(Original source: The Lancet)
On 15 July, Taiwan Vice President Chien-Jen Chen, Minister of Health and Welfare (MOHW) Shih-Chung Chen and TRO Deputy Representative Moses Cheng’s letters urging the international medical journal The Lancet to remove a study incorrectly designating Taiwan and its healthcare system as a part of China were published. Vice President Chen pointed out the Global Health Data Exchange clearly shows Taiwan and China are two distinguished countries and therefore, including Taiwan in the analyses makes the article misleading, biased and flawed. The VP stressed that Taiwan’s government and healthcare system are totally unrelated to China, citing Taiwan’s independent national health insurance system, public health programmes as well as cancer registration and death certification systems. He urged the article’s authors to exclude Taiwan from their analyses and pointed out The Lancet, an esteemed medical journal, should publish accurate and precise research findings. Taiwan’s MOWH Shih-Chung Chen also expressed his formal protest against the study’s erroneous designation of Taiwan. He pointed out Taiwan is a sovereign democratic country with its own democratically elected president and parliament. Minister Chen stressed that since the study used biased and academically unethical methodologies, the results, therefore are of no value to the field of public health.
In another letter to The Lancet, TRO Deputy Representative Moses Cheng pointed out that unlike China, Taiwan’s national health insurance system is world-renowned, ranking 14th in the Global Access to Healthcare Index and ninth in the 2018 Health Care Efficiency Index. Deputy Representative Cheng stressed that depicting Taiwan as a part of China is not only inaccurate but also contrary to the UK Government’s longstanding policy to refer to Taiwan as simply “Taiwan”. He also pointed out that other international scientific journals, including Science and Cell, simply use the designation “Taiwan”. The Deputy Representative joined Taiwan’s Vice President and MOWH in urging the authors to remove Taiwan from the analysis.
