Salt Lake City-based University of Utah on June 5 terminated its faculty appointment of Amit Patel, MD, a co-author of two recently retracted medical papers.
Dr. Patel co-authored two papers linking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to higher mortality rates in COVID-19 patients in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. The papers drew widespread concern, causing the World Health Organization to suspend its clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine to further examine the drug's safety. Both journals retracted the papers June 4 after questions of accuracy arose surrounding the papers' data source, analytics company Surgisphere.
Dr. Patel's affiliation with the university was listed on both of the retracted papers. A spokesperson declined to comment on the motivation behind the university's decision, telling STAT, "The University of Utah does not comment on reasons surrounding termination of academic appointments."