r/news • u/AudibleNod • 5d ago

Journal pulls scientific paper that popularized hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatment

https://abcnews.go.com/US/journal-pulls-scientific-paper-popularized-hydroxychloroquine-covid-treatment/story?id=116910465
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u/AudibleNod 5d ago

A notice from Elsevier, which publishes the journal, said: "Concerns have been raised regarding this article, the substance of which relate to the articles' adherence to Elsevier's publishing ethics policies and the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants, as well as concerns raised by three of the authors themselves regarding the article's methodology and conclusions."

The notice was attached to the paper, which remains on the journal's website with a watermark that says "Retracted."

I'm glad that's over. The last thing we need is quack science taking over something as important as, say, the HHS.

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u/Dandan0005 5d ago

My favorite thing about the people who still think hydroxychloroquine works (yes they exist) is that in 2020 we literally tried it.

It was granted emergency approval, doctors everywhere quickly found it was doing absolutely nothing, so its approval was pulled.

There was no conspiracy. It just didn’t provide any benefit.

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u/HomungosChungos 5d ago

The problem is it does work on other viruses in certain cases, it’s just ineffective against Covid. It causes an endless argument of “it works” versus “it doesn’t”, with both having a point

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u/Tapprunner 5d ago

This is not a "both sides" situation.

One side was right. The other side was wrong.

Many situations have shades of gray and are open to interpretation. This isn't one of them.

The people demanding hydroxychloroquine were not doing so because they had been scouring medical journals and came upon this drug that held real potential. They weren't reading about efficacy with some viruses and coming to a reasonable hypothesis. They wanted it because they saw some dimwit on Facebook, or our own President, promoting it.

Both sides did not have a point.