Brain-damaged players are routinely being allowed to return to the field week after week. They have no clinical right to say this HIA test has any credibility at all. Player after player after player is going back on after damaging their brains.
"Now they're threatening the doctors and medical staff with disciplinary action for following the procedures they set down. They're putting doctors in an awful position."
Sportsmail exclusively revealed in August that former Sale player Cillian Willis is taking legal action against the Sharks for allegedly mishandling concussions during his career.
Former Clermont star Jamie Cudmore is also suing his old club after team doctors allowed him to play on after passing an HIA, despite being clearly concussed.
The concussion panel review into last weekend's incident involving North will announce their findings early this week, having interviewed Northampton's medical team on Friday. Premier Rugby insiders admit the organisation are in 'unchartered waters'.
But whatever the panel's findings, O'Driscoll insists it is the system and not individual medics that should take the brunt of the blame.
He added: 'Northampton's doctors seem to have got themselves in a bit of a mess. The angles necessary to see his loss of consciousness, which was patently obvious, they didn't see and that was probably their fault.
"But as a back-up to that, if they didn't see his loss of consciousness, why did they take him off? The answer is because they suspected concussion. If there was no HIA test they'd have taken him off and he'd have stayed off.
"It's not good enough that we let players accept being guinea pigs in an experiment. Nobody else in the world does this.
"There is no simple off-field assessment they can have which says 'you're not concussed'."
World Rugby insist their procedures are so rigorous - with independent pitch-side neurologists now in place at every international played under their umbrella - that not a single concussed player was returned to the field during last year's World Cup. But with different bodies overseeing different competitions, it is clear significant flaws in the system remain.
North, who was twice allowed to play on by Wales medics after being knocked out against England in 2015 before being stood down by his club following another concussion against Wasps last March, was this week referred to an independent neurologist by Northampton.
Director of rugby Jim Mallinder accepted the incident had been poorly handled. He said: "At the time of the incident our medics, from the views that they could see and speaking to George, believed George was not concussed. On reviewing the other views they recognised that he was, or probably was, and therefore would have probably done things differently."
Against England at Twickenham a fortnight ago, Argentina fly-half Juan Martin Hernandez appeared to be concussed in a first-half collision with Jonny May but passed an HIA and returned to the field, where he endured a torrid afternoon.
World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward tweeted: "Something was just not right with this incident and what happened - he was clearly not himself."
