We must commend the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Richard Horton, for his swift decision to pull the Mills et al letter Gaza from the Lancet Website Monday March 30. As I write this update on Tuesday am March 31, the Letter is still available on Science Direct, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673620307303 however I expect this version to also be taken down soon.

Scientists know that viruses, in many forms, have been with us since the dawn of humanity. Although perhaps more recent than the earliest coronavirus progenitors, the scourge and virus of anti-semitism has been a recurrent deadly plague for a few thousand years. It also mutates, and manifests through various forms, but is always highly infectious, even though it may occasionally be dormant for years and decades. Anti-semitism, anti-zionism, and anti-Israel invective, are highly related strains, and have proven to be repeatedly lethal. While grateful for the actions of the EIC at Lancet, we must ask-what motivation prompted the Lancet to publish this Letter in the first place? At a time when all countries are united in the same goal to battle a deadly pathogen, how did the Lancet perceive it was advancing its Global Health goals by publishing a one sided trope escoriating Israel, while once again ignoring the complicity of the terror state that regularly diverts hundreds of millions of $ into tunnels, rockets, armies, and militias, and away from health care and hospitals for its civilian population.

This newest episode at the Lancet reminds us that the virus of hate never goes away, and is always prepared to spread anew when our attention is focused elsewhere and our immunity appears diminished.

May you stay secure and healthy and help us defeat all threatening scourges, new and old, to make the world a better safer place for our families and children.

Daniel Drucker