Researcher broke embargo to leak BMJ paper to Trump administration

A medical researcher who took a political appointment with the Trump administration while working on a major international meta-analysis of potential covid-19 treatments leaked a preprint version of the research to senior government colleagues last year, documents released in a congressional investigation show.1

Paul Alexander, a former assistant professor at McMaster University in Canada who specialises in health research methods, wrote in an email to Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), that the research lent support to a role for hydroxychloroquine.

The FDA authorised the antimalarial on an emergency basis last April under pressure from Trump, but revoked this in June, citing the drug’s “known risks” and stating that it was “no longer reasonable to …