This discovery led the World Health Organization to suspend clinical drug trials (File)
Washington:
Three of the four authors behind a large study in The Lancet that raised safety concerns about the use of common antimalarial drugs to treat COVID-19 retracted their article Thursday, blaming a health care company that supplied the dataset.
The study retrospectively analyzed some 96,000 patient records, finding that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine showed no benefit against coronavirus and even increased the risk of dying in hospital, with cardiac arrhythmia being a concern. particular.
This discovery led the World Health Organization to suspend clinical trials on drugs, but it was quickly followed by widespread concern among scientists about the lack of information about the countries and hospitals that provided data. .
Harvard University professor Mandeep Mehra who supervised the work, along with Frank Ruschitzka from the University Hospital of Zurich and Amit Patel from the University of Utah, said in a statement that they had attempted to launch an examination by third party peers on the data.
But Surgisphere, a little-known Chicago-based health care analysis company that provided the records, refused to cooperate with the peer reviewers, who were asked to check the records and reproduce the results of the study.
“Based on this development, we can no longer guarantee the veracity of the main sources of data,” said the three.
“Due to this unfortunate development, the authors request that the document be withdrawn.”
They stressed that they had worked “in good faith and at a time when they were badly needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We sincerely apologize to you, the editors and the newspaper readers for any inconvenience or inconvenience this may have caused.”
Sapan Desai, vascular surgeon and general manager of Surgisphere, did not join the retraction. The public relations firm that represents him told AFP that he would not comment at the moment.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
