A Longer Look At The Lancet

Last Friday, I posted a piece at Jihad Watch about a letter that the British medical journal, The Lancet, had just published, without its editor, Richard Horton, subjecting that letter’s contents to any review. The letter claimed, preposterously, that those terrible Israelis may have killed as many as 186,000 people in Gaza, which is four times what Hamas, known for its inflated figures, has dared to claim. Yet this did not prompt any effort on the part of the editors to question the assertions of its three authors, two of them Arabs. Eyebrows ought to have been raised and the submitted pages ought to have bristled with the obelus, but neither happened. And so that malevolent letter went out to the world, wrapped in the prestige that appearance in The Lancet provides, and its claims became reported in the mainstream media thus: “An article in The Lancet provides a new figure of 186,000 deaths in Gaza.”

Prompted by a note from a JW reader, I decided to look further into The Lancet’s previous coverage of Israel and the Palestinians. My suspicions were confirmed. Here, for example, is a report on another letter, published in The Lancet in 2014, that also made wild charges against Israel:

The editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, which ran an open letter accusing Israel of a “massacre” in Gaza, said on a visit to Israel that he will publish a retraction.

Dr. Richard Horton made a statement Thursday during Grand Rounds at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, which he visited earlier in the week.

Horton reportedly said during his statement that he “deeply, deeply regrets” publishing the letter to the people of Gaza in The Lancet during this summer’s conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Several dozen physicians from the West signed the letter, which also accused Israel of “cruel” and “vicious war crimes.” Physicians, researchers and Israeli officials decried the letter.

NGO Monitor last month unearthed evidence tying two of the letters’ authors to support for white supremacist David Duke.

Horton had dismissed the NGO Monitor report as a smear campaign.

But it was Horton who had to stop smearing NGO Monitor, when he was confronted with the evidence that the letter he published was false in its charges, and had been composed by antisemites and racists.

And here is a report, from 2015, about the continuing protest against The Lancet for its “extremist hate propaganda” against Israel:

One of the world’s oldest and most venerable medical journals is under attack from an international group of more than 500 doctors over its coverage of the humanitarian disaster caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Lancet and its editor, Richard Horton, have been targeted over what the group claims is the “grossly irresponsible misuse of [the journal] for political purposes”. The controversy was sparked by an article deemed to be critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

The protesting doctors, including five Nobel laureates as well as Lord Winston, the broadcaster and IVF pioneer, style themselves “concerned academics”, and accuse the journal of publishing “stereotypical extremist hate propaganda”. They also accuse the journal’s owner, the publishing firm Reed Elsevier, of “profiting from the publication of dishonest and malicious material that incites hatred and violence”.

The doctors threatened to boycott the journal if Reed Elsevier does not “enforce appropriate ethical standards of editorship”.

That was the first protest against The Lancet for anti-Israel bias; it ultimately included 4000 clinicians and medical researchers, many of them of world renown, including five Nobel laureates, who deplored the “malpractice” by The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, and his using the journal “for political purposes.” What’s more, they charged the journal of publishing “stereotypical extremist hate propaganda.” They also accused the journal’s owner, the publishing firm Reed Elsevier, of “profiting from the publication of dishonest and malicious material that incites hatred and violence.” No mincing of words there. And there is more.