The Only Hydroxychloroquine Story You Need to Read
Dr. Adalja is focused on emerging infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity. He has served on US government panels tasked with developing guidelines for the treatment of plague, botulism, and anthrax in mass casualty settings and the system of care for infectious disease emergencies, and as an external advisor to the New York City Health and Hospital Emergency Management Highly Infectious Disease training program, as well as on a FEMA working group on nuclear disaster recovery. Dr. Adalja is an Associate Editor of the journal Health Security. He was a coeditor of the volume Global Catastrophic Biological Risks, a contributing author for the Handbook of Bioterrorism and Disaster Medicine, the Emergency Medicine CorePendium, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, UpToDate's section on biological terrorism, and a NATO volume on bioterrorism. He has also published in such journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and the Annals of Emergency Medicine. He is a board-certified physician in internal medicine, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, and critical care medicine. Follow him on Twitter: @AmeshAA
Hydroxychloroquine has been shown not to provide benefit for COVID-19 patients in multiple randomized controlled trials, despite continuous misinformation asserting its alleged effectiveness.
In the early days of a pandemic caused by a virus with no existing treatments, many different compounds are often considered and tried in an attempt to help patients.
It all relates back to a profound question: How do we know what we know?
Many of these treatments fall by the wayside as evidence accumulates regarding actual efficacy. At that point, other treatments become standard of care once their benefit is proven in rigorously designed trials.
However, about seven months into the pandemic, we're still seeing political resurrection of a treatment that has been systematically studied and demonstrated in well-designed randomized controlled trials to not have benefit.
The hydroxychloroquine (and by extension chloroquine) story is a complicated one that was difficult to follow even before it became infused with politics. It is a simple fact that these drugs, long approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), work in Petri dishes against various viruses including coronaviruses. This set of facts provided biological plausibility to support formally studying their use in the clinical treatment and prevention of COVID-19. As evidence from these studies accumulates, it is a cognitive requirement to integrate that knowledge and not to evade it. This also means evaluating the rigor of the studies.
In recent days we have seen groups yet again promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine in, what is to me, a baffling disregard of the multiple recent studies that have shown no benefit. Indeed, though FDA-approved for other indications like autoimmune conditions and preventing malaria, the emergency use authorization for COVID-19 has been rescinded (which means the government cannot stockpile it). Still, however, many patients continue to ask for the drug, compelled by political commentary, viral videos, and anecdotal data. Yet most doctors (like myself) are refusing to write the prescriptions outside of a clinical trial – a position endorsed by professional medical organizations such as the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Why this disconnect?
It all relates back to a profound question: How do we know what we know? In science, we use the scientific method – the process of observing reality, coming up with a hypothesis about what might be true, and testing that hypothesis as thoroughly as possible until we discover the objective truth.
The confusion we're seeing now stems from an inability to distinguish between anecdotes reported by physicians (observational data) and an actual evidence base. This is understandable among the general public but when done by a healthcare professional, it reveals a disdain for reason, logic, and the scientific method.
The Difference Between Observational Data and Randomized Controlled Trials
The power of informal observation is crucial. It is part of the scientific method but primarily as a basis for generating hypotheses that we can test. How do we conduct medical tests? The gold standard is the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. This means that neither the researchers nor the volunteers know who is getting a drug and who is getting a sugar pill. Then both groups of the trial, called arms, can be compared to determine whether the people who got the drug fared better. This study design prevents biases and the placebo effect from confounding the data and undermining the veracity of the results.
For example, a seemingly beneficial effect might be seen in an observational study with no blinding and no control group. In such a case, all patients are openly given the drug and their doctors observe how they do. A prime example is the 36-patient single-arm study from France that generated a tremendous amount of interest after President Trump tweeted about it. But this kind of a study by its nature cannot answer the critical question: Was the positive effect because of hydroxychloroquine or just the natural course of the illness? In other words, would someone have recovered in a similar fashion regardless of the drug? What is the role of the placebo effect?
These are reasons why it is crucial to give a placebo to a control group that is as similar in every respect as possible to those receiving the intervention. Then we attempt to find out by comparing the two groups: What is the side effect profile of the drug? Are the groups large enough to detect a relatively rare safety concern? How long were the patients followed for? Was something else responsible for making the patients get better, such as the use of steroids (as likely was the case in the Henry Ford study)?
