Hydroxychloroquine

Ineffective against corona, now study withdrawn

(Bild: APA/AFP/GEORGE FREY)

Hydroxychloroquine was one of the favorite drugs of US President Donald Trump and Brazil's former head of state Jair Bolsonaro during the corona pandemic, although the effectiveness of the anti-malaria drug in connection with the coronavirus has never been proven. A French study has now been withdrawn, which was a key factor in the hype surrounding the drug at the time.

Published four and a half years ago in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents with co-ownership of the International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC), the study by French scientists caused an unprecedented stir. It also influenced the Covid-19 policy of entire countries. The scientific journal "Nature" wrote on Wednesday: "At the beginning of the pandemic, laboratory studies and some reports from China had indicated that hydroxyquloroquine could help in the treatment of Covid-19. (Didier) Raoult, then head of the IHU (Infection Research Unit in Marseille; note), was a strong supporter of this idea. On March 16, 2020, he and his IHU colleagues reported in a preprint that hydroxychloroquine, in some cases together with the antibiotic azithromycin, had reduced the SARS-CoV-2 viral load in 20 participants."

(Bild: APA/AFP/Christophe SIMON)

The study was immediately hyped by US television stations. Four days later, the paper was published in the "International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents", where co-author Jean-Marc Rolain was editor-in-chief. The scientific journal accepted the submitted manuscript within a day. Normally this takes at least weeks. Trump even described the ancient malaria drug as a "gift from God". The matter was "groundbreaking". Several countries, including the USA, even allowed the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. 

One person died during tests
Researchers had repeatedly criticized the controversial study and expressed concerns about data quality, unclear ethical backgrounds and other factors. Six people treated with hydroxychloroquine even discontinued a study - one of them died and three were transferred to an intensive care unit.

Withdrawn study cited 3600 times worldwide
The retraction of the publication by the Elsevier publishing house has now been welcomed. "This is incredibly good news," said Elisabeth Bik, an image forensic scientist and scientific integrity consultant in San Francisco, who was one of the critics of the paper and Raoult's work and also analyzed it on behalf of the journal. The French scientist has since retired. The study has been cited 3600 times worldwide by other experts in studies. This makes it the second most cited study that has ever had to be retracted.