Canadian Medical Association Journal's Bad Medicine
March 19, 2009
By: Mike Fegelman
Dear
HonestReporting Canada subscriber:
Inserting
anti-Israel rhetoric into ostensibly neutral medical journals is a tough pill
to swallow. When the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) allowed crude
anti-Israel propaganda to masquerade on its pages as legitimate academic
discourse, the CMAJ went well beyond its
mission statement
to: “showcase innovative research and ideas aimed at improving health for
people in Canada and globally” and instead promoted a grossly distorted
picture of the Gaza health care system and the recent conflict between Israel
and Hamas.
In its March 17 edition, the CMAJ featured two “dispatches from the medical
front” describing the state of Gaza health care before and after Israel’s
Operation Cast Lead — an Israeli military operation prompted by years of
Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians. Featured in the
“news” section, reports by unknown writer Christopher Mason (read
here in pdf) and Francois Dumont of Doctors Without Borders (read
here in pdf) both presented over-simplified, misleading, and incomplete
views of the health care situation in the Gaza Strip, blaming Israel alone for
all of the territory's ills.
Here is just a short list detailing the many deficiencies with these reports:
Israel did not
face a ghost adversary:
Remarkably,
these reports failed to even mention Israel’s adversary, Hamas. The very word
“Hamas” is not even referred to in both reports. Only references of “Israel’s
offensive” and “military campaign in the Gaza Strip” are made, leaving readers
with the overall impression that Israel’s campaign was against Gaza and its
citizens, and not Hamas and its rockets.
Conflict did
not happen in a vacuum:
Reports fail to
mention the raison d’etre for Israel’s incursion into Gaza, which was designed
to thwart Hamas rocket attacks. As readers were deprived of the history and
chronology of Hamas’ rocket fire, Israel’s defensive operations can only be
perceived as being bellicose. The fact that Hamas unilaterally broke a truce
firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns doesn’t even merit a single
mention.
Passing the
buck:
Authors fail to
mention the
Palestinian Authority’s and Hamas’ responsibility for ensuring the health
and welfare of its citizenry.
Baseless
implications derived from unattributed accusations:
Writer
Christopher Mason cites unattributed “accusations” implying that Israel
intentionally targeted Palestinian medical health facilities.
Unsubstantiated
and spurious claims allowed:
Mason quotes
Malene Sonderskov, Middle East Coordinator of
DanChurchAid, making the following baseless allegation: "Gaza has the
highest prevalence of traumatized children in the world." We wonder,
what scientific methodology did Sonderskov employ that could confirm the
veracity of this egregious allegation?
Other
significant omissions:
Spectator columnist Melanie Phillips recently
asked:
"what have the Arab/Israel impasse and Israel's military strategy towards the
Palestinians got to do with the practice of medicine?"
We agree. As Mason’s and Dumont’s analysis do not conform to the high
standards of oversight and scientific scrutiny necessary to be published in a
credible medical journal such as the CMAJ, it was both inappropriate and
irresponsible for the Journal to publish their dispatches. Doing so has only
tarnished the reputation of the CMAJ.
As a publication that aims to assist in the improvement and understanding of
world health problems, the CMAJ has grossly failed to remain unbiased in its
depiction of this particular world health problem. CMAJ readers have also been
deprived of the opportunity to develop an educated, informed understanding of
the health care problems in the region.
How
You Can Make A Difference
If you agree
that these articles were inappropriate for a respected medical journal to
print, please send your comments to CMAJ Ombudsman Bruce P. Dancik at:
pubs@cmaj.ca
and refer to Francois Dumont’s and Christopher Mason’s March 17 dispatches. If
you are a certified medical professional please disclose this in your
correspondence.
