A 2020 paper that claimed to show that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for COVID-19 was finally retracted this week following years criticism from scientists who said it contained major flaws and might have violated ethics regulations.
The paper claimed that hydroxychloroquine reduced virus samples in patients, especially when combined with the antibiotic azithromycin. That led to a lot of hype for the drug on social media and from then-President Donald Trump.
But there were concerns raised almost immediately. The study was small, involving just 36 patients. And one expert noted that researchers dropped six patients from the study after they died or were transferred to intensive care. That could have skewed the results in favor of hydroxychloroquine.
More concerns were raised later, including that the researchers used different criteria for test positivity between the treatment and control groups, a clear violation of scientific standards. There were also questions about whether the patients involved had given informed consent to be treated with the antibiotic.
The French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics said the retracted study was central to a scandal that led to millions of people taking hydroxychloroquine unnecessarily and potentially experiencing dangerous side effects, including heart attacks.
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