Looking at the two major hydroxychloroquine trials, it is apparent that, when studied using the best tools of clinical trials, no benefit is likely to occur.
All of these considerations amount to just a fraction of the questions that can be answered more definitively in a well-designed large randomized controlled trial than in observational studies. Indeed, an observational study from New York failed to show any benefit in hospitalized patients, showing how unclear and disparate the results can be with these types of studies. A New York retrospective study (which examined patient outcomes after they were already treated) had similar results and included the use of azithromycin.
When evaluating a study, it is also important to note whether conflicts of interest exist, as well as the quality of the peer review and the data itself. In the case of the French study, for example, the paper was published in a journal in which one of the authors was editor-in-chief, and it was accepted for publication after 24 hours. Patients who fared poorly on hydroxychloroquine were also left out of the study altogether, skewing the results.
What Randomized Controlled Trials Have Shown
Looking at the two major hydroxychloroquine trials, it is apparent that, when studied using the best tools of clinical trials, no benefit is likely to occur. The most important of these studies to announce results was part of the Recovery trial, which was designed to test multiple interventions in the treatment of COVID-19. This trial, which has yet to be formally published, was a randomized controlled trial that involved over 1500 hospitalized patients being administered hydroxychloroquine compared to over 3000 who did not receive the medication. Clinical testing requires large numbers of patients to have the power to demonstrate statistical significance -- the threshold at which any apparent benefit is more than you would expect by random chance alone.
In this study, hydroxychloroquine provided no mortality benefit or even a benefit in hospital length of stay. In fact, the opposite occurred. Hydroxychloroquine patients were more likely to stay in the hospital longer and were more likely to require mechanical ventilation. Additionally, smaller randomized trials conducted in China have not shown benefit either.
Another major study involved the use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent illness in people who were exposed to COVID-19. These results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, included over 800 patients who were studied in a randomized double-blind controlled trial and also failed to show any benefit.
But what about adding the antibiotic azithromycin in conjunction with hydroxychloroquine? A three-arm randomized controlled study involving over 500 patients hospitalized with mild to moderate COVID-19 was conducted. Its results, also published in The New England Journal of Medicine, failed to show any benefit – with or without azithromycin – and demonstrated evidence of harm. Those who received these treatments had elevations of their liver function tests and heart rhythm abnormalities. These findings hold despite the retraction of an observational study showing similar results.
Additionally, when used in combination with remdesivir – an experimental antiviral – hydroxychloroquine has been shown to be associated with worse outcomes and more side effects.
But what about in mildly ill patients not requiring hospitalization? There was no benefit found in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of 400 patients, the majority of whom were given the drug within one day of symptoms.
Some randomized controlled studies have yet to report their findings on hydroxychloroquine in non-hospitalized patients, with the use of zinc (which has some evidence in the treatment of the common cold, another ailment that can be caused by coronaviruses). And studies have yet to come out regarding whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent people from getting sick before they are even exposed. But the preponderance of the evidence from studies designed specifically to find benefit for treating COVID-19 does not support its use outside of a research setting.
Today – even with some studies (including those with zinc) still ongoing – if a patient asked me to prescribe them hydroxychloroquine for any severity or stage of illness, with or without zinc, with or without azithromycin, I would refrain. I would explain that, based on the evidence from clinical trials that has been amassed, there is no reason to believe that it will alter the course of illness for the better.
Failing to recognize the reality of the situation runs the risk of crowding out other more promising treatments and creating animosity where none should exist.
What has been occurring is a continual shifting of goalposts with each negative hydroxychloroquine study. Those in favor of the drug protest that a trial did not include azithromycin or zinc or wasn't given at the right time to the right patients. While there may be biological plausibility to treating illness early or combining treatments with zinc, it can only be definitively shown in a randomized, controlled prospective study.
The bottom line: A study that only looks at past outcomes in one group of patients – even when well conducted – is at most hypothesis generating and cannot be used as the sole basis for a new treatment paradigm.
Some may argue that there is no time to wait for definitive studies, but no treatment is benign. The risk/benefit ratio is not the same for every possible use of the drug. For example, hydroxychloroquine has a long record of use in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus (whose patients are facing shortages because of COVID-19 related demand). But the risk of side effects for many of these patients is worth taking because of the substantial benefit the drug provides in treating those conditions.
