A controversial research that promoted hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, as a therapy for Covid-19 has formally been withdrawn.
On Tuesday, Elsevier, a Dutch educational publishing firm which owns the Worldwide Journal of Antimicrobial Brokers, issued the retraction of the March 2020 research, saying “considerations have been raised relating to this text, the substance of which relate to the articles’ adherence to Elsevier’s publishing ethics insurance policies and the suitable conduct of analysis involving human contributors”.
Elsevier added that considerations had additionally been raised by “three of the authors themselves relating to the article’s methodology and conclusions”.
An investigation by Elsevier’s analysis integrity and publishing ethics crew, in addition to the journal’s co-owner, the Worldwide Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, discovered a number of points throughout the research, in keeping with a prolonged retraction discover.
Amongst these embody the journal being unable to verify whether or not any of the sufferers concerned within the research had been acquired earlier than moral approval had been obtained. The journal has additionally not been capable of set up whether or not there was equipoise between the research sufferers and the management sufferers. In line with the Affiliation of Healthcare Journalists, equipoise is the “real uncertainty throughout the knowledgeable medical group – not essentially on the a part of the person investigator – about the popular therapy.”
The retraction discover additionally mentioned that the journal has not been capable of set up whether or not the topics on this research ought to have offered knowledgeable consent to obtain azithromycin as a part of the research. In line with the unique research, the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine to deal with Covid would enhance if used with azithromycin, an antibiotic. It went on so as to add that there’s “cheap trigger to conclude that azithromycin was not thought of normal care on the time of the research”.
Because the research’s publication, three of its authors, Johan Courjon, Valérie Giordanengo and Stéphane Honoré, have contacted the journal to precise their considerations “relating to the presentation and interpretation of outcomes” and acknowledged that they “not want to see their names related to the article”. In the meantime, a number of different authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it, the retraction discover mentioned.
In line with Nature, the research is the highest-cited paper on Covid-19 to be retracted, in addition to the second-most-cited retracted paper general.
In March 2020, the US Meals and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization that allowed for the stockpiling of hydroxychloroquine, in addition to its distribution and use for sure hospitalized sufferers with Covid-19.
Then US president Donald Trump additionally touted hydroxychloroquine as a miracle drug for Covid-19, at one level claiming that he was taking the drug prophylactically. Earlier this yr, a research printed within the peer-reviewed Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy journal discovered that individuals who took hydroxychloroquine had been 11% extra more likely to die from Covid.
Following the research’s retraction, the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics issued an announcement, saying that the research “constitutes a transparent instance of scientific misconduct, marked by information manipulation and bias within the interpretation of outcomes, aimed toward falsely presenting hydroxychloroquine as efficient”.
“This extremely controversial research was the cornerstone of a worldwide scandal. The promotion of its outcomes led to the overprescription of hydroxychloroquine to thousands and thousands of sufferers, leading to pointless risk-taking for thousands and thousands of individuals and doubtlessly hundreds of avoidable deaths … One of many elementary ideas of drugs – primum non nocere (‘first, do no hurt’) – has been sacrificed right here, with dramatic penalties,” it added.
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