The Lancet is not only one of the oldest, but it is also one of the most respected journals in the world. Recently, it was in the news, for its decision to retract an article on Covid patient receiving hydroxychloroquine.
The study published in The Lancet had raised alarms about the safety of the experimental Covid-19 treatments chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine amid scrutiny of the data underlying the paper.
The Lancet’s retraction was followed by a similar move by another well-known medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine. It retracted a separate study, focused on blood pressure medications in Covid-19, that relied on data from the same company.
According to the statements issued by both these journals, authors of the studies had made a request to retract the studies. As per the statements, authors were not directly involved with the data collection and sources.
“We can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources,” Mandeep Mehra of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Frank Ruschitzka of University Hospital Zurich, and Amit Patel of University of Utah said in a statement issued by the Lancet. “Due to this unfortunate development, the authors request that the paper be retracted.”
The retraction of the Lancet paper is sure to add fuel to contentious arguments about the potential of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, two old malaria drugs, in Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. President Trump has touted them as valuable treatments, despite a lack of rigorous data showing they have a benefit.
The finding published in The Lancet ed to the pause of some global clinical trials studying hydroxychloroquine so researchers could check for any safety concerns. Outside experts, however, quickly raised concerns after noticing inconsistencies in the data. They asked the company that compiled and analyzed the data, Surgisphere, to explain how it sourced its data.
Mostapha Benhenda, data scientist and founder of the Melwy, an online lab in artificial intelligence, raised a red flag over Surgisphere’s study as early as 26 May, just four days after it was released by The Lancet. He outlined three major flaws in the report:
- No reproducibility: authors did not release their data and had no plans to do this;
- No data traceability: authors didn’t release the names of people who were responsible for data collection at hospitals;
- No review transparency: The Lancet did not release the names of any referees; the only signed editorial validation came from Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton.
However, the scandal did not end there as neither the WHO nor The Lancet, nor the NEJM have explained so far why they had taken on faith Surgisphere’s questionable data, the scientist notes.
“No internal investigation was started. Robert Horton didn’t even resign, he is tweeting the issue as if he was an external observer. What a disgrace!” he highlights.
According to him, what actually happened is that WHO “got fooled” by The Lancet, a 197-years old academic journal, which in its turn “got fooled” by the co-authors of the dubious report, including Mandeep Mehra, a Harvard professor and medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) with 477 publications.
Indian Connection
A retraction is one of the most serious corrections that can be made in science — it shows that the results of a study are no longer considered reliable. But the retraction may not change much about how doctors and scientists think about hydroxychloroquine. Even without this paper in the mix, most of the research on the drug has shown that it doesn’t do much to help people with COVID-19.
The Print’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta in episode 489 of Cut The Clutter, talked about three Indian researchers who put the reputation of Lancet, NEJM at stake .
Three Indian-origin researchers were the key drivers in both these studies. The researchers in question include Mandeep R. Mehra, a cardiologist with an MD from Harvard University; Sapan Desai, a surgeon and founder of a data analytics company called Surgisphere; and Amit Patel Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery in University of Utah in the US.
The authors of The Lancet study have now written an apology and withdrawn the study. The Lancet also said they regret having published it.
Another study, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), included the same three authors.
