“Respectfully, following the letter dated November 14, 2022, and referring to your Lancet magazine article regarding Miss. Mahsa Amini, we are very disappointed to see the republishing of completely false information about the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially regarding doctors and the health service delivery system, in a magazine that is known as a scientific magazine,” Seyed Alireza Marandi, MD, wrote.
Mahsa Amini was a young Iranian woman who died in hospital last year a few days after being arrested by police, triggering a wave of unrest across Iran.
Dr. Marandi also voiced suspicions of potential “political interests” driving the publication of such inaccurate reports, warning that such an approach would tarnish the scientific credibility of the journal.
He also reiterated a desire for the Lancet, a publication known for its scientific integrity, to address the severe implications of the cruel sanctions imposed by the United States and its Western allies on the people of Iran, including women and children, which have had immense implications for the nation's healthcare system.
The following is the complete text of the letter:
Professor Richard Horton,
Editor-in-Chief of the Lancet Medical Journal
Respectfully, following the letter dated November 14, 2022, and referring to your Lancet magazine article regarding Miss. Mahsa Amini, we are very disappointed to see the republishing of completely false information about the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially regarding doctors and the health service delivery system, in a magazine that is known as a scientific magazine. Unfortunately, your article does not have any scientific documentation. Once again I wish you, who claim to include real and scientific content in your magazine, would address the issue of the cruel sanctions imposed by the United States and the West against the children, women, and men of Iran, and what serious damage it has caused to the health of the people.
It seems that there are material and political interests in writing such false reports, which question the scientific value of that journal.
I wish you had for once exposed the enormous support of Western countries and the US for Saddam Hussein, who committed unique and historical crimes with chemical weapons against our people, including Iranian and Iraqi Kurds residing relatively close to where Mahsa Amini lived. All carried out amidst the deadly silence of western dominated scientific and international bodies. It seems that there are material and political interests in writing such false reports, which question the scientific value of that journal. As I wrote to you in the previous letter, if the accusations mentioned in that article were supposed to be based on science, they would at least been quoted from sources that are not so utterly hostile to our people and country.
The Academy of Medical Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which consists of educated scientists and leading professors of the country's medical sciences universities, considers the contents of the article to be completely false and based on the material and political interests of those involved in its publication. The contents of the article are an insult to the community of health care and services providers, especially doctors, who have shown their unparalleled services to the people during the war imposed by Saddam against Iran, as well as during the cruel sanctions of the United States and Western countries that remained in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. We expect a correction from the magazine regarding the falsehoods in the article as swiftly as possible.
Regards,
Seyed Alireza Marandi, MD.
President
Academy of Medical Sciences
Islamic Republic of Iran
4353**2050
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