要求《The Lancet》立即更正错误，共同捍卫台湾主权与学术尊严
世界顶尖学术期刊《The Lancet》（刺胳针）于6月25日刊登一篇中国的医学研究，由于该
研究将台湾纳为中国的一省，严重矮化台湾的国际地位，除引发数千网友在其脸书上留言抗
议并要求更正外，卫福部也将正式行文给《The Lancet》抗议，说明“台湾是台湾、中国是
中国”。
虽然《The Lancet》回应表示，这是根据联合国（UN）和世界卫生组织（WHO）的方针，才
将台湾列为中国一省，和其它的国际卫生分析没有不同。但必须严正指出的是，除了政治上
的错误之外，正因为台湾和中国为各自独立的两个不同国家，有各自独立不同的行政、健保
体系，在健保相关资料的完整性与正确性上，台湾与中国更是有许多差异，因此，这篇研究
将不同方法所蒐集的健康资料放在同一个层级的模型来作研究，不但产生许多方法学上与研
究结果的偏差，更已犯了学术研究的大忌，我们认为顶尖的《The Lancet》期刊不应该犯这
样的错误才对。
因此，我和中央研究院陈定信院士、廖运范院士、杨泮池院士等人，特别联名致函《The La
ncet》编辑部，要求该期刊立即更正错误，因为，这不只关系到台湾的主权尊严，更关系著
国际学术研究的专业与伦理。
我也要在此呼吁所有关心这个事件的国人同胞，踊跃到 《The Lancet》的脸书粉丝专业表
答您的意见，
https://www.facebook.com/374651963469/posts/10157661625328470
以下是致函《The Lancet》编辑部全文：
To the Editor:
We read the recent article by Zhou et al. comparing mortality, morbidity and ris
k factors in China and its provinces, 1990-2017. The authors used data from Glob
al Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 to analyse he
alth patterns in 34 province-level administrative units in China. This is a misl
eading and biased report due to the inclusion of Taiwan in the analyses.
The authors made an obvious flaw by including Taiwan in the study. The national
health system, government system and administrative system are independent in Ta
iwan. The completeness and accuracy of national databases of health insurance, c
ancer registry, death certification, cancer screening and health surveillance in
Taiwan is totally different from those of China. The health outcomes measured b
y different methods should not be included in the same hierarchical models. Taiw
an has its own cancer and death registration system, and the information were no
t collected by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention as describe
d wrongly in the article. The data source from the Global Health Data Exchange (
http://ghdx.healthdata.org/countries) that the authors used in this paper also c
learly showed Taiwan and China are two distinguished countries under the categor
y of Eastern Asia.
Taiwan has an independent National Health Insurance system which covers more tha
n 95% of 23 million people since 1995. Taiwan has also implemented a series of p
ublic health programs to reduce mortality and morbidity which are not implemente
d in China. For example, Taiwan is the first country in the world to implement u
niversal newborn hepatitis B vaccination program since 1984 whereas China starte
d in 1992. We reimbursed antiviral treatment for chronic viral hepatitis since 2
003 and decreased liver disease burdens continuously. Taiwan started to reimburs
e direct antiviral agents for chronic hepatitis C patients with advance fibrosis
since 2017 and for all chronic hepatitis C patients since 2019, and has committ
ed to eliminating hepatitis C infection in 2025, 5 years earlier than the 2030 d
eadline set by WHO.
The inclusion of Taiwan in the analysis leads definitely to a significant bias o
f the findings of Zhou et al. In their similar publication in 2016 (Lancet 387:2
51-272), Taiwan was not included in the analyses. We would like to urge the auth
ors to re-run the analyses and remove Taiwan from their analyses in order to yie
ld unbiased estimates of mortality, morbidity and risk factors in China. Lancet
, as an esteemed medical journal, has the reputation to publish accurate and pre
cise research findings. Such a major categorization mistake in the methods secti
on by Zhou et al. should be rectified.
Maggie Dai-Hua TSAI RIEDIKER
Mei-Hsuan LEE
Ding-Sing CHEN
Yun-Fan LIAW
Pan-Chyr YANG
Yi-Hao HUANG
Chien-Jen CHEN
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麻烦转一下八卦囉