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. 2020 Aug 1;180(8):1116-1118.
doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.1764.

Internet Searches for Unproven COVID-19 Therapies in the United States

Michael Liu  1 , Theodore L Caputi  2 , Mark Dredze  3 , Aaron S Kesselheim  4 , John W Ayers  5
Affiliations

Internet Searches for Unproven COVID-19 Therapies in the United States

Michael Liu et al. JAMA Intern Med. .

Abstract

This cross-sectional study examines internet searches indicative of shopping for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, including after high-profile endorsements.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Ayers reports receiving grants from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the University of California Office of the President, as well as nonfinancial support from the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Health of the University of California, San Diego; he also owns equity in Directing Medicine, Health Watcher, and Good Analytics, which are companies that advise on the use of digital data for public health surveillance. Mr Caputi reports receiving personal fees from Good Analytics. Dr Dredze reports holding equity in Good Analytics and has received consulting fees from Directing Medicine; he has also received payments from Sickweather, which uses social media for infectious disease monitoring, and Bloomberg LP. Dr Kesselheim reports receiving grants from Arnold Ventures and the Harvard-MIT Center of Regulatory Science. No other disclosures are reported.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Internet Searches for Purchasing Chloroquine
Queries included chloroquine in combination with buy, order, Amazon, eBay, or Walmart (the latter being the top 3 e-commerce companies). The first dotted vertical line corresponds to entrepreneur Elon Musk’s tweet on March 16, the second corresponds to President Donald Trump’s endorsement on March 19, and the third corresponds to the first reported chloroquine poisoning on March 23.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Internet Searches for Purchasing Hydroxychloroquine
Queries included hydroxychloroquine in combination with buy, order, Amazon, eBay, or Walmart (the latter being top 3 e-commerce companies). The first dotted vertical line corresponds to entrepreneur Elon Musk’s tweet on March 16, the second corresponds to President Donald Trump’s endorsement on March 19, and the third corresponds to the first reported chloroquine poisoning on March 23.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

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