THEY WERE WRONG: Authors retract study alleging hydroxychloroquine was too dangerous for COVID-19 patients

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Last month, Donald Trump announced that he had been talking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against coronavirus after two White House staffers tested positive for the illness.

Before that, in March, Quartz reported that the President first mentioned the drug’s use to treat patients during a press conference:



“…Donald Trump surprised some observers in the medical sciences world when he revealed the US Food and Drugs Administration had approved the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of the coronavirus in patients.”

Often combined with zinc, hydroxychloroquine was noted to show “encouraging signs in small, early tests against the coronavirus.” The drug was developed a decade after its predecessor chloroquine was first used to successfully treat malaria in the 1930s.

Authors retract study denouncing hydroxychloroquine

And now, the authors of a major study that purported to show that hydroxychloroquine is “dangerous for hospitalized covid-19 patients” are retracting their conclusion, saying they “can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.”

The study first appeared in the medical journal The Lancet, which in 2010 retracted a 12-year-old article that falsely linked the MMR vaccine to autism.

Malaria drugs gained prominence in early days of virus

Back in February 2020, when we first started calling the Wuhan coronavirus COVID-19, medical doctors all over the world were trying drugs originally designed for AIDS, Ebola and malaria.

As reported in the LA Times,

“A more unorthodox remedy being tested against the coronavirus in China is chloroquine.

“The drug is intended to treat malaria, a condition caused by a parasite transmitted through a mosquito bite. A limited number of studies suggest the drug can work against SARS. In laboratory tests, it kept COVID-19 from spreading by blocking its method of infecting cells, according to a report last week in the journal Cell Research.”

Media turns against treatment

Trump liked hydroxychloroquine, so the press had to hate it even as countries around the world worked to stockpile the drug.

It’s an “unproven drug,” decried The Guardian.

“No benefit, higher death rate in patients taking hydroxychloroquine,” reported CNN.

Satire articles sprang up and it wasn’t long until the Fish Tank Cleaner Lady‘s accidental death turned into a murder investigation.

The Lancet‘s retraction: Study published without an “independent audit”

Earlier this afternoon, The Lancet released the following retraction issued by the authors chiefly apologizing to “the editors”:

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Shades of East Anglica’s refusal to share data for independent checking when it came to global warming’s biggest boost, the Hockey Stick paper of Prof. Michael Mann.

This HCQ retracted study came from a “research company” with 6 total employees.
One writes fantasy stories, one is a body builder, a third is a hand & foot model.
Maybe the other three are really good at research.
They insisted, like Michael Mann, that their data could not be shared with experts who said their math didn’t add up.

@Nan G: Anyone with a shred of intelligence could understand that there was fraud in this study. Millions of people had been taking hydroxychloroquine with out the side effects that were being described by the media and the FDA. More millions had been taking chloroquine with similar results. Thousands of health providers were also taking hydroxychloroquine and stock piling quantities for their families to prevent them from getting the virus.

It is also apparent that Trump Resisters killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people to try to make the President look silly. Thousands of scientists and the World Health Organization violated their ethical responsibilities as a scientists or health providers to support their political views. The people of the World can no longer have confidence in those hypocritical people. Licensing bureaus should remove their licenses to practice medicine . A country or World that must rely upon a body of scientists and health care providers with out ethics has no health care program.

Now the New England Journal of fake news is apologizing for not reviewing the fake studies. Looks like another former respected media source for real information has succumbed to the “consensus” approach to facts instead of following the scientific method. Where are you greggie the rock! These are the sources you bet your life and many other people’s lives on!

OH! how the liberals and their media were dancing in the streets over this “study! They were ecstatic because Trump had said HCQ was promising and, then, that he was taking it. “Oh, look how stupid Trump is!! First, drink bleach and now THIS!!”

Dumbasses of their own construction. They are a hazard to themselves and others. Trump, again: RIGHT. Liberals, again:WRONG. Don’t they ever get tired of getting their asses kicked?

@Randy: Hey… THEY believe in science… everyone else denies science. Of course, their interpretation of “science” is some words some half-witted hack puts together which EVERY sycophantic lemming will leap upon like a dog licking up bacon grease.

The only science the M.S. Media beleives in is all based upon total Theory like Evolution and Climate Change

Here’s one of the most recent studies. The conclusions are not based on a randomly collected medical reports. The conclusions are based on a carefully controlled clinical study, where a comparison was made between two large groups of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The only difference between the two groups was that the patients in one received hydrochloriquine in conjunction with a full range of hospital care and support, while the patients in the second did not.

Hydrochloroquine treatment provided zero benefit. In fact, those were treated with it were 11 percent more likely to die. While 11 percent higher fatality rate was considered statistically insignificant in the context of a single clinical trial, it definitely can’t be taken as an indicator of safety.

The bottom line here would be possibly safe, but very likely ineffective.

The main problem with the hydrochloroquine cures COVID-19 pitch is that the motivation was political, not medical. It was used to help break down social distancing measures so consumers would more quickly get out there to resume spending, and workers would more quickly get out there to resume working.

