Taipei: Taiwan’s Chang Gung Memorial Hospital has announced its intention to seek reputational damages from two medical workers for allegedly misusing COVID-19 data in a letter published in the Lancet last month. The hospital is also demanding a swift clarification from the esteemed medical journal, as per a statement released on Monday.
According to Focus Taiwan, the hospital has engaged legal counsel to address the damage caused to its reputation and to the research team led by Lin Shu-min, head of the Respiratory Thoracic Department at its Linkou branch. The legal action targets Li Jing-xing and Hsu Shu-bai for their letter titled “Taiwan’s national health care on the brink of systemic collapse,” published on April 26.
The controversy stems from the letter’s citation of a 2025 study by Lin and his team, which was used without proper consultation. The letter inaccurately claimed that Taiwan’s COVID-19 hospitalization fatality rate was 58.2 percent. However, the original study, published in the journal Infection and Drug Resistance in January, actually found that 58.2 percent of critically ill COVID-19 patients requiring intubation were infected with the omicron variant.
Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, which operates branches across Taiwan, has stated its intention to seek nominal compensation of NT$1 (US$0.03) from the two medical workers associated with China Medical University Hospital in Taichung, central Taiwan.
The hospital also plans to send a formal letter to the agent representing the Lancet in Taiwan, urging them to issue a swift clarification and correction to rectify the misunderstandings caused by the letter. Despite a formal request for a correction submitted by China Medical University Hospital on April 27, the letter containing multiple inaccuracies remained available on the Lancet’s website as of 6:35 p.m. Monday.
The Lancet typically publishes retractions on a standalone page on its website, linking it to the corrected article with “Corrected” or “Correction” prominently displayed in red before the original text.