Political censorship in academic journals
JVL Introduction
Founded in 1823 The Lancet is one of the world’s oldest and most influential general medical journals.
To his credit its editor since 1995, Richard Horton, has not shied away from publishing articles drawing attention to the devastating mortality rates and damage to general health caused by wars and oppression, sometimes incurring the wrath of the political establishment.
It is therefore particularly shocking to discover that such pressure has been exerted on The Lancet by pro-Israel lobbyists that a letter published in March 2020 concerning the danger posed by Covid-19 in Gaza disappeared after three days, without any formal retraction by the journal up to the present time.
The dismal story of what happened next is related by the authors of that letter in the piece reproduced below from the BMJ. It makes depressing reading but should serve as a wake up call to all those who believe that academic freedom is not under serious threat.
GW
This article was originally published by the British Medical Journal on Wed 2 Jun 2021. Read the original here.
Political censorship in academic journals sets a dangerous new precedent
The academic community must develop a strong position to shield journals, their editors, and staff, against pressure to enforce censorship.
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Shocking. Could we in that case have a copy of the letter for reading and dissemination here and on our social media and the reply? Most of us don;t have access to the Lancet for the response and would not ave seen the original censored letter.
Sadly I am not shocked but have come to expect this attitude from what is after all a tiny state supported by a powerful state. Recently there have been signs that the powerful state is likely to lose some of that power and when it does so will the tiny leech. Time for a change of heart? Amazingly sad sickening business.
Dreadful. Quite unbelievable that a hitherto respected journal would give way to such pressure. Please publish copy of original letter; surely someone must have it. BoD plumbed the depths on this one
In answer to Rosie’s query above, ironically a copy of the censored letter can be found on a US government website here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7194595/#!po=41.6667
This is because of US policy that US publicly funded research should be made publicly available. It is surprising that the BMJ article doesn’t mention this. On the other hand I wouldn’t be surprised if this currently available copy also mysteriously disappears.
In fact there is not much in the original letter that would come as a surprise to those au fait with the situation in Gaza. The importance of the letter lay rather in its fully referenced detail, the credentials of its authors, and the reputation and reach of the Lancet, which has the second highest “impact factor” of any general medical journal. That is precisely why it was targeted by the apartheid lobby. The publication of the BMJ piece and its
widespread dissemination are therefore important in the struggle to demonstrate that attempts at this kind of censorship are doomed to backfire, not only on their totatlitarian instigators, but also on those who out of weakness succumb to such pressures.
On the positive side, I’m sure there was plenty of time for that article to be disseminated. They are playing a defensive game and they are always on the back foot. I have always argued that ‘once the intelligentsia have switched sides, you have lost the war’. This is slowly coming true even in this extreme case.
As indicated by Chris Owen the letter has already been disseminated for it is cited in “The Lancet” as well as in
” Int J Infect Dis. ”
The facts can only be suppressed for a short time ..
PS I also see that the letter is listed as a publication on “Research Gate” with a link to the full text.