A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling (hydroxychloroquine not as dangerous as reported)

Science Magazine ^ | June 02 2020 | Kelly Servick, Martin Enserink

[knighthawk]

On its face, it was a major finding: Antimalarial drugs touted by the White House as possible COVID-19 treatments looked to be not just ineffective, but downright deadly. A study published on 22 May in The Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular heart rhythm—a known side effect thought to be rare—and were more likely to die in the hospital.

Within days, some large randomized trials of the drugs—the type that might prove or disprove the retrospective study’s analysis—screeched to a halt. Solidarity, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) megatrial of potential COVID-19 treatments, paused recruitment into its hydroxychloroquine arm, for example.

But just as quickly, the Lancet results have begun to unravel—and Surgisphere, which provided patient data for two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur sleuths. They have pointed out many red flags in the Lancet paper, including the astonishing number of patients involved and details about their demographics and prescribed dosing that seem implausible. “It began to stretch and stretch and stretch credulity,” says Nicholas White, a malaria researcher at Mahidol University in Bangkok.

[cba123]

Bump.

Thank you.

[mewzilla]

LancetGate: Pulling a Fast One on Proponents of Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine Shaky data from a leading medical journal that progressive opinion has swallowed with delight.

[daniel1212]

From the article: Surgisphere’s sparse online presence—the website doesn’t list any of its partner hospitals by name or identify its scientific advisory board, for example—have prompted intense skepticism. Physician and entrepreneur James Todaro of the investment fund Blocktown Capital wondered in a blog post why Surgisphere's enormous database doesn’t appear to have been used in peer-reviewed research studies until May. Another post, from data scientist Peter Ellis of the management consulting firm Nous Group, questioned how LinkedIn could list only five Surgisphere employees—all but Desai apparently lacking a scientific or medical background—if the company really provides software to hundreds of hospitals to coordinate the collection of sensitive data from electronic health records. (This morning, the number of employees on LinkedIn had dropped to three.) And Chaccour wonders how such a tiny company was able to reach data-sharing agreements with hundreds of hospitals around the world that use many different languages and data recording systems, while adhering to the rules of 46 different countries on research ethics and data protection. Desai’s spokesperson responded to inquiries about the company by saying it has 11 employees and has been developing its database since 2008. Desai, through the spokesperson, also said of the company’s work with patient data: “We use a great deal of artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate this process as much as possible, which is the only way a task like this is even possible.”

[outofsalt]

I’ve never been a fan of retrospective studies. Too difficult to correct for many variables. The authors are still working on their conflict statements; This might need to include political conflicts.

[VTenigma]

You have to ask yourself,”why would they be trying so hard to suppress a viable treatment”? I don’t think the answer is simply money, it’s more sinister than that.

[FreedomPoster]

Related articles of interest:

Yale epidemiologist
Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk Covid-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis
https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwaa093/5847586

New insights on the antiviral effects of chloroquine against coronavirus: what to expect for COVID-19?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300881#bib0055

Indian Scientists Discover Hydroxychloroquine Treatment Prevents COVID-19, Vindicating President Trump
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/indian-scientists-discover-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-prevents-covid-19-vindicating-president-trump/

Good Twitter account to follow on this issue:
https://twitter.com/Covid19Crusher

[FreedomPoster]

Even The Lancet is walking this one back.

We have published an Expression of Concern on the paper by Mehra et al on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine published on May 22, 2020 https://hubs.ly/H0r2vFC0

https://twitter.com/TheLancet/status/1267901995848957953

[Flick Lives]

Other researchers were befuddled by the data themselves. Though 66% of the patients were reportedly treated in North America, the reported doses tended to be higher than the guidelines set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, White notes. The authors claim to have included 4402 patients in Africa, 561 of whom died, but it seems unlikely that African hospitals would have detailed electronic health records for so many patients, White says.

—

The “study” that slammed HCQ was a fabricated hit job.

[kabar]

Thanks for the heads up. Suspicions confirmed. Sinister, anti-Trump forces attack anything Trump is for.

[kiryandil]

Das LugenPresse says:

Mission Accomplished!!

[FamiliarFace]

Thank you for posting. I have suspected that the Lancet article was a hit job, and now I know that for sure.

[FreedomPoster]

I really try not to be a conspiracy theorist. But it’s really hard not to be if you’ve followed this story closely. And there’s a huge cost in disease and death, yet here we are.

It’s maddening.

[Jordo]

The last sentence in the article: “Here we are in the middle of a pandemic with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the two most prestigious medical journals have failed us, ...”

Science, and science journals, aren’t what they used to be. Incompetence and politics have spread like cancer.

[DoughtyOne]

D U H

[major_gaff]

It's all very simple if you follow the money, ie: there is no money to be
made in anti-malarial drugs that have been around for years. A new
mandatory COVID-19 vaccine and experimental drugs on the other hand,
major bank...and all these 'Experts' from Faucci to the CDC and the WHO
have there hands in that till.

[major_gaff]

*their hands

[Robert A Cook PE]

Bookmarked. The Science article, though otherwise well-written with many contradictions and differing viewpoints, did not provide any political backgrounds on the tiny (11,9,3 or 5 employees, depending on when they counted!) Chicago company.

Odd. Like the Washington “advocacy” and publicity industry, all funding and all connections are not visible, and apparently, all “medical research” may not not be medical.

[BobL]

Two things to note here:

1) Trump is not mentioned, at all, in the article.

2) Studies that aren’t repeatable (or at least without source data being available) are NOT supposed to be permitted in peer-reviewed journals. They must really HATE Trump to sacrifice thousands, maybe millions, of lives around the world.

[rsobin]

I thought that in the beginning the reason HCQ was derided was only because Trump touted it. Now I realize it is mostly because it works and may shorten the magnitude and duration of the shutdowns.