Researchers Retract Lancet Study Linking Malaria Drug to Risks

(Bloomberg) -- A study that said a malaria drug backed by U.S. President Donald Trump raised the risk of heart side effects and death has been retracted by the authors.

The study was published on May 22 in the Lancet, a prestigious U.K. medical journal. Questions soon arose about the accuracy of the underlying data, said researchers led by Mandeep Mehra, the medical director of Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center, in the retraction note published by the journal Thursday.

While the company that produced the original data, Surgisphere Corp., had signaled that it would cooperate with an independent review, it ultimately reneged and said doing so would violate confidentiality agreements, wrote the study authors. “As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review,” the authors said.

“We all entered this collaboration to contribute in good faith and at a time of great need during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the authors said. “We deeply apologize to you, the editors, and the journal readership for any embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused.”

Another study looking at the drug’s use as a preventive showed that it didn’t stop at-risk people from being infected by the coronavirus.