Everyone was fooled by this paper.
I wouldn’t say ‘fooled’ exactly. People trusted that the system was properly followed and all proper procedures were fulfilled............
Rubbish!
For anyone reading the paper it was obvious that it was nothing more than a pilot study. But it - together with papers showing similar results from China and South Korea - indicated a venue for possible handling of the pandemic and of course future studies. A cheap medication, used very widely, and with very few side-effects when used properly (NB!).
Instead this paper was maligned, a number of studies were conducted with toxic doses of HCQ and two totally made-up studies describing toxic effects of HCQ that have never been described before or after were published in New England Medical Journal and the Lancet.
PS A new paper trying to resurrect the "findings" in the Lancet and NEMJ papers was published not long ago, but rather quickly retracted.
PPS Prof Raoux as well as many other physicians argued early on that HCQ was only effective during the early viral phase of the infection. Once the inflammatory phase took over, which in senitive patients caused severe pneumonia then other drugs like cortisone were the treatment of choice.