Physician, Heal Thyself Can the Lancet’S Moral Medical Malpractice Be Fixed?
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VIEWPOINT YITZHAK SANTIS Physician, heal thyself Can The Lancet’s moral medical malpractice be fixed? AFTER THE publica- that he “deeply, deep- tion in The Lancet of ly regret[ted] the a mendacious “Open completely unneces- Letter for the People sary polarization that of Gaza,” Richard publication of the Horton, editor in chief letter by Paola Man- of the prestigious Brit- duca caused,” which ish medical journal, “was definitely not visited Israel where my intention.” What he was hosted by Hai- does this mean? Is he fa’s Rambam Medical sanctioning the let- Center. ter’s message, regret- The letter, published ting only the “polar- at the height of this ization” it caused? summer’s conflict In any event, the with Hamas, triggered problems at The Lan- a storm in the medical cet run far deeper. In community and in Is- his Rambam address, rael, with its blanket Horton ignored the indictment of Israeli CENTER MEDICAL RAMBAM COURTESY editorials and nu- doctors coupled with The Lancet editor, Prof. Richard Horton, at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center merous published wholesale allegations articles in the journal of a “ruthless assault” that amount to a gen- and “massacre” carried out by the Israeli army. eral J’accuse against Israel. This body of work is one result of the The Lancet has published unfounded charges against Israel for Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance formed under his tutelage. In years, but this was the worst. 2013, this Lancet-guided coalition launched a research publication When NGO Monitor uncovered emails from two of the main au- with Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a group cofounded by thors – Dr. Paola Manduca and Dr. Swee Ang – enthusiastically pro- Swee Ang, bringing us full circle to her promotion of David Duke. moting an anti-Semitic video by American neo-Nazi David Duke, In another example of “what goes around comes around,” Man- the controversy expanded. The major media coverage in the UK was duca co-authored two “scientific” papers published in The Lan- significant and Prof. Horton could no longer ignore the criticism. cet alleging that Israel is responsible for the rise in Gazan birth So, when Horton addressed an assembly of hundreds of Israeli doc- defects. Funding for one of these studies came from Interpal, for tors at Rambam in early October, there was much anticipation. Would which Manduca has also raised money. he address the tainted Gaza letter and would he retract it? Would he The US has designated Interpal as a terrorist entity for being “a apologize? Would he commit to a vetting process based on a serious principal charity utilized to hide the flow of money to Hamas.” The and independent peer review mechanism? BBC describes Interpal as “at the heart of a global coalition of 56 In a carefully worded speech, Horton said some of the right things, Islamic charities called the Union for Good, chaired by the spiri- but left more questions than answers. tual leader of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood Movement, Dr. When addressing the promotion of the David Duke video by two of Yusuf Qaradawi… [who] has said of the Israeli-Palestinian con- the Gaza letter’s authors he spoke well. He was “personally horrified” flict: ‘We must plant the love of death and the love of martyrdom by the video and its “abhorrent” worldview, it “must be condemned in the Islamic nation.’” How “love of death” accords with medicine and I condemn it” and he made that view “very clear directly to those is inexplicable. two individuals.” Horton has but one moral option – to remove the stain these Yet, despite acknowledging its toxic origins, he said nothing about doctors of hate have brought on The Lancet. To do so, he must retracting the letter. Nor did he commit to barring Manduca and Ang apologize, retract their Gaza letter (and all their other articles), from publishing in The Lancet. He was also silent about another of the and decouple The Lancet institutionally from groups associated letter’s authors who has appeared in The Lancet frequently: Dr. Mads with them, like MAP. Anything less would be tantamount to moral Gilbert, who is on record as approving the 9/11 attacks on America. medical malpractice that will blemish The Lancet for decades. Another question remains unanswered. Does Horton view these people as reliable sources on science and medicine? Yitzhak Santis is Chief Programs Officer at the Jerusalem-based More importantly, he did not apologize for the letter. He only said research institute NGO Monitor 8 THE JERUSALEM REPORT NOVEMBER 3, 2014.