Originally Posted by indigo
For students contemplating careers in medicine: ethics in research, reporting, and patient records remain crucial to maintaining personal integrity, trust in science and medicine, and having a positive influence on individual healthcare choices, as well as public health.

The study retracted by The Lancet is found here:
1) online link
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
(backed up on WayBack Machine, Internet Archive, over 1,600 times)

2) downloadable 10-page PDF
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2931180-6
(backed up on WayBack Machine, Internet Archive, over 70 times)

3) retraction
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31324-6/fulltext
(backed up on WayBack Machine, Internet Archive, over 220 times)

4) retraction PDF
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2931324-6
(backed up on WayBack Machine, Internet Archive, over 20 times)

Interestingly, the study itself asserts: "The data collection and analyses are deemed exempt from ethics review."
In the PDF, this is found on page 3/10, just above the first red "E" in the word "RETRACTED."

In The Lancet's retraction statement, The Lancet said, in part:
Originally Posted by The Lancet's retraction statement touts ethics
We always aspire to perform our research in accordance with the highest ethical and professional guidelines. We can never forget the responsibility we have as researchers to scrupulously ensure that we rely on data sources that adhere to our high standards. Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.

Gifted persons interested in careers in science, research, and medicine must be self-disciplined to adhere to ethical standards, even when it may seem inconvenient or less than expedient.

Ethics in medicine and research remain important now, as in the past, and while errors/omissions/breaches of ethics may be found more quickly now, the misinformation may have already been repeated and been accepted.

Broadly accepted views attempting to censor new information, such as the early outpatient treatments for COVID-19, is reminiscent of similar events in history:
- flat-earth believers attempting to silence evidence that the earth was spherical,
- geocenterists attempting to refute evidence of heliocenterism: that the earth rotates around the sun, not the other way around.

Science is never settled.