The politicization of Hydroxychloroquine (and science in general)

Concerns over studies published based on Surgisphere data.

Surgisphere is a relatively unknown health care analytics company in the US which has been at the centre of scrutiny lately as there is now evidence from reports that the data that they provide and claim to come from more than a thousand hospitals worldwide may be unreliable.

Many policies have been made as a result of studies conducted with this data-set which must now be called into question as a result of the questionable validity of not only the data from Surgisphere, but the company as a whole.

Hyper policization.

From my own inspection, and I suspect many others, it isn't at all clear at this point what actually happened. How due diligence wasn't conducted prior to using the data, and why so many studies failed to disclose how their data was obtained.

However, what is clear, is that Hydroxycloroquine as a therapy for COVID-19 is has, and continues to be highly policized.

What should be clear as well, is that viruses do not care about politics, it certainly doesn't care about political ideology. Drugs also don't care about politics or political ideology. It is as simple as assessing whether the drugs work, or not. It shouldn't become a political point of debate because the question and answer is very simple. Its use also shouldn't depend on whether a certain politician or party likes it or not.

Sadly, the disputes over Hydroxychloroquine and it's use have spilled into the world of politics and with it, a precedent of politics interfering with scientific progress. This is not a good thing. It represents government and politics taking on too much of a role in our society, as well as our day to day lives.

Science based government.

I was trained as a scientist, and I have always leaned on scientific logic to formulate opinion. However, advocating for a science based government does not imply that the government will act in the best interest of it's people given the science. People assume that if we follow the science, then governments will always do the right thing and the world would be a better place. This is unfortunately a pipe dream. In practice, a science based government means the politicization of science.

As for Hydroxychloroquine, the data that I have seen from non Surgisphere sources are a hit and miss. We typically look for evidence that treatment is repeatable and consistent across a vast range of people with the underlying virus but that is not seemingly the case. It still can't be ruled out completely and I think studying it further with more clinical trials is worth doing.

My closing thought and summary of the above, is that the fundamental science of things like drugs for treatment are pretty clear cut. They either work, or they don't. We don't need politics to influence the process of scientific debate and yet the penetration of political influence is very evident. Science should be politically agnostic and the extent that it is not is making the world worse off.