By Study on Hydroxychloroquine Which Influenced WHO Decision On Its Use To Fight Coronavirus Retracted, Gbadamosi Calls For Investigation
The article that informed the World Health Organisation to quit the clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine to fight against coronavirus has been retracted.
Three of the study’s authors; Mandeep R Mehra, Frank Ruschitzka, Amit N Patel, said they could no longer vouch for its veracity because Surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind the data, would not allow an independent review of its dataset.
While Surgisphere chief executive Sapan Desai, the study’s fourth author, told The Guardian newspaper he would cooperate with an independent audit but said transferring the data would “violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements”.
In retracting the publication, The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal that published the article said it takes issues of scientific integrity extremely seriously, and there are many outstanding questions about Surgisphere and the data that were allegedly included in the study.
”Today, three of the authors of the paper, “Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis”, have retracted their study. They were unable to complete an independent audit of the data underpinning their analysis. As a result, they have concluded that they “can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.” The Lancet takes issues of scientific integrity extremely seriously, and there are many outstanding questions about Surgisphere and the data that were allegedly included in this study. Following guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), institutional reviews of Surgisphere’s research collaborations are urgently needed.
The retraction notice is published today, June 4, 2020. The article will be updated to reflect this retraction shortly, ” the Lancet wrote.
Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization, Soumya Swaminathan in her response on Twitter to the retraction said WHO acted in the safety interests of patients in the trial.
”We acted in the safety interests of patients in the trial, relying on the advice of our steering comm. It is difficult for us to check data quality of each published paper & we trust authors to adhere to basic stds. HCQ restarted today after data safety committee approval, ” Soumya said in her tweet.
However, Mr Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi is calling for an investigation of WHO and The Lancet. BOG was a governorship aspirant in Lagos, Nigeria in the 2019 general elections.
Gbadamosi in a twitter post said thousands of people have died needlessly due to the poorly reviewed publication.
”Thousands of people have died NEEDLESSLY globally. The authors, @TheLancet & especially @WHO must be investigated & someone must pay for what is essentially MASS MURDER.
They falsely discredited a known cure for COVID19, killing thousands, just because @realDonaldTrump said it!”
