It is not spin. This is how scientific and medical publishing works. What is wrong with you? And its deflect not reflect. The paper being retracted does not mean HCL is good. It just means the paper is not useful now in judging it all. The British study is coming and it will go through the same or more rigour.
Also you might want to see this @WeToddDid2 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-prevention-covid-19-study/ Latest study from New England Journal of Medicine also shows "basically no effect'. You can be sure a lot participants were on zinc and other multivitamins, just bear that in mind. Nobody is cheering this just we educated people know better than to get overly excited until the fat lady sings. I do a lot of hospice volunteering and I have seen and had hope for dozens of potential treatments that did not do what in theory they could or just not enough in vivo. A good example of this was DCA from around 2005/6 researched by the university of Alberta which may have been the start of the miricle mineral bleach cult. DCA had huge promise on paper and even in mice etc but... We always hope. If the upcoming UK study is not promising then we must be realistic about this all. There are plenty of other relabled drugs found by researchers that need attention.
That's what passes for a rigorous study? LOL There are some big caveats: The study enrolled people through the Internet and social media, relying on them to report their own symptoms rather than having them tracked in a formal way by doctors. Participants were not all tested for the coronavirus but were diagnosed as COVID-19 cases based on symptoms in many cases. And not all took their medicines as directed.
That the participants are medical staff adds weight. These are volunteer studies. There is another study coming from the UK, it may find some edge, who knows. Boulware's study involved 821 people in the United States and Canada living with someone diagnosed with COVID-19 or at high risk of getting it because of their job — doctors, nurses, ambulance workers who had significant exposure to a sick patient while not wearing full protective gear. You can mine for gotchas all you want, a lot of very over worked people are doing their best to find anything that works in reality, not just politically for you. Remember the USA is just 4.25 percent of the world.
What point, you must mean yours. It works or it does not work as a worthwhile prophylactic or treatment.
The survey was run by a very small company with 3 employees. One of the doctors has malpractice lawsuits against him to boot.
The study in the Op was political propaganda masquerading as a scientific study. The authors should be banned for life from publishing. It was fraud not an oopsie.