要求《The Lancet》立即更正錯誤，共同捍衛台灣主權與學術尊嚴
世界頂尖學術期刊《The Lancet》（刺胳針）於6月25日刊登一篇中國的醫學研究，由於該
研究將台灣納為中國的一省，嚴重矮化台灣的國際地位，除引發數千網友在其臉書上留言抗
議並要求更正外，衛福部也將正式行文給《The Lancet》抗議，說明「台灣是台灣、中國是
中國」。
雖然《The Lancet》回應表示，這是根據聯合國（UN）和世界衛生組織（WHO）的方針，才
將台灣列為中國一省，和其它的國際衛生分析沒有不同。但必須嚴正指出的是，除了政治上
的錯誤之外，正因為台灣和中國為各自獨立的兩個不同國家，有各自獨立不同的行政、健保
體系，在健保相關資料的完整性與正確性上，台灣與中國更是有許多差異，因此，這篇研究
將不同方法所蒐集的健康資料放在同一個層級的模型來作研究，不但產生許多方法學上與研
究結果的偏差，更已犯了學術研究的大忌，我們認為頂尖的《The Lancet》期刊不應該犯這
樣的錯誤才對。
因此，我和中央研究院陳定信院士、廖運範院士、楊泮池院士等人，特別聯名致函《The La
ncet》編輯部，要求該期刊立即更正錯誤，因為，這不只關係到台灣的主權尊嚴，更關係著
國際學術研究的專業與倫理。
我也要在此呼籲所有關心這個事件的國人同胞，踴躍到 《The Lancet》的臉書粉絲專業表
答您的意見，
https://www.facebook.com/374651963469/posts/10157661625328470
以下是致函《The Lancet》編輯部全文：
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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