".... they did themselves no favours botching the US side of the...

".... they did themselves no favours botching the US side of the acne trial."

Granted that the US side was botched*, but it hasn't been established who botched it - it needs to be remembered that a double-blind trial implies other parties besides Botanix are involved, thus the following questions arise:

[1] what parties besides Botanix were involved in the trial?
[2] who was involved in the selection of said parties?

... to be considered while reflecting on the FDA's choice of incompetents for the hydroxychloroquine trial, and asking whether the wide variation of hydroxychloroquine metabolism in humans was allowed for.

* Note
(a) a lot of fiat is involved, there are cases of the lily begin gilded (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340084/) - why would there not be cases of the gild being stripped from the lily?
(b) in the absence of any explanation as to how "manufacturing problems" caused the apparent swap, unless simply a euphemism, playing the fool with the analysis and double-blinding remains the likely explanation for the strange results.
(c) have the "data" been checked for bimodality - a likely effect of tampering?
(d) playing the fool with anything fed to humans is a dangerous path compared with playing the fool with the analysis and double-blinding.