These are fair & important concerns regarding the observational study published in @TheLancet last week on 90,000 #COVID19 patients treated with #HydroxyChloroquine showing no efficacy for #COVID19. More transparency is definitely more than welcome

https://zenodo.org/record/3862789#.XtBc9a2B2gT">https://zenodo.org/record/38...

The concerns over the Australian and African data have been reported with more details here and are indeed troubling. Hope this will resolve soon as patients are in the middle of this. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/28/questions-raised-over-hydroxychloroquine-study-which-caused-who-to-halt-trials-for-covid-19">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...

Couple of points:

1/ Are these concerns question the integrity of the data? Absolutely. Are the conclusion of the study will be changed? Not fundamentally in my view (for now but might change)
2/ Stopping RCTs in the middle indeed not ethical & unhelpful unless safety issues

3/ To reiterate and clarify, given so far the lack of evidence on efficacy against #COVID19 for Hydroxychloroquine, initiation new trials or administration of this treatment for #COVID19 patients (out of a trial) not ethical in my view.

Follow up on this. @TheLancet issued a correction of the paper and overall conclusions remained unchanged. Additional corrections coming through. More to come, for sure. https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140-6736(20)31249-6">https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/ar...