In Italian a commenter of the original story said he had contacted the Italian RA agency and got this as a reply. Reply translated to English.
We are sorry to inform you that the journalist has misrepresented what we have communicated to him and that there is no investigation into patients using hydroxychloroquine in Italy.
The register of the Italian Society of Rheumatology (CONTROL-19) includes 150 patients with rheumatological diseases and of these 20 were taking hydroxychloroquine.
Unfortunately, we are receiving many similar risks, as the publication of the aforementioned article has created much confusion.
Trusting that we have clarified the misunderstanding, we send our best regards,
Luigi Sinigaglia - President of SIR
I have to say that it was discouraging to find so many conservative political websites parroting the unverified "65,000 lupus patients" story. I like to think of fake news as being owned by the left, but our side also pushes a few stories that are too good to check.
Piers, would you please provide a link to the message from Luigi Sinigaglia that you posted in #14? I expect the original will be in Italian.
Please ignore my post #22. I found the quote.