Day 42 of the Georgia Economic Recovery. Misleading data, essay by WSJ:Last month the respected scientific journal Lancet published a study with little apparent vetting [on] hydroxychloroquine (HCL) …
scientists around the world reviewed the Lancet study, they spotted glaring data errors. One example: Obesity and smoking rates in the study were the same across six continents. In a letter to Lancet’s editors last week, 120 scientists criticized the study’
The study also had not undergone an ethics review, they pointed out, and Lancet had broken its pledge to share all data and code on Covid studies. Surgisphere’s CEO Sapan Desai was one of the study’s authors and claimed his hospital contracts did not allow the data to be shared. This raised more red flags.
On Wednesday the Guardian published an investigation of Surgisphere that raises questions about how it obtained so many patient records from around the world given privacy and technical challenges. Surgisphere’s LinkedIn page early Wednesday identified only three employees.
Lancet on Wednesday published an “Expression of Concern” about the study and said it would undergo “an independent data audit.” That’s good, but its publication may have already done public-health harm. Doctors have complained that the negative press has made it difficult to recruit patients in the U.S. for clinical trials to study HCL’s effectiveness as a prophylactic or early-stage treatment against Covid-19.
Lancet editors last month published an editorial urging Americans to vote out President Trump, so it’s fair to ask if political bias clouded their scientific judgment and caused their publication standards to slip. The World Health Organization… said it is restarting its HCL trial.
HCL should rise or fall as a treatment on its medical merits, not whether people think it vindicates or repudiates Donald J. Trump. And keep the politics out of medicine.
Day 42 of the Georgia Economic Recovery. Misleading data, essay by WSJ:Last month the respected scientific journal Lancet published a study with little apparent vetting [on] hydroxychloroquine (HCL) …
scientists around the world reviewed the Lancet study, they spotted glaring data errors. One example: Obesity and smoking rates in the study were the same across six continents. In a letter to Lancet’s editors last week, 120 scientists criticized the study’The study also had not undergone an ethics review, they pointed out, and Lancet had broken its pledge to share all data and code on Covid studies. Surgisphere’s CEO Sapan Desai was one of the study’s authors and claimed his hospital contracts did not allow the data to be shared. This raised more red flags.
On Wednesday the Guardian published an investigation of Surgisphere that raises questions about how it obtained so many patient records from around the world given privacy and technical challenges. Surgisphere’s LinkedIn page early Wednesday identified only three employees.
Lancet on Wednesday published an “Expression of Concern” about the study and said it would undergo “an independent data audit.” That’s good, but its publication may have already done public-health harm. Doctors have complained that the negative press has made it difficult to recruit patients in the U.S. for clinical trials to study HCL’s effectiveness as a prophylactic or early-stage treatment against Covid-19.
Lancet editors last month published an editorial urging Americans to vote out President Trump, so it’s fair to ask if political bias clouded their scientific judgment and caused their publication standards to slip. The World Health Organization… said it is restarting its HCL trial.
HCL should rise or fall as a treatment on its medical merits, not whether people think it vindicates or repudiates Donald J. Trump. And keep the politics out of medicine.