The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals.The Lancet was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English surgeon who named it after the surgical instrument called a lancet, as well as after the term "lancet arch",^{[citation needed]} a window with a sharp pointed arch, to indicate the "light of wisdom" or "to let in light". It publishes original research articles, review articles ("seminars" and "reviews"), editorials, book reviews, correspondence, as well as news features and case reports. The