One of the country's top medical journals raised concerns about potential errors in a study that said hydroxychloroquine isn't safe for COVID-19 patients, which caused the World Health Organization to stop its trial of the drug, STAT reported.
The study came from Surgisphere, a Chicago-based company, and was published in the medical journal The Lancet. The study said hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that has been tested to treat COVID-19, didn't improve outcomes for COVID-19 patients and was associated with higher mortality rates.
The study prompted the WHO to pause its study of hydroxychloroquine as a potential COVID-19 treatment.
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, wrote on Twitter: "Serious questions have been raised about the reliability of the findings reported in this paper."
Surgisphere claimed to have data from 671 hospitals on six continents that it used to come to the conclusion that hydroxychloroquine isn't safe, but a group of 180 scientists wrote a letter to The Lancet raising concerns that the study's authors didn't say which countries or hospitals contributed the data, STAT reported.
The study's authors have corrected errors about the number of participants in the study, but have stood behind their conclusion, according to STAT.
Mandeep Mehra, MD, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and the lead author of the study, told STAT that the research team "initiated independent reviews of the data used in both papers after learning of the concerns that have been raised about the reliability of the database."
Surgisphere released a statement saying: "Together, we stand behind the integrity of our studies and our scientific researchers, clinical partners, and data analysts."
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