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Human Research Ethics Research Integrity

The Strange and Twisted Tale of Hydroxychloroquine – WIRED (Adam Rogers | November 2020)

Posted by Dr Gary Allen in Human Research Ethics, Research Integrity on November 28, 2020
Keywords: Beneficence, Biomedical, Breaches, Controversy/Scandal, Human research ethics, International, Journal, Medical research, Merit and integrity, Research integrity, Research Misconduct, Research results, Researcher responsibilities

The Linked Original Item was Posted On November 11, 2020

COVID19 molecule cracked open with the words "FAKE NEWS" emerging from it

The much-hyped drug sparked a battle between power and knowledge. Let’s not repeat it.

IN THE MID-1600S, a Jesuit priest serving in Peru got a useful tip. The indigenous people there, he learned, were using the bark of a particular kind of tree to treat fevers. The priest, who’d probably gone a few rounds himself with the local diseases, got ahold of some of the reddish-brown bark from this “fever-tree” and shipped it back to Europe. In the 1670s, what came to be called Jesuit bark had made its way into a popular patent medicine, along with rose leaves, lemon juice, and wine.

The strange and complicated story behind Hydroxychloroquine and its place in a global pandemic.

That was the beginning of the impressively effective bark’s role in pharmacology (and its side career in mixology). In the mid-1700s the prolific Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus gave the tree’s genus its name—having heard a fanciful (and untrue) tale about the bark’s success treating the Spanish Countess of Chinchón, he dubbed it Cinchona. In 1820, French chemists isolated the active ingredient, a plant alkaloid they named quinine. Its bitter flavor became not only a hallmark of the prevention and treatment of malaria but also the basis for a medicinal fizzy water—a “tonic”—that mixed well with the gin that Europeans brought with them to their equatorial conquests. Today quinine can be found in bitters, vermouth, and absinthe; next time you order a Manhattan or a Sazerac, give a little l’chaim to the Peruvians.

Medicine that treats a deadly disease but grows only on certain finicky trees is the kind of thing chemists live for. A failed attempt to synthesize quinine in the 1800s had accidentally produced the first synthetic pigment (a lovely shade of mauve); after World War I, when endemic malaria arguably did almost as much as Allied soldiers to limit Germany’s expansionist ambitions, that country set its scientists to solving a problem. A dye company called Bayer took up the quinine challenge, synthesized some reasonably useful replacements, and became a pharmaceutical powerhouse with a global market. When World War II denied the US access to both German drugs and the quinine-producing cinchona trees of Java, the Americans basically stole a recipe from German prisoners of war and turned that into a successful treatment.

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Related Reading

(France) French professor faces disciplinary case over hydroxychloroquine claims – The Guardian (November 2020)

The Lancet changes editorial policy after hydroxychloroquine Covid study retraction – The Guardian (Melissa Davey | September 2020)

The Surgisphere Scandal: What Went Wrong? – The Scientist (Catherine Offord | October 2020)

(UK) Study: Hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, possibly closing door to use of drug – STAT News (Matthew Herper | June 2020)

(EU) French hydroxychloroquine study has “major methodological shortcomings” and is “fully irresponsible,” says review, but is not being retracted – Retraction Watch (Ivan Oransky | July 2019)

Covid-19 studies based on flawed Surgisphere data force medical journals to review processes – The Guardian (Melissa Davey | June 2020)

Column: How a retracted research paper contaminated global coronavirus research – Los Angles Times (Michael Hiltzik | June 2020)

Just How Historic Is the Latest Covid-19 Science Meltdown? – WIRED (Adam Marcus & Ivan Oransky | June 2020)

(US) FDA revokes emergency use ruling for hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by Trump as a Covid-19 therapy – STAT (Lev Facher | June 2020)

The Lancet has made one of the biggest retractions in modern history. How could this happen? – The Guardian (James Heathers | June 2020)

Virus Pushes Science And Its Controversies Centre Stage – Barrons (Stéphane ORJOLLET | May 2020)

(France) French hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study withdrawn – Retraction Watch (Ivan Oransky | May 2020)

(France) He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19 – New York Times Magazine (Scott Sayare | May 2020)

Hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study did not meet publishing society’s “expected standard” – Retraction Watch (Adam Marcus | April 2020)

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