Moralisation of medicines: The case of hydroxychloroquine

The concept of moralisation of health behaviours was introduced in social psychology to describe the attribution of moral properties to habits and conditions like smoking or being a vegetarian. Moral properties are powerful motivators for people and institutions, as they may trigger blame, stigma, and appraisal, as well as the polarisation of interest and scientifc hype. Here I extend the concept and illustrate how medicines and treatments can be seen as if they had moral properties, too, when they come to be regarded as good or bad in the moral sense, and not just in the instrumental sense of benefting or harming health. I propose the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) controversy of 2020 as an example of moralisation of a medicine. HCQ and chloroquine are anti-malarial drugs, whose of-label use for Covid-19 was hotly discussed in the early months of the pandemic, both in the media and within the scientifc community, and eventually dismissed when robust evidence came out. The point of the paper is to show that moralisation of health products and treatments may infuence individual and institutional decisions in signifcant ways, and also afect research. For these reasons, it should be carefully monitored and critically assessed