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Chloroquine etc.
27th of March 2020
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How one's reputation can be shattered for just one action?

That's what could  happen to Didier Raoult. He is  presented as one
of the top 10 virologists of the world. He is supposed to be behind
numerous  discoveries (although  people  easily  forget that  these
discoveries are not necessarily Raoult's,  but may belong to one of
his doctoral students, post-docs etc.).

A few days ago, he authored  a publication [1] that he presented as
a conclusive  study of chloroquine  in COVID-19, whereas  it should
have been presented only as a case report. Then the methodology was
so wrong, that  nothing could be retained from it.  He even went as
far as retiring  from his paper all the cases  that worsened during
their treatment  and needed to  be transferred  to the ICU.  If you
remove from a  drug trial all the patients who  did not respond and
you keep all those who showed  an improvement of their disease, you
can easily give the impression  that an ineffective drug is working
efficiently.

He says that the chinese  trials showed an efficacy of chloroquine.
Well the only publication I was able  to find at this date [2] is a
little  difficult  to read  (it's  written  in mandarin),  but  the
summary  is in  english  and  the authors  show  that  there is  no
difference  between chloroquine  treated  patients  vs the  control
group.

He is typical  of a French disease: the expert's  STAR system. Once
you get this status of STAR  in your field, everyone will listen to
you, and  no one will dare  contradict you. This is  something I've
never seen in any other country.

The  irony is  that  maybe  chloroquine will  be  the treatment  of
choice  for COVID-19,  but if  it happens,  it will  be due  to the
international  collaborative  studies  of  a  number  of  anonymous
physicians. And then, the STAR will come telling: "I knew it!".

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949
[2]: http://www.zjujournals.com/med/EN/10.3785/j.issn.1008-9292.2020.03.03