Concerns mount over studies of drugs used for coronavirus treatment

Concerns are mounting about studies in two influential medical journals on drugs used in people with coronavirus, including one that led multiple countries to stop testing a malaria pill.

The New England Journal

of Medicine issued an “expression of concern” Tuesday on a study it published May 1 that suggested widely used blood pressure medicines were not raising the risk of death for people with COVID-19.

The study relied on a database with health records from hundreds of hospitals around the world.

“Substantive concerns” have been raised about the quality of the information, and the journal has asked the authors to provide evidence it’s reliable, the editors wrote.

The same database by the Chicago company Surgisphere Corp. was used in a study of nearly 100,000 patients published in the

Lancet that tied the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to a higher risk of death in hospitalized patients with the virus. Lancet issued a similar expression of concern about its study Tuesday, saying it was aware “important scientific questions” had been raised.

Although it wasn’t a rigorous experiment that could give definitive answers, the Lancet study had wide influence because of its size. The World Health Organization said it would temporarily stop a study of hydroxychloroquine, and France stopped allowing its use in hospitals.

The drug has been mired in controversy since President

Donald Trump promoted it and even took it himself without clear evidence that it’s safe or effective for preventing or treating coronavirus infection.

Dr. Mandeep Mehra of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston led both studies, and the authors include Desai Sapan, Surgisphere’s founder.