A controversial research that promoted hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, as a therapy for Covid-19 has formally been withdrawn.
On Tuesday, Elsevier, a Dutch tutorial publishing firm which owns the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, issued the retraction of the March 2020 research, saying “considerations have been raised concerning 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 concerning the article’s methodology and conclusions”.
An investigation by Elsevier’s analysis integrity and publishing ethics workforce, in addition to the journal’s co-owner, the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, discovered a number of points inside the research, according to a prolonged retraction discover.
Among 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. According to the Association of Healthcare Journalists, equipoise is the “real uncertainty inside the professional medical neighborhood – not essentially on the a part of the person investigator – about the popular therapy.”
The retraction discover additionally stated that the journal has not been capable of set up whether or not the themes on this research ought to have offered knowledgeable consent to obtain azithromycin as a part of the research. According to 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 commonplace care on the time of the research”.
Since the research’s publication, three of its authors, Johan Courjon, Valérie Giordanengo and Stéphane Honoré, have contacted the journal to specific their considerations “concerning the presentation and interpretation of outcomes” and said that they “now not want to see their names related to the article”. Meanwhile, a number of different authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it, the retraction discover stated.
According to 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 Food 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 prone 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 knowledge manipulation and bias within the interpretation of outcomes, geared toward falsely presenting hydroxychloroquine as efficient”.
“This extremely controversial research was the cornerstone of a world 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 probably hundreds of avoidable deaths … One of the basic rules of drugs – primum non nocere (‘first, do no hurt’) – has been sacrificed right here, with dramatic penalties,” it added.