June 5, 2020 – Study: Hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, possibly closing door to use of drug

A major clinical trial showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, likely closing the door to the use of the highly publicized medicine in the sickest patients — a use for which it was widely prescribed as the pandemic hit the U.S.

The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t.

“Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease,” University of Oxford epidemiologist Martin Landray, one of the study’s leaders, said in a statement. “This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomized trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.”

A total of 1,542 received hydroxychloroquine, and 3,132 received usual care. After 28 days of treatment, 25.7% of those on hydroxychloroquine and 23.5% of those received usual care had died, meaning those on hydroxychloroquine were 11% more likely to die. That difference was not statistically significant.

There was “no beneficial effect” on how long patients stayed in the hospital, or on other outcomes.

The results were shared via a press release, which the study’s lead authors shared on Twitter. They have not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. The researchers said that full results would be shared as soon as possible.

Still, experts said even the top-line results showed they were meaningful.

“This is a hugely important finding that will likely end use of the drug in hospitalized Covid patients, given the other existing data as well,” said Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh. Gellad said that he is curious to see the results of other ongoing studies, and that it is still an open question whether the medicine might work earlier in the disease. “We need real answers there as well,” he said.

Robert Califf, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and Alphabet employee, tweeted that the study “essentially rules out benefit of [hydroxychloroquine] in critically ill hospitalized patients.” He wrote that the results showed “no benefit; no major risk.”

In addition to being used for malaria, hydroxychloroquine is prescribed to treat conditions including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. But it was known to increase the risk of arrhythmias.

The FDA still authorized emergency use of the drug in hospitalized patients in March, citing the possible safety issues.

Concerns were heightened by a May 22 study in British medical journal the Lancet. That study, which claimed to use a database from hundreds of hospitals around the world, seemed to indicate that treatment with hydroxychloroquine increased the death rate and the rate of arrhythmias.

But on Thursday, the Lancet retracted that study at the request of the authors after widespread questions about the database the study used and the company, Surgisphere, that had provided it. The authors not associated with Surgisphere had asked for the data to be audited, and Surgisphere refused. As such, they wrote, “we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.”

On Wednesday, another group of researchers released results from another randomized study, testing whether giving people hydroxychloroquine shortly after they have been exposed to someone with Covid-19 could prevent disease transmission. That study also showed no benefit, thought some researchers, including Gellad and Califf, say some effect is still possible.

“It could still have an effect given very early in disease, although less and less likely every day that passes,” Gellad said.

There are dozens of studies ongoing with hydroxychloroquine, more than for any other potential Covid-19 treatment, including studies that combine it with antibiotics such as azithromycin or doxycycline. But the results appear to show the benefit of putting resources into testing medicines in large randomized trials, the medical gold standard, during a pandemic.

The RECOVERY trial represented an early and large effort at such studies, testing not only hydroxychloroquine but also a pair of HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir, and the steroid dexamethasone. The study was later expanded to also test using plasma from recovered patients to treat those who are still ill.

@Greg: You are still a loser greggie the rock. Hydrochloroquine treatment works best to prevent critical symptoms. That is what the successful uses have showed. When paired with an antibiotic and zinc, it prevents the virus from attaching to the body cells. This study was successful in showing that it did no harm to foil the fake news. Now if they had properly done the study at the ideal time, they may have actually showed results that others have showed. You need to get a little smarter greggie the rock. Apples are not oranges!

@Greg:
Greg, if you go to the link for the actual study, (35 page pdf) you will see why Randy in #7 is correct.
It’s a bad study for this drug.
What were the outcomes they EXPECTED in this study?
The participants were so sick that they were ONLY these:
Death, need for ventilation and need for
renal replacement therapy.
Pretty sick puppies.
HCQ is supposed to be used after EXPOSURE but before any symptoms.
Not after showing really bad symptoms!

@Randy, #7:

Hydrochloroquine treatment works best to prevent critical symptoms.

It works except when it doesn’t. You could also carry a lucky rabbit’s foot on your key chain and assert that it prevented you from becoming critically ill. No harm done, unless your belief is strong enough that you cease taking precautions to reduce the likelihood of exposure. Then your rabbit’s foot increases the likelihood of serious illness.

@Greg: You really are a rock head greggie. Specific procedures need to be followed when a test is being performed IAW with scientific procedures. No one ever said it was a miracle drug. The proponents said it was an inexpensive solution to prevention and minimizing initial symptoms. When you wait to treat someone on their last gasps of life, nothing rarely helps. It is quite obvious that you have no knowledge about scientific processes and the procedures that are necessary to determine effectiveness of a drug. You only believe in consensus and the consensus here is you are a rock.

@Nan G: greggie the rock can not understand the studies he quotes. If he just listened to the health care providers who are and have been taking Hydrochloroquine cocktails he would understand that what the media is writing is fake news and not followed by those in the know.

I understand better than you seem to believe. Why anyone would think mainstream news outlets are providing fake news about the COVID-19 pandemic is beyond me. A false sense of security may turn out to be a greater danger to the economy than excessive caution.

