Last month, to much fanfare, the Lancet, published a scientific study that reported hydroxychlorquine caused increased death rates and complications from heart arrythmias in patients with Covid-19. The study claimed to have analyzed the data for 96,000 Covid-19 positive subjects from around the world. Four scientists who co-authored the paper, analyzed aggregate date provided by Surgisphere, a private data-mining company.
The company claimed to have gathered data for thousands of Covid patients from around the world. Dr. Sapan Desai, a board certiffied vascular surgeon, runs Surgisphere and provided the company’s data for the study. He was included as a co-author on the paper. His co-authors included Mandeep R. Mehra (Harvard), Frank Ruschitzka (University Hospital Zurich), and Amit Patel (University of Utah.) All but Desai agreed to retract the study.
Independent investigators became suspicious of the data and asked the scientific team for the data used so they could verify it’s validity. Surgisphere refused to provide the raw data or an audit report of it’s servers for independent verification.
The three author’s of the paper who were not affilliated with Surgisphere, felt that they had little choice but to retract the publication, since it could not be verified by a panel of their peers.
The study concluded that patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were up to a 45 percent more likely to die and up to 411 percent more likely to suffer from serious heart-rhythm issues. Regulatory agencies made sweeping changes to guidelines for using the anti-malaria drugs based on the finding of the study, denying thousands of patients the potential for this life-saving drug. The World Health Organization (WHO) also halted a global clinical study on the drugs based on these same findings.
Surgisphere has since been found to have a sketchy past, leading the Lancet to call for a full investigation of the company and it’s owners.