In COVID-19, however, the disease apparently causes cardiac abnormalities in a great deal of many mild cases, a situation that should prompt caution when using any drugs that have known effects on the cardiac system -- drugs like hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
My Own Experience
It is not the case that every physician was biased against this drug from the start. Indeed, most of us wanted it to be shown to be beneficial, as it was a generic drug that was widely available and very familiar. In fact, early in the pandemic I prescribed it to hospitalized patients on two occasions per a hospital protocol. However, it is impossible for me as a sole clinician to know whether it worked, was neutral, or was harmful. In recent days, however, I have found the hydroxychloroquine talk to have polluted the atmosphere. One recent patient was initially refusing remdesivir, a drug proven in large randomized trials to have effectiveness, because he had confused it with hydroxychloroquine.
Moving On to Other COVID Treatments: What a Treatment Should Do
The story of hydroxychloroquine illustrates a fruitless search for what we are actually looking for in a COVID-19 treatment. In short, we are looking for a medication that can decrease symptoms, decrease complications, hasten recovery, decrease hospitalizations, decrease contagiousness, decrease deaths, and prevent infection. While it is unlikely to find a single antiviral that can accomplish all of these, fulfilling even just one is important.
For example, remdesivir hastens recovery and dexamethasone decreases mortality. Definitive results of the use of convalescent plasma and immunomodulating drugs such as siltuxamab, baricitinib, and anakinra (for use in the cytokine storms characteristic of severe disease) are still pending, as are the trials with monoclonal antibodies.
While it was crucial that the medical and scientific community definitively answer the questions surrounding the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19, it is time to face the facts and accept that its use for the treatment of this disease is not likely to be beneficial. Failing to recognize the reality of the situation runs the risk of crowding out other more promising treatments and creating animosity where none should exist.
Dr. Adalja is focused on emerging infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity. He has served on US government panels tasked with developing guidelines for the treatment of plague, botulism, and anthrax in mass casualty settings and the system of care for infectious disease emergencies, and as an external advisor to the New York City Health and Hospital Emergency Management Highly Infectious Disease training program, as well as on a FEMA working group on nuclear disaster recovery. Dr. Adalja is an Associate Editor of the journal Health Security. He was a coeditor of the volume Global Catastrophic Biological Risks, a contributing author for the Handbook of Bioterrorism and Disaster Medicine, the Emergency Medicine CorePendium, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, UpToDate's section on biological terrorism, and a NATO volume on bioterrorism. He has also published in such journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and the Annals of Emergency Medicine. He is a board-certified physician in internal medicine, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, and critical care medicine. Follow him on Twitter: @AmeshAA
Are the gains from gain-of-function research worth the risks?
Gain-of-function research can make pathogens more infectious and deadly. It also enables scientists to prepare remedies in advance.
Scientists have long argued that gain-of-function research, which can make viruses and other infectious agents more contagious or more deadly, was necessary to develop therapies and vaccines to counter the pathogens in case they were used for biological warfare. As the SARS-CoV-2 origins are being investigated, one prominent theory suggests it had leaked from a biolab that conducted gain-of-function research, causing a global pandemic that claimed nearly 6.9 million lives. Now some question the wisdom of engaging in this type of research, stating that the risks may far outweigh the benefits.
“Gain-of-function research means genetically changing a genome in a way that might enhance the biological function of its genes, such as its transmissibility or the range of hosts it can infect,” says George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. This can occur through direct genetic manipulation as well as by encouraging mutations while growing successive generations of micro-organism in culture. “Some of these changes may impact pathogenesis in a way that is hard to anticipate in advance,” Church says.
In the wake of the global pandemic, the pros and cons of gain-of-function research are being fiercely debated. Some scientists say this type of research is vital for preventing future pandemics or for preparing for bioweapon attacks. Others consider it another disaster waiting to happen. The Government Accounting Office issued a report charging that a framework developed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) provided inadequate oversight of this potentially deadly research. There’s a movement to stop it altogether. In January, the Viral Gain-of-Function Research Moratorium Act (S. 81) was introduced into the Senate to cease awarding federal research funding to institutions doing gain-of-function studies.
