A March 2020 paper "Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial" that helped spur the discredited claim hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID-19 is under investigation – again – after some of its authors asked to take their names off the article.
Soon after publication, critics pointed out flaws in the article. The journal commissioned a review, in which Frits Rosendaal, of Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands, called the researchers “fully irresponsible” for presenting flawed information “coupled with the potentially serious side-effects of hydroxychloroquine.” In an official statement, The International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC), which co-owns the journal with Elsevier, said in April 2020 that the article “does not meet the Society’s expected standard.”
Still, the journal did not retract the paper. In an editorial published along with the critical reviews, ISAC leadership wrote: "We believe, in addition to the importance of sharing observational data at the height of a pandemic, a robust public scientific debate about the paper’s findings in an open and transparent fashion should be made available."