June 5, 2020 – Florida Sets New Single-Day Record for Coronavirus Cases Since Reopening Economy, Over 4,000 in Three Days

@Greg: Yes greggie the rock, I can understand why you can not understand why news outlets are providing fake news about the COVID-19 “pandemic”. We understand that there is little you understand. Did you ever think that the increase in virus cases may be due to the major effort to test a larger fraction of the population? It has been determined that most people who have or have had the virus are asymptomatic. testing more people help the medical support understand what the actual number of total cases really is.

@Greg: It’s over. It’s done. The cover is yanked off. A politically motivated bogus “study” was cobbled together to try and show Trump was wrong. It failed. “The Lancet”, like the NYT, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and others, jumped on this study without wondering if it was worth the paper it was printed on. A little too anxious to get that “bombshell”. Then all the other propaganda outlets took off a-runnin’ with it as well.

All made fools of. All made to look totally stupid. Well, we tried to tell you, didn’t we? How many told you, “But, it’s WORKING. Doctors prescribe it because it works. People recover from COVID19 because it works.” But you thought you had that bombshell.

When will you people learn? When are you going to realize and finally admit you are JUST WRONG?

Why anyone would think mainstream news outlets are providing fake news about the COVID-19 pandemic is beyond me.

No it isn’t. You know exactly why. Your propaganda outlets don’t report anything that is not designed to undercut Trump. In this case, it was intended to simply be a minor embarrassment; Trump says HCQ is good, this “study” says he’s stupid. It all blew right up in your ignorant faces. Wash it off… quickly. Black face is not looked kindly upon anymore, no matter what the excuse.

The study says what it says. Donald Trump is not a doctor. He’s not even a particularly bright layman. His audience is a reality television show audience. Neither Trump’s critics nor the media put him at the center of the controversy about the drug. He put himself there. He created the controversy.

No properly conducted study has demonstrated hydroxychloroquine is useful in the treatment or prevention of covid-19 disease. There are new studies coming in that indicate it is not.

The means of reducing the spread of the virus that are known to be effective are the means that people are beginning to ignore.

@Greg: But he took the advice of his doctor greggie the rock! You just can not help but be a loser. Has that been the story of your life?

@Greg:

The study says what it says.

TThe “study” lied.

Donald Trump is not a doctor.

That’s right. And he’s never prescribed any medications, either. However, all across the MSM people that are not only not doctors but the STUPIDEST excuses for human sacks of defecant tell the public a proven successful treatment is NOT successful. That is absolute criminal irresponsibility, just like they said Trump said to drink Lysol and some, apparently, did.

More politically-manipulated “studies” on the way, you say?

You can’t find any credible medical evidence demonstrating that hydroxychloroquine is effective at preventing or treating COVID-19 disease, because there’s no such evidence to be found.

Go ahead. Try to find some. See what you come up with. And remember, credible is the word that counts. B.S. assertions without legitimate statistical evidence behind them are a dime a dozen. They mean nothing.

@Greg: Nah, just thousands and thousands of success stories of its use. Meanwhile, what shows it is ineffective or harmful? A FAKE STUDY. Case closed. End of debate. Settled science.

@Deplorable Me: greggie the rock still puts his pulled teeth under the pillow at night!

@Deplorable Me:

Nah, just thousands and thousands of success stories of its use.

Actually, I haven’t heard a single specific story where it’s reasonable to assume it was the drug that made a positive difference. I’ve only heard repeated claims that there have been thousands of such successes.

@Greg: Your self-sustained willful ignorance is not my problem. I have and seen people actually testify to its benefits.

I’ve seen people testifying that some televangelist has remotely cured them of the palsy, or made a thousand dollars miraculously turn up in their mail box. Could I interest you in a Ronco Flapdoodle Detector? Only $49.95! Free shipping, while supplies last! Get out your credit card, pick up that phone, and order NOW!

@Greg:

I’ve seen people testifying that some televangelist has remotely cured them of the palsy, or made a thousand dollars miraculously turn up in their mail box

And then there is the Democrat Party that has been selling snake oil to minorities since 1965.

Again, cowardly Comrade Greggie, tell us what the Democrats have done for blacks EVAH. Or will you just tell me to F myself again since you really can’t list anything?

I’m not black, so it isn’t my place to speak for any black person. Nor yours. Like anyone else, they can and will make up their own minds who they want to vote for.

@Greg:

I’m not black, so it isn’t my place to speak for any black person. Nor yours. Like anyone else, they can and will make up their own minds who they want to vote for.

Comrade Greggie, ever the cowardly weasel.

@Greg: Maybe you should vary your news sources greggie the rock. There are major universities showing results. Enjoy your flapdoodle since that is consistent with your level of thought.

@Greg:

’m not black, so it isn’t my place to speak for any black person. Nor yours. Like anyone else, they can and will make up their own minds who they want to vote for.

They’ll vote for who the Democrat elite WANT them to vote for or the Democrat elite will change their vote to the “proper” vote.