While testifying before the House COVID Origins Select Committee on March 8th, Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that COVID-19 may have resulted from an accidental lab leak involving gain-of-function research. Redfield said his conclusion is based upon the “rapid and high infectivity for human-to-human transmission, which then predicts the rapid evolution of new variants.”
“It is a very, very, very small subset of life science research that could potentially generate a potential pandemic pathogen,” said Gerald Parker, associate dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M University.
“In my opinion,” Redfield continues, “the COVID-19 pandemic presents a case study on the potential dangers of such research. While many believe that gain-of-function research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing vaccines, in this case, I believe that was the exact opposite.” Consequently, Redfield called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research until there is consensus about the value of such risky science.
What constitutes risky?
The Federal Select Agent Program lists 68 specific infectious agents as risky because they are either very contagious or very deadly. In order to work with these 68 agents, scientists must register with the federal government. Meanwhile, research on deadly pathogens that aren’t easily transmitted, or pathogens that are quite contagious but not deadly, can be conducted without such oversight. “If you’re not working with select agents, you’re not required to register the research with the federal government,” says Gerald Parker, associate dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M University. But the 68-item list may not have everything that could possibly become dangerous or be engineered to be dangerous, thus escaping the government’s scrutiny—an issue that new regulations aim to address.
In January 2017, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued additional guidance. It required federal departments and agencies to follow a series of steps when reviewing proposed research that could create, transfer, or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility or virulence in humans.
In defining risky pathogens, OSTP included viruses that were likely to be highly transmissible and highly virulent, and thus very deadly. The Proposed Biosecurity Oversight Framework for the Future of Science, outlined in 2023, broadened the scope to require federal review of research “that is reasonably anticipated to enhance the transmissibility and/or virulence of any pathogen” likely to pose a threat to public health, health systems or national security. Those types of experiments also include the pathogens’ ability to evade vaccines or therapeutics, or diagnostic detection.
However, Parker says that dangers of generating a pandemic-level germ are tiny. “It is a very, very, very small subset of life science research that could potentially generate a potential pandemic pathogen.” Since gain-of-function guidelines were first issued in 2017, only three such research projects have met those requirements for HHS review. They aimed to study influenza and bird flu. Only two of those projects were funded, according to the NIH Office of Science Policy. For context, NIH funded approximately 11,000 of the 54,000 grant applications it received in 2022.
Guidelines governing gain-of-function research are being strengthened, but Church points out they aren’t ideal yet. “They need to be much clearer about penalties and avoiding positive uses before they would be enforceable.”
What do we gain from gain-of-function research?
The most commonly cited reason to conduct gain-of-function research is for biodefense—the government’s ability to deal with organisms that may pose threats to public health.
In the era of mRNA vaccines, the advance preparedness argument may be even less relevant.
“The need to work with potentially dangerous viruses is central to our preparedness,” Parker says. “It’s essential that we know and understand the basic biology, microbiology, etc. of some of these dangerous pathogens.” That includes increasing our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms by which a virus could become a sustained threat to humans. “Knowing that could help us detect [risks] earlier,” Parker says—and could make it possible to have medical countermeasures, like vaccines and therapeutics, ready.
Most vaccines, however, aren’t affected by this type of research. Essentially, scientists hope they will never need to use it. Moreover, Paul Mango, HSS former deputy chief of staff for policy, and author of the 2022 book Warp Speed, says he believes that in the era of mRNA vaccines, the advance preparedness argument may be even less relevant. “That’s because these vaccines can be developed and produced in less than 12 months, unlike traditional vaccines that require years of development,” he says.
Can better oversight guarantee safety?
Another situation, which Parker calls unnecessarily dangerous, is when regulatory bodies cannot verify that the appropriate biosafety and biosecurity controls are in place.
Gain-of-function studies, Parker points out, are conducted at the basic research level, and they’re performed in high-containment labs. “As long as all the processes, procedures and protocols are followed and there’s appropriate oversight at the institutional and scientific level, it can be conducted safely.”
Globally, there are 69 Biosafety Level 4 (BSL4) labs operating, under construction or being planned, according to recent research from King’s College London and George Mason University for Global BioLabs. Eleven of these 18 high-containment facilities that are planned or under construction are in Asia. Overall, three-quarters of the BSL4 labs are in cities, increasing public health risks if leaks occur.
