{"id":2594,"date":"2014-08-09T17:44:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T22:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2014-08-09T17:44:30","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T22:44:30","slug":"its-time-to-take-responsibility-why-the-editor-of-the-lancet-should-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/2014\/08\/09\/its-time-to-take-responsibility-why-the-editor-of-the-lancet-should-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s time to take responsibility – why the editor of The Lancet should resign"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of people, governments, and organizations who need to step up and take responsibility. But in this piece about taking responsibility, I call on Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, the UK’s premier medical journal, to apologize and resign. If publishing the deceitful and fallacious\u00a0 “Open letter to the people of Gaza<\/a>” wasn’t enough to merit his stepping aside, then his failure to allow the Israeli Medical Society and\/or Israeli doctors and scientists to respond to these lies in a rejoinder article certainly is.<\/p>\n

I have responded<\/a> to the malevolent letter (saying that it is merely ‘biased’ would be giving too much credit to the authors) in the pages of The Guardian. But had I known at the time that several of the authors of this letter knowingly lied and reported that they “had no competing interests,” violating The Lancet’s “Declaration of Interests Policy,” I would have called for his resignation in my rebuttal.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Mads Gilberts, one of the co-signatories on this letter, made the following statement in Dagbladet<\/em><\/a>, Norway’s second largest daily tabloid (I used Google translate to convert the text from the Norwegian) regarding the most horrific terror attack ever carried out on US soil: <\/span><\/p>\n

The attack on<\/span> New<\/span> York<\/span> was<\/span> not surprising<\/span>, after<\/span> the<\/span> policy<\/span> has led<\/span> the West<\/span> in recent decades.<\/span> I am<\/span> outraged by<\/span> the attack<\/span>, but I am<\/span> equally<\/span> upset<\/span> over<\/span> the suffering<\/span> that<\/span> the United States<\/span> has created<\/span>. It is in<\/span> this context<\/span> 5000<\/span> dead people<\/span> must be seen<\/span>. If<\/span> the United States government<\/span> has<\/span> a legitimate<\/span> right to<\/span> bomb<\/span> and kill<\/span> civilians in<\/span> Iraq,<\/span> including those<\/span> suppressed<\/span> a moral<\/span> right to attack<\/span> the United States with<\/span> the<\/span> weapons<\/span> they<\/span> had to<\/span> create.<\/span> Dead<\/span> civilians<\/span> are<\/span> the same<\/span> whether<\/span> Americans,<\/span> Palestinians<\/span> or<\/span> Iraqis,<\/span> says<\/span> physician<\/span> and<\/span> professor<\/span> Mads<\/span> Gilbert.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span> Do you support<\/span> a terrorist attack<\/span> on the<\/span> USA?<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span> Terror<\/span> is a bad<\/span> weapon<\/span>, but the answer<\/span> is yes<\/span>, within<\/span> the<\/span> context<\/span> I<\/span> have mentioned<\/span>, says<\/span> Gilbert.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first author of the hateful Lancet rant, Paolo Manduca, is the recipient of funding from various anti-Israel NGOs. For example, this abstract<\/a> clearly states that the study was funded by Interpal, Gaza, London, UK. As noted in the following bulletin<\/a>, Interpal (also known by another benign-sounding title as\u00a0The Palestinian Relief and Development Fund) is designated by the US treasury as a terror organization. And for anyone who wants to know why Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, read the description of what Hamas has done at the bottom section.<\/p>\n

Whether a once-respected medical journal is the place for addressing complex geo-political issues is one question. But having chosen to do so by exclusively accepting a blatantly deceitful account from several highly radical and terror-supporting physicians and researchers – while rejecting any opportunity for a rejoinder from Israeli doctors – clearly indicates that Horton can no longer qualify as a fair, unbiased editor for anything published in The Lancet<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of people, governments, and organizations who need to step up and take responsibility. But in this piece about taking responsibility, I call on Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, the UK’s premier medical journal, to apologize … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[742,91,50],"tags":[1105,996,1107,568,963,793,1089,1103,26,1109,1106,1100,870,1108,1101,1104,36,994,1102,1099],"class_list":["post-2594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-boycott","category-research","category-science","tag-open-letter-to-the-people-of-gaza","tag-9-11","tag-deceit","tag-doctors","tag-editor","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-interpal","tag-israel","tag-lancet-declaration-of-interests-policy","tag-lies","tag-manduca","tag-palestine","tag-political-agenda","tag-resign","tag-richard-horton","tag-scientists","tag-terror","tag-terrorist","tag-the-lancet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}