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Several authors of a large study that raised safety concerns about malaria drugs for coronavirus patients have retracted the report, saying independent reviewers were not able to verify information that’s been widely questioned by other scientists. Thursday’s retraction in the journal Lancet involved a May 22 report on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs long used for preventing or treating malaria but whose safety and effectiveness for COVID-19 are unknown. The study leaders also retracted an earlier report that used the same company’s database on blood pressure drugs published by the New England Journal of Medicine. That study suggested that widely used blood pressure medicines were safe for coronavirus patients, a conclusion some other studies and heart doctor groups also have reached. Even though the Lancet report was not a rigorous test, the observational study had huge impact because of its size, reportedly involving more than 96,000 patients and 671 hospitals on six continents.  President Donald Trump tells reporters that he is taking zinc and hydroxychloroquine during a meeting with restaurant industry executives about the coronavirus response, in the State Dining Room of the White House, May 18, 2020.Its conclusion that the drugs were tied to a higher risk of death and heart problems in people hospitalized with COVID-19 led the World Health Organization to temporarily stop use of hydroxychloroquine in a study it is leading, and for French officials to stop allowing its use in hospitals there. Earlier this week, WHO said experts who reviewed safety information decided that its study could resume. “Not only is there no benefit, but we saw a very consistent signal of harm,” study leader Dr. Mandeep Mehra of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told The Associated Press when the work was published. The drugs have been controversial because President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted their use and took hydroxychloroquine himself to try to prevent infection after some White House staffers tested positive for the virus. The drugs are known to have potential side effects, especially heart rhythm problems. Data questionedThe Lancet study relied on a database from a Chicago company, Surgisphere. Its founder, Dr. Sapan Desai, is one of the authors.  Dozens of scientists questioned irregularities and improbable findings in the numbers, and the other authors besides Desai said earlier this week that an independent audit would be done. In the retraction notice, those authors say Surgisphere would not give the reviewers the full data, citing confidentiality and client agreements. “Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources” and must retract the report, they wrote.  “I no longer have confidence in the origination and veracity of the data, nor the findings they have led to,” Mehra said in a separate statement Thursday.  The Lancet’s notice said “there are many outstanding questions about Surgisphere and the data that were allegedly included in this study,” and “institutional reviews of Surgisphere’s research collaborations are urgently needed.” Desai and Surgisphere did not immediately respond to requests for comments sent to phone numbers and email address listed on the company’s materials. Good answers neededAll the authors of the study should have had access to the data, said Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic. “You really don’t know what a study showed unless you have the actual data,” Nissen said. “This is unfortunate. Clearly this is a very important topic and we need good answers.” The retraction shows “the system works,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute. The pace of publishing scientific research has sped up in reaction to the pandemic, Jha said, leading to errors. As long as errors are acknowledged, the pace seems justifiable because waiting a year or two for results to be published “is way too slow for this pandemic.” “Part of the problem is people are so anxious. They want a definite answer yes or no,” Jha said. “We’re moving as fast as we can in science, but we can’t overreact to any single study.” 
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NASA’s Near-Earth observatory (NEO) is monitoring an asteroid bigger than New York’s Empire State building that is expected to pass by the Earth Saturday.According to the NEO, the asteroid known as 2002 NN4 at its broadest section, has a diameter of 570 meters. The Empire State building is just more than 426 meters tall.  But scientists at the NEO say there is nothing to fear from the asteroid, as “near earth” is a relative term. They measure the distance to deep space objects in astronomical units, with one astronomical unit close to the mean distance between the sun and Earth – approximately 150 million kilometers. Anything that comes within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun, is considered a near-Earth objectAt its closest distance, Asteroid 2002 NN4 is expected to pass about .034 astronomical units – or about 5.09 million kilometers from Earth, about 13 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.  NASA established the Near-Earth Object Observations Program in 1998 to monitor such objects. They say relatively small number of near-Earth objects pass close enough to Earth and are large enough in size to warrant close observation. They say the gravitational tug of the planets could, over time, cause an object’s orbital path to evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit, creating the possibility of a future collision.NASA says it has contingency plans for such an event. But in a recent discussion posted on the space agency’s website. NASA Director of Planetary Science, Dr. Lori Glaze, said the possibility does not keep her up at night.
 
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The temporary expansion of telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic would become permanent under a bill considered Thursday by a Senate committee.
As passed by the House in March, the bill would allow reimbursement for medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders conducted via telehealth. But an amendment before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee would also make permanent the provisions of Gov.
Chris Sununu’s emergency order on telehealth, which allowed all health care providers to offer services via phone, video and other remote systems and required insurers to cover them.
Officials representing hospitals, community health centers, dentists and mental health providers all told the committee that telehealth has been a valuable tool during the pandemic and should continue.
Christine Stoddard of the Bistate Primary Care Association said community health centers “were able to turn on a dime” and transition to telehealth. And though in-person visits have resumed, centers still don’t have enough protective gear for staff, making telehealth options essential.
Because of the pandemic, telehealth services have become an important part of the health care system, said Paula Minnehan of the New Hampshire Hospital Association.
“As many experts have predicted, telehealth is here to stay, which is why this legislation is so important to ensure patients are able to get the right care at the right time in the right setting, which ultimately may be in the safety of their own homes,” she said.  
Ken Norton, director of the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said telehealth has greatly expanded access to mental health treatment.
“We can’t go back,” he said.
Other coronavirus developments in New Hampshire:The Numbers
As of Wednesday, 4,795 people had tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, an increase of 47 from the previous day. Nine deaths were announced, for a total of 265.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
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A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says emergency room visits for non-coronavirus illnesses plummeted in April at the peak of the pandemic.The agency released an analysis Wednesday that the declines were greatest among children 14 years old and younger, women and for people living in the U.S. northeast region.  The CDC noted a steep drop in the number of people seeking emergency care for chest pain, including heart attack, along with declines in children needing help for conditions like asthma.   FILE – A view of medical personnel working in Mt. Sinai Hospital Morningside during the coronavirus pandemic on May 18, 2020 in New York City.The United States has the world’s largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 1.8 million infections, with the death toll now topping 107,175.   The New York Times reports the Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely candidates to produce a coronavirus vaccine.  The companies have been identified as Massachusetts-based Moderna; AstraZeneca, which is partnering with Oxford University; and the pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer.   The Times quotes a government official as saying the White House will announce the decision in the next few weeks. FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks about the new coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, in Washington.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert and the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Tuesday he is “cautiously optimistic” that scientists will come up with an effective vaccine by the start of 2021, saying he hopes to have “hundreds of millions of doses.” But he added, “there’s never a guarantee.”  “It could take months and months and months” before researchers find out if a vaccine works, Fauci said.  Fauci also warned that a new vaccine may not provide long-term immunity against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.   “When you look at the history of coronaviruses, the common coronaviruses that cause the common cold … the durability of immunity that’s protective ranges from three to six months to almost always less than a year,” he said. “That’s not a lot of durability and protection.”      FILE – A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Minnesota say hydroxychloroquine, the treatment that President Donald Trump highly touts as an effective COVID-19 treatment, does not keep healthy people exposed to the virus from getting sick.    The report in The New England Journal of Medicine says the drug was no more effective than a placebo in clinical trials.    The scientists carried out their tests on 800 people exposed to someone with the coronavirus.    Hydroxychloroquine is a drug used to treat malaria, which Trump called a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19. He claims to have taken the drug himself.    But some doctors say the drug could have serious side effects, including heart rhythm problems or even death.    The World Health Organization has suspended the use of hydroxychloroquine in tests for a coronavirus treatment. France has outlawed its use altogether.  
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