Journal retracts COVID study in favour of using hydroxychloroquine

A study on the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 has been officially retracted from a scientific journal years after causing controversy.

One of the corresponding authors of the article was Didier Raoult, a French doctor who pushed the drug as a COVID-19 treatment and has since been suspended from exercising medicine.

Elsevier, the academic publishing company that owns the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, said concerns had been raised regarding the paper’s adherence to “ethics policies and the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants”.

There were also concerns regarding the “methodology and conclusions” of the article published in 2020, according to the retraction note.

The investigation that led to the article’s retraction was conducted with an independent consultant, Dr Jim Gray, who specialises in microbiology.

The retractation means that the paper is considered flawed and unreliable and shouldn’t be used as a reference for future research. 

“The journal has not been able to establish whether all patients could have entered into the study in time for the data to have been analysed and included in the manuscript,” the retraction note said. 

The note also said they were unable to determine if patients gave their informed consent to receive azithromycin – an antibiotic medication that was supposed to be used with hydroxychloroquine in the protocol. 

Notably, three of the paper’s 18 authors contacted the journal regarding the presentation and interpretation of results and “have stated they no longer wish to see their names associated with the article”.

Hydroxychloroquine is a medication primarily used for treating and preventing malaria and managing some other conditions. 

Raoult, a French microbiologist and professor at Aix-Marseille II University, gained international attention during the pandemic by claiming that it could be used as a treatment for COVID-19. 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initially allowed emergency use of hydroxychloroquine in March 2020 but revoked this authorisation in June 2020 due to a lack of evidence that it was effective. 

Studies have also shown there were a number of safety issues with its use.

In the meantime, Raoult is in a legal fight over the French doctors’ organisation’s decision to ban him from practising medicine for two years. 

He is also the subject of an investigation by the Marseille public prosecutor’s office regarding the quality of research and care activities in its former institute, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.