A study that stoked enthusiasm for the now-disproven idea that a cheap malaria drug can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more than four-and-a-half years after it was published.

… Its eventual withdrawal, on the grounds of concerns over ethical approval and doubts about the conduct of the research, marks the 28th retraction for co-author Didier Raoult, a French microbiologist, formerly at Marseille’s Hospital-University Institute Mediterranean Infection (IHU), who shot to global prominence in the pandemic. French investigations found that he and the IHU had violated ethics-approval protocols in numerous studies, and Raoult has now retired.

“Why it took more than four-and-a-half years after the study was initially published for the journal to come to this conclusion is not clear. It is also somewhat surprising that most of the paper’s authors still stand by study’s findings and conclusions despite its obvious inconsistencies, methodological flaws and potential ethical issues as outlined in the retraction note,” says Søgaard.

The paper (now marked as retracted): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949

  • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
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    22 hours ago

    lol, all you can do is laugh. crying, yelling, pleading, recitation of observable fact, nothing will move the needle for the morons who think that any solution which assists both white people and brown people equally must be evil to be defeated

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      nothing will move the needle for the morons

      It’s quite easy to move their needle, just have trump tell them something and they’ll fight to the death to defend whatever dumb ass thing he told them.

      • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Not really. Trump just adjusts his story when he notices it’s not well received. He even started to promote getting vaccinated to keep his base from dieing, noticed the pushback and changed his message to anti-vax again.

          • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            That’s how he runs. It’s like those people “summoning spirits” doing a cold reading, but in a much larger scale.

            “I sense you are bothered by roads, airplanes, children, jobs”

            “Yes, jobs. How did you know?”

            “And it’s all the fault of trees, donkeys, cars, doctors, immigrants.”

            “I really hate immigrants.”

            “so we’ll build a bicycle, sidewalk, front door, barbed wire, a wall”

            “Oh yes, we need a wall to keep them out. This guy is really telling it like it is.”

            When asked later why he suggested a bicycle, this is vehemently denied even when recordings are shown.

    • Radin@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      What are you even talking about? I can’t tell if you’re for or against the retraction of this obviously flawed study.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        Pretty sure they are saying that vaccines are proven to help everyone, and that morons (RFK Jr, etc.) want to destroy them because vaccines helps black people.

        I hope that is what they are saying.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          15 hours ago

          Yes, the comment could use some light editing (and capitalization) but that’s correct.