Richard Horton (editor)
Richard Horton, FRCP FMedSci, (born 29 December 1961) is the present editor-in-chief of The Lancet, a United Kingdom-based medical journal.
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[edit] Education and career
Horton studied at Bristol Grammar School from 1969 to 1980 and at the University of Birmingham from 1980 to 1986, receiving his BSc (in physiology) in 1983, and qualifying in medicine in 1986. He completed his general medical training in Birmingham before moving to the liver unit at the Royal Free Hospital.
In 1990, he joined The Lancet as an assistant editor and moved to New York as North American editor in 1993. Two years later he returned to the UK to become Editor-in-Chief. He was the first President of the World Association of Medical Editors, and is presently a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. He has also been president of the US Council of Science Editors (2005–06). He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University College London. A book about controversies in modern medicine, Second Opinion, was published in 2003 (Health Wars in the US). He also wrote the Royal College of Physicians report on medical professionalism, "Doctors in Society" (2005). He is married with one daughter, and lives in London.
Regarding peer review, Horton has said:
The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.[1]
Horton is also said to have been involved in controversies over the role of the pharmaceutical industry in medicine, the MMR vaccine, the ethics of medical publishing, and global health. The British Medical Journal of 22 January 2011 ran an editorial by Fiona Godlee referencing these concerns. In the case of the MMR vaccine, despite being a vocal proponent of academic publication ethics, he was accused of violating some of his own standards and allowing authors of the MMR paper to vouch for their own innocence without having any non-authors from the same institution examine the medical records for ethics violations or fraud. Dr. Horton might have misrepresented the scope of the Lancet investigation in early responses to the article.[2]
[edit] Controversy over death toll of invasion of Iraq
At the Time to Go Demo of 23 September 2006, Horton accused American president George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair of "lies" and "killing children" in Iraq. On 11 October, The Lancet published new estimates of the death toll of Iraqi citizens after the US-led invasion in 2003, putting it at a total of 655,000. Some supporters of the invasion of Iraq dismissed it for what they claimed was flawed methodology.[3][4][5] Some opponents of the invasion questioned its reliability due to its extreme divergence from other data on the conflict.[6] Some journals and statistical experts were supportive. Other experts in the field were not convinced, saying the estimates were "high, and probably way too high",[7] and that the authors had published a "misinterpretation of their own figures".[8] Others were incredulous that the survey could have been performed as reported under such dangerous conditions.[9][10]
Iraq's health minister estimated during a press conference in November 2006 that between 100,000 and 150,000 people had died since the invasion in 2003, based on an estimate of around 100 deaths per day brought to morgues and hospitals during 2006,[11] while saying that the Lancet estimates were an "exaggerated number".[12]
U.S. President George W. Bush was asked at a 2005 press conference to estimate the number of "civilians, military, police, insurgents (and) translators" that had been killed in Iraq[13] and gave a number of 30,000 deaths, but the White House declined to provide a source for that estimate.
[edit] References
- ^ Horton, Richard (2000). "Genetically modified food: consternation, confusion, and crack-up". MJA 172 (4): 148–9. PMID 10772580. http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/172_04_210200/horton/horton.html.
- ^ Deer, Brian. The Lancet’s two days to bury bad news. BMJ. 2011;342. doi:10.1136/bmj.c7001. PMID 21245118.
- ^ Reynolds, Paul (2006-10-12). "Huge gaps in Iraq death estimates". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6045112.stm.
- ^ "Critics attack huge Iraqi casualty figures". Radio Netherlands. 2006-10-12. http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/irq061012.
- ^ Russell, Ben (2006-10-13). "'Lancet' back at centre of controversy". London: The Independent. http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article1842560.ece. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
- ^ Iraq Body Count Press Release 14 (16 Oct 2006) :: Iraq Body Count
- ^ "Is Iraq's Civilian Death Toll 'Horrible' -- Or Worse?". The Washington Post. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/10/is_iraqs_civilian_death_toll_h.html. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
- ^ Taipei Times - archives
- ^ "Iraqi death toll withstands scrutiny". Nature. 2006-10-19. http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061016/full/443728a.html.
- ^ "Iraqi Death Estimates Called Too High; Methods Faulted". Science. 2006-10-20. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5798/396.
- ^ "Iraq issues controversial death toll". Financial Times. 2006-11-10. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/08e4ce42-70dc-11db-8e0b-0000779e2340.html.
- ^ Iraqi health minister estimates as many as 150,000 Iraqis killed by insurgents - iht,europe,Austria Iraqis Killed - Europe - International Herald Tribune
- ^ Dorell, Oren (2005-12-12). "Bush: 30,000 Iraqis dead". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-12-bush-iraq_x.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
[edit] External links
- Richard Horton speech at Time to Go anti-war demonstration in Manchester on 23 September 2006 at YouTube
- briandeer.com - Dr Richard Horton in Lancet scandal (MMR)
