Medical professionals respond to serious threat to The Lancet

The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest and most respected medical journals, is under attack from more than 500 doctors from across the globe over an open letter it published last July during the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip.

“An open letter to the people of Gaza” denounced what it called “Israel’s crimes against humanity” and the “massacre in Gaza”. The letter stated: “Israel’s behaviour has insulted our humanity, intelligence, and dignity as well as our professional ethics and efforts.”

The letter, which controversially did not condemn Hamas’ rocket attacks, provoked a fierce debate in The Lancet‘s correspondence columns, with complaints of “anti-Jewish bigotry” and calls for medicine “not to take sides”.

In the latest development the protestors, led by Professor Sir Mark Pepys of University College London, have gathered together 396 professors and specialists to sign a complaint which was submitted to the board of the publishing firm Reed Elsevier, the journal’s owner, last month.

The complainants, which have grown to over 500 since a website was established to co-ordinate the campaign, demand that the publisher retract the open letter, apologise for its publication and ensure “any further malpractice at The Lancet is prevented”.

They threaten an academic boycott of Reed Elsevier, which publishes over 2,000 scientific journals, if their demands are not met.

The group claims it is campaigning against the “grossly irresponsible misuse of [the journal] for political purposes”.

In response, a rival group of 300 doctors, led by Professor Graham Watt of the University of Glasgow, has refuted the criticisms on their own website, handsoffthelancet.com.

Their response called the developments “the latest in a series of attempts to stifle media coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue”. They called the campaign a “smear campaign” and defended The Lancet‘s editor Richard Horton against the “personal attacks”, asserting that he is an “exceptional leader in global health”.

Many believe that this is the most serious threat to The Lancet since the first campaigning editor, Thomas Wakley, faced a series of lawsuits shortly after it was founded 192 years ago.