The reputation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) may be hanging in the balance as the Lancet Medical Journal has retracted the Hydroxychloroquine study that led to the suspension of solidarity clinical trials for the drug against COVID-19.
According to a report by the Washington Post, the Lancet retracted the study saying the authors of the sensational paper promoted by the WHO had withdrawn the paper.
The authors said they could no longer guarantee the authenticity of the sources or data for the study.
Coincidentally, the paper was published after the US President revealed he was taking a dosage of Hydroxychloroquine and Zinc as a preventive medicine against COVID-19.
See Also: Hydroxylchloroquine: What The Media Failed to Tell You
The WHO had condemned the President and then went ahead to suspend solidarity trials for the malaria drug citing safety concerns expressed in the study published by the Lancet.
Nigeria, Senegal and India however ignored the WHO and continued to carry out Hydroxychloroquine trials.
Issuing a statement concerning the retraction, the Lancet said;
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.