Bioequivalence and Bioavailability Forum

Dear Martin,

❝ PS.: Here is some additional review/feedback I received on this paper which I would also like to share: There is a concern that their subject allocation method did not use randomization, and introduces the possibility of bias. They said “In a pre-test phase, we asked each participant in the treatment group to roll 500m in a straight line on a push-scooter. Participants who fell or died during the pre-test were reallocated to our control group (two falls, one death).”

This is a very explicit reference to a pre-print of a """study""" on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in COVID-19, made available by a French team, and withdrawn after it created an uproar. They had switched 9 patients from the treated group to the control group, because they were treated for less than 48 hours. Translation: they switched to the control group the treated patients who had died or were hospitalised in intensive care.

The first French paper published on this topic did not go that far: they only deleted such patients from the sample, they did not put them in the control group. Their control group was constituted of those patients who did not meet the inclusion criteria. This was the first of a series of papers from the same team, which was highly regarded by Trump and led to the widespread use of HCQ and azithromycin in many countries (and by Trump himself).

PS: some people say that all this HCQ buzz was an attempt by the French secret services to get rid of Trump and Bolsonaro, hoping one of them would develop torsade de pointe. The plot failed.