NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – An influential medical journal article that found hydroxychloroquine increased the risk of death in COVID-19 patients was retracted on Thursday, adding to controversy around a drug championed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Three of the authors of the article retracted it, citing concerns about the quality and veracity of data in the study.
The anti-malarial drug has been controversial in part due to support from Trump, as well as implications of the study published in British journal The Lancet last month, which led several COVID-19 studies to be halted.
The three authors said Surgisphere, the company that provided the data, would not transfer the dataset for an independent review and they “can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.”
The fourth author of the study, Dr. Sapan Desai, chief executive of Surgisphere, declined to comment on the retra