Hope dims for hydroxychloroquine even as medical study detailing the drug’s failure is retracted – By Jaimy Lee (Marketwatch) / June 4 2020
The drug has faced steady scientific and political scrutiny over whether it can in fact help treat or prevent infections with the coronavirus
A month ago, about 70% of the COVID-19 patients being treated at the 13 hospitals that make up the Hackensack Meridian Health system in New Jersey received hydroxychloroquine as part of their care.
That’s no longer the case. Clinicians and hospital administrators made that decision following a series of clinical studies including internal research published May 27 as a preprint that found the drug, long used as an antimalarial treatment, does not improve outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to Dr. Stuart Goldberg, a physician at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Hydroxychloroquine became a household name back in March when President Donald Trump and other members of the administration’s coronavirus task force first publicly discussed its potential as a COVID-19 treatment. But the drug has since faced steady scientific and political scrutiny over whether it can in fact help treat or prevent infections with the coronavirus. At the same time, there are growing questions about the integrity of medical research during a time of clinical and scientific information overload and the political promotion of unproven therapies.
“Politics were playing a role and driving people to not doing the good science,” Goldberg said. “As a scientist, that makes me angry…It makes the public fearful that the scientists are not doing their job.”
The case for or against hydroxychloroquine has taken a winding road in recent weeks, driven by a growing body of research that has found the drug may not be efficacious in the treatment or prevention of COVID-19. However, a closely watched study published in a prestigious medical journal is now also facing scrutiny over potential inaccuracies in the data and was retracted on Thursday afternoon.
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