The Lancet's fraudulent May 2020 hydroxychloroquine COVID study was finally retracted — corruption influences everything the Establishment touches

© 2020 Peter Free

 

05 June 2020

 

 

Caught in a web of lies

 

Three of the four authors of a bogus hydroxychloroquine COVID study — published in May 2020 by The Lancet — retracted it — after an onslaught of scientific criticism pointing to its obviously made-up data.

 

 

Exposing these lies — see, for instance

 

 

James Watson on the behalf of 201 signatories, Open letter to MR Mehra, SS Desai, F Ruschitzka, and AN Patel, authors of “Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis”. Lancet. 2020 May 22:S0140-6736(20)31180-6. doi: 10.1016 — and to James Horton (editor of The Lancet).

 

 

Even I pointed to obvious fudging in the original paper's numbers and analysis.

 

 

The fourth author (Sapan Desai) did not retract

 

He is the (inferably scam-prone) CEO of the company that generated the concocted data — Surgisphere.

 

 

Systemically most important — notice that

 

It was not peer review, or The Lancet's purported editorial integrity, that took this piece of blatant corruption down. Despite the virtually unparalleled outburst of critique from inside and outside the medical research community, The Lancet itself did not retract the paper. A genuinely prestige-deserving group of medical journal editors would have.

 

The Lancet's too long delay allowed the fake study to unwarrantedly influence the World Health Organization, and some nations, to stop hydroxychloroquine COVID research.

 

Instead of acting as barrier to questionable science, The Lancet waited for the paper's incompetent or worse authors to retreat with their tails (and tales) between their legs.

 

 

Don't believe a word of . . .

 

. . . the three authors' implied 'mistakes were made' retraction:

 

 

They [the three authors] were unable to complete an independent audit of the data underpinning their analysis.

 

As a result, they have concluded that they "can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources."

 

The Lancet takes issues of scientific integrity extremely seriously, and there are many outstanding questions about Surgisphere and the data that were allegedly included in this study.

 

© 2020 Editors, Retraction: "Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis", The Lancet (04 June 2020)

 

 

That's weaseling bullshit from (both) the retracting authors and The Lancet's editors.

 

One cannot produce a numerically unbelievable abomination like the withdrawn paper, and not know — from even a mild attempt at reviewing one's analysis for errors before publishing it — that one has strayed far from Honest Science's rails.

 

Furthermore, and even more basically, no genuine scientist is going to take someone else's numbers at face value, without first checking on how that 'someone else' got them.

 

This is, by the way, why so many of the Open Letter critics were concerned by the ludicrously small number of the original paper's authors. A legitimate research team cannot capably do fact-checking and analysis with only four authors — in a study of this one's pretended size.

 

 

Corruption it was — and The Lancet's editorial cowardice furthered it

 

Of this collapse of integrity across the medical research board, Helen Buyniski said:

 

 

The full-frontal assault on hydroxychloroquine was . . . allowed to continue unchecked in the media, as mainstream outlets focused their energies on fluffing up remdesivir – a costly, untested drug manufactured by drug maker Gilead that has so far produced lackluster results in clinical trials – and stumping for an eventual vaccine.

 

Hydroxychloroquine’s off-patent status meant it was a dead end as far as profits were concerned, while remdesivir and whatever vaccine is ultimately green-lighted will make a lot of people very rich.

 

The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine have – belatedly – published “expressions of concern” about the Surgisphere hydroxychloroquine study . . . .

 

But the problem of biased health authorities selectively embracing some trial results while rejecting others is unlikely to stop there.

 

Multiple studies conducted by the US National Institutes of Health on hospitalized (i.e. severely-ill) coronavirus patients have yielded poor results, but even the drug’s most ardent evangelists acknowledge it doesn’t help end-stage or very sick patients.

 

[Dr. Didier] Raoult [— who reportedly has successfully used chloroquine to treat COVID-19 —] has even claimed France banned the drug’s use in all but the most severely ill patients in order to discredit it as a treatment.

 

The US National Institutes of Health was publishing studies in its journal Virology touting chloroquine as “a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection” as far back as 2005, yet ‘coronavirus czar’ Anthony Fauci throws shade at the drug whenever he gets a chance.

 

As long as deadly diseases like Covid-19 are seen as profit sources first and human rights issues second (or third, or tenth…), treatments that aren’t profitable will always be marginalized in favor of costly and frequently less-effective pharmaceuticals.

 

Drug industry profiteering has already killed hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people in the US alone.

 

© 2020 Helen Buyniski, Rush to trash hydroxychloroquine based on faulty Surgisphere data exposes fundamental flaws in profit-based medical ‘science’, RT (04 June 2020)

 

 

The moral? — Keep your critical thinking brain working — otherwise the Fat Cats will eat it and steal your wallet at the same time

 

Medicine and medical research are rife (and 'ripe') with corruption. See here, for example.

 

Just because something shows up in a prominent journal doesn't mean 'jack squat' with regard to its truth or analytical legitimacy.

 

The supposed journal and peer review systems long ago capitulated to Distortion-for-Profit's forces.

 

To protect ourselves, we have to read with alertly aimed scientific judgment and analytically very critical eyes. The pointed skepticism that greeted The Lancet's now-retracted paper is an example of motivated science-preserving people doing that.

 

When the System fails (as it consistently and voluntarily does) from a lack of competence and integrity, we quasi-outsiders have to step in and vigorously poke it.

 

Club the Demons of Corporatist Untruth, as a matter of personal and professional honor.