Months ago, trials like this one were flooded with volunteers eager for hydroxychloroquine. Just as quickly, its moment faded. At least four prevention trials have struggled to find enough people willing to take it, so far falling short of their collective goal of recruiting tens of thousands of participants, BuzzFeed News has found. Their uncertain fate shows how science has become more politicized than ever. But it also makes clear that drug research is a chaotic mess.
White, a tropical medicine professor at Mahidol University in Bangkok, never dreamed that President Donald Trump would baselessly call hydroxychloroquine a “game changer,” or that a fraudulent study would cast a pall over the field. But he also didn’t anticipate that, when confronted with one of the pandemic’s most urgent priorities — finding safe, effective treatments — the scientific community’s response would be so disorganized that it would squander time, funding, and, perhaps most crucially, willing participants.
The result is paradoxical: Hydroxychloroquine was one of the most heavily studied drugs this spring, and study after study has shown that it’s not an effective treatment for sick patients. But scientists still don’t, and may never, know if it works as a prophylaxis that prevents infections.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member