The Lancet's problems go way beyond the infamous open letter (update)

The Telegraph reports:

The editor of The Lancet has expressed his “deep regret” to Israeli doctors after his journal published a controversial letter in the wake of the Gaza war co-authored by two scientists who had previously circulated Ku Klux Klan material.

Addressing the physicians and staff at the Rambam hospital in the northern city of Haifa, Israel on Thursday morning at the end of his three-day visit to the country, Prof Richard Horton began by saying that he intended to “set the record straight” about his views and those of his colleagues.

Last month, The Telegraph published an article about the extreme opinions expressed by some of the authors of the British medical journal's ‘Open letter for the people of Gaza’
.
Two of the authors - Dr Paola Manduca and Dr Swee Ang - had previously circulated and promoted a link to a video clip featuring an anti-Semitic diatribe by David Duke, a white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard.

In the footage, Duke claims that “the Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking” and that “some of the Jewish elite practices racism and tribalism to advance their supremacist agenda”

“First, I deeply deeply regret the completely unnecessary polarisation that publication of the letter by Paolo Manduca did. [ ....] this outcome was definitely not my intention”, Prof Horton said.

“I was personally horrified at the offensive video by two of the authors of that letter. The world view expressed in that video is abhorrent and must be condemned and I condemn it”, he added, to the applause of the auditorium.

Prof Horton, who is editor-in-chief of The Lancet, added that he has made his views very clear “directly to those two individuals” - and said that he will publish “what I have just said in The Lancet next week”.

But Prof Horton made no mention of the other controversial aspect of The Lancet’s open letter, which wholly ignored Hamas’s role in the recent Gaza war - a fifty day conflict which was partly triggered by rocket fire on Israel from the coastal territory controlled by the Palestinian faction.

Following the publication of the letter, the staff of Rambam hospital were outraged and sent their own letter in response, which was not published by The Lancet, Prof Rafael Beyar, the Director General of the hospital told The Telegraph in an interview on Thursday morning.

“But we believed, and said ‘let’s invite him. It seems like he doesn’t know many facts about this region. Let’s invite the editor in chief of The Lancet to Rambam to see the reality of medical life [in Israel]”, Prof Beyar said.

“I will simply say the whole of my time, from landing here to being here today has been a turning point, for me in my relationship with this region - and I thank you for it”, said Prof Horton to the medics.

It is certainly good news to see that Horton has added to his knowledge of Israel, and that he is no longer defending the letter the way he did only a couple of weeks ago. But on the other hand, Horton is not saying anything about the content of that letter, only that he is upset at other things the authors have written. He does not seem to entertain the possibility that the letter itself is filled with lies. for example:

Entries of food and medicines into Gaza have been restricted and many essential items for survival are prohibited.

Not true.

Before the present assault, medical stock items in Gaza were already at an all time low because of the blockade.

Not true.

Likewise, Gaza is unable to export its produce.... agricultural products cannot be exported due to the blockade.

Not true.

(The footnotes to these claims go to the personal testimony of one of the authors of the latter!)

Horton, for all his apparent enthusiasm about what he learned during his visit, has not said a word (as far as can be seen) about the content of the offensive letter itself.

The Lancet's publication of this letter is not the most offensive thing that the previously prestigious journal has done in recent years. No, The Lancet is supposed to be a respected medical journal, and its bread and butter are scientific studies. And when it comes to Israel and Palestinians, it has published pieces that clearly went through no fact checking - the basic requirements for a medical or scientific journal..

In 2010, the Lancet published a pseudo-scientific study that blamed Israel for Palestinian Arab me beating their wives. yet an analysis of the people surveyed showed that the percentage that claimed to have had their homes demolished or land confiscated, or "made fugitives," or had family members killed by the IDF in a single year are so absurd, that it is obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of facts and math that the entire study was based on an extrardinarily flawed methodology - a methodology that was seemingly designed to come to a foregone conclusion.

Similarly, in 2009 The Lancet published the seemingly shocking statistic that 10% of Palestinian Arab children suffer from stunting. What they didn't say is that this is considered "outstanding" by The World Bank, and significantly better than almost all Arab nations.

Similar context free statistics were published in The Lancet about how 26% of Palestinian adolescents skip breakfast along with other statistics about overweight and underweight kids - without comparing them to other countries.

In 2011 The Lancet published the opinion of Palestinian doctors that “We cannot take care of health and education as long as we live under occupation”. This is again a ridiculous assertion, not least because Zionists managed to build major hospitals and universities under British occupation.

The Lancet also published the absurd claim that Israel has arrested 800,000 Arabs since 1967 - a number that has been completely made up by the Palestinian Authority and anti-Israel NGOs.

Palestinian medical researchers use bogus and out-of-context statistics to make political claims under the pretext of science (just like they politicize history and culture and cuisine and couture and literally everything else.) And so does The Lancet.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge, critical thinking and math skills would know that these articles are nonsense. But The Lancet is not acting like a scientific journal - it has been acting like a political journal for years with an anti-Israel agenda. And unfortunately, I do not see any indication from Horton's statements than anything is going to change.

UPDATE: Horton says explicitly that he will not publish a retraction. (h/t Jewess)

[N]o plans to, and indeed no grounds on which to, retract.