Posts mislead on Mayo Clinic’s hydroxychloroquine webpage

CLAIM: The Mayo Clinic “quietly” updated its website in 2023 to say that hydroxychloroquine can now be used to treat COVID-19. A page about hydroxychloroquine on the hospital system’s website included outdated guidance that the malaria drug “may also be used to treat coronavirus in certain hospitalized patients.” But archives show the text has been there since at least May 2020, a month before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency approval for using the drug to treat COVID. A screenshot in the post shows that that page read, in part: “Hydroxychloroquine may also be used to treat coronavirus in certain hospitalized patients.” However, archived versions of the website show there was nothing new about the language and it had been there since at least May 2020. The anti-malaria drug was authorized to be used for certain hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but the FDA revoked that authorization in June 2020, saying emerging data suggested it was “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA.” In a statement on Monday, the Mayo Clinic said the organization was aware of the “inaccurate information” on its website, which it said had come from an outside vendor. The Mayo Clinic has now removed the hydroxychloroquine page, and the URL redirects to another page stating explicitly that it is not recommended as a treatment for COVID-19 Medical experts told the AP that the information on the page was consistent with the FDA’s guidance at the time it was written, but it has been clear since early 2020 that hydroxychloroquine treatments were not likely to help COVID-19 patients.