Study retracted years after it set off an infamous COVID-19 treatment scandal
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump said he had been taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent a COVID-19 infection despite warnings over side effects.
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The French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics said the paper constituted a clear example of scientific misconduct, which was marked by manipulation and bias to “falsely present” the drug as effective against COVID-19. "This controversial study was the cornerstone of a global scandal," the society said in a Tuesday statement.
"The promotion of the results led to the abusive prescription of hydroxychloroquine to millions of patients, leading to unwarranted risks to millions of people and potentially thousands of avoidable deaths. The promotion of the study also lead to the proliferation of useless studies, to the detriment of research on effective treatments."
The antimalarial drug was briefly touted as a possible treatment for the novel coronavirus in early 2020 when little else was available. This early study was published just as countries were shutting down and hospital wards and morgues were filling up. It offered a glimmer of hope when doctors has few treatments available for the newly emerged virus with as it killed tens of thousands of people in its first wave.
But fellow scientists quickly raised doubts about the study's size, scientific flaws and ethics. Numerous larger controlled follow-up studies failed to confirm its findings, including numerous placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trials.
Among other misdeeds, the research team removed from the data for patients with poor treatment outcomes, 6 of the 30 treated patients, data which would have nullified the conclusions. The team leader gained notoriety from the fake study and found a platform to champion many other fringe views, such as discounting evolution and denying the existence of climate change.
The retracted paper is an example of what happens when studies and the scientific record get politicized, said Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, a scientific watchdog organization that tracked the concerns raised over this hydroxychloroquine study.
He said he’d be surprised if advocates of the drug’s disproven use against COVID-19 change their minds with the retraction. It might even backfire, hardening their views, because they think the study has been targeted by the establishment, he said.
“It’s probably frustrating to everyone involved, on every side of it,” Oransky, who also teaches medical journalism at New York University, said. “You don’t get closer to the truth by politicizing science.”