Researchers say they are confident in the oversight system for BSL4 labs within the U.S. They are less confident in international labs. Global BioLabs’ report concurs. It gives the highest scores for biosafety to industrialized nations, led by France, Australia, Canada, the U.S. and Japan, and the lowest scores to Saudi Arabia, India and some developing African nations. Scores for biosecurity followed similar patterns.
“There are no harmonized international biosafety and biosecurity standards,” Parker notes. That issue has been discussed for at least a decade. Now, in the wake of SARS and the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists and regulators are likely to push for unified oversight standards. “It’s time we got serious about international harmonization of biosafety and biosecurity standards and guidelines,” Parker says. New guidelines are being worked on. The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) outlined its proposed recommendations in the document titled Proposed Biosecurity Oversight Framework for the Future of Science.
The debates about whether gain-of-function research is useful or poses unnecessary risks to humanity are likely to rage on for a while. The public too has a voice in this debate and should weigh in by communicating with their representatives in government, or by partaking in educational forums or initiatives offered by universities and other institutions. In the meantime, scientists should focus on improving the research regulations, Parker notes. “We need to continue to look for lessons learned and for gaps in our oversight system,” he says. “That’s what we need to do right now.”
The rise of remote work is a win-win for people with disabilities and employers
Disability advocates see remote work as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike.
Any corporate leader would jump at the opportunity to increase their talent pool of potential employees by 15 percent, with all these new hires belonging to an underrepresented minority. That’s especially true given tight labor markets and CEO desires to increase headcount. Yet, too few leaders realize that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in this country, numbering 50 million.
Some executives may dread the extra investments in accommodating people’s disabilities. Yet, providing full-time remote work could suffice, according to a new study by the Economic Innovation Group think tank. The authors found that the employment rate for people with disabilities did not simply reach the pre-pandemic level by mid-2022, but far surpassed it, to the highest rate in over a decade. “Remote work and a strong labor market are helping [individuals with disabilities] find work,” said Adam Ozimek, who led the research and is chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group.
Disability advocates see this development as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike. For decades before the pandemic, employers had refused requests from workers with disabilities to work remotely, according to Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute. During the pandemic, "we all realized that...many of us could work remotely,” Foley says. “[T]hat was disproportionately positive for people with disabilities."
Charles-Edouard Catherine, director of corporate and government relations for the National Organization on Disability, said that remote-work options had been advocated for many years to accommodate disabilities. “It’s a little frustrating that for decades corporate America was saying it’s too complicated, we’ll lose productivity, and now suddenly it’s like, sure, let’s do it.”
The pandemic opened doors for people with disabilities
Early in the pandemic, employment rates dropped for everyone, including people with disabilities, according to Ozimek’s research. However, these rates recovered quickly. In the second quarter of 2022, people with disabilities aged 25 to 54, the prime working age, are 3.5 percent more likely to be employed, compared to before the pandemic.
What about people without disabilites? They are still 1.1 percent less likely to be employed.
These numbers suggest that remote work has enabled a substantial number of people with disabilities to find and retain employment.
“We have a last-in, first-out labor market, and [people with disabilities] are often among the last in and the first out,” Ozimek says. However, this dynamic has changed, with adults with disabilities seeing employment rates recover much faster. Now, the question is whether the new trend will endure, Ozimek adds. “And my conclusion is that not only is it a permanent thing, but it’s going to improve.”
Gene Boes, president and chief executive of the Northwest Center, a Seattle organization that helps people with disabilities become more independent, confirms this finding. “The new world we live in has opened the door a little bit more…because there’s just more demand for labor.”
Long COVID disabilities put a premium on remote work
Remote work can help mitigate the impact of long COVID. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 19 percent of those who had COVID developed long COVID. Recent Census Bureau data indicates that 16 million working age Americans suffer from it, with economic costs estimated at $3.7 trillion.
Certainly, many of these so-called long-haulers experience relatively mild symptoms - such as loss of smell - which, while troublesome, are not disabling. But other symptoms are serious enough to be disabilities.
According to a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, about a quarter of those with long COVID changed their employment status or working hours. That means long COVID was serious enough to interfere with work for 4 million people. For many, the issue was serious enough to qualify them as disabled.
Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found in a just-released study that the number of individuals with disabilities in the U.S. grew by 1.7 million. That growth stemmed mainly from long COVID conditions such as fatigue and brain fog, meaning difficulties with concentration or memory, with 1.3 million people reporting an increase in brain fog since mid-2020.
Many had to drop out of the labor force due to long COVID. Yet, about 900,000 people who are newly disabled have managed to continue working. Without remote work, they might have lost these jobs.
For example, a software engineer at one of my client companies has struggled with brain fog related to long COVID. With remote work, this employee can work during the hours when she feels most mentally alert and focused, even if that means short bursts of productivity throughout the day. With flexible scheduling, she can take rests, meditate, or engage in activities that help her regain focus and energy. Without the need to commute to the office, she can save energy and time and reduce stress, which is crucial when dealing with brain fog.
In fact, the author of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study notes that long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disability Act, depending on the specifics of the condition. That means the law can require private employers with fifteen or more staff, as well as government agencies, to make reasonable accommodations for those with long COVID. Richard Deitz, the author of this study, writes in the paper that “telework and flexible scheduling are two accommodations that can be particularly beneficial for workers dealing with fatigue and brain fog.”
The current drive to return to the office, led by many C-suite executives, may need to be reconsidered in light of legal and HR considerations. Arlene S. Kanter, director of the disability law and policy program at the Syracuse University College of Law, said that the question should depend on whether people with disabilities can perform their work well at home, as they did during Covid outbreaks. “[T]hen people with disabilities, as a matter of accommodation, shouldn’t be denied that right,” Kanter said.
Diversity benefits
But companies shouldn’t need to worry about legal regulations. It simply makes dollars and sense to expand their talent pool by 15% of an underrepresented minority. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance.
Companies that are offering more flexible work options have already gained significant benefits in terms of diverse hires. In its efforts to adapt to the post-pandemic environment, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, decided to offer permanent fully remote work options to its entire workforce. And according to Meta chief diversity officer Maxine Williams, the candidates who accepted job offers for remote positions were “substantially more likely” to come from diverse communities: people with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native, Native American, veterans, and women. The numbers bear out these claims: people with disabilities increased from 4.7 to 6.2 percent of Meta’s employees.
Having consulted for 21 companies to help them transition to hybrid work arrangements, I can confirm that Meta’s numbers aren’t a fluke. The more my clients proved willing to offer remote work, the more staff with disabilities they recruited - and retained. That includes employees with mobility challenges. But it also includes employees with less visible disabilities, such as people with long COVID and immunocompromised people who feel reluctant to put themselves at risk of getting COVID by coming into the office.
Unfortunately, many leaders fail to see the benefits of remote work for underrepresented groups, such as those with disabilities. Some even say the opposite is true, with JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon claiming that returning to the office will aid diversity.
What explains this poor executive decision making? Part of the answer comes from a mental blindspot called the in-group bias. Our minds tend to favor and pay attention to the concerns of those in the group of people who seem to look and think like us. Dimon and other executives without disabilities don’t perceive people with disabilities to be part of their in-group. They thus are blind to the concerns of those with disabilities, which leads to misperceptions such as Dimon’s that returning to the office will aid diversity.
In-group bias is one of many dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases. They impact decision making in all life areas, ranging from the future of work to relationships.
Another relevant cognitive bias is the empathy gap. This term refers to our difficulty empathizing with those outside of our in-group. The lack of empathy combines with the blindness from the in-group bias, causing executives to ignore the feelings of employees with disabilities and prospective hires.
Omission bias also plays a role. This dangerous judgment error causes us to perceive failure to act as less problematic than acting. Consequently, executives perceive a failure to support the needs of those with disabilities as a minor matter.
Conclusion
The failure to empower people with disabilities through remote work options will prove costly to the bottom lines of companies. Not only are limiting their talent pool by 15 percent, they’re harming their ability to recruit and retain diverse candidates. And as their lawyers and HR departments will tell them, by violating the ADA, they are putting themselves in legal jeopardy.
By contrast, companies like Meta - and my clients - that offer remote work opportunities are seizing a competitive advantage by recruiting these underrepresented candidates. They’re lowering costs of labor while increasing diversity. The future belongs to the savvy companies that offer the flexibility that people with disabilities need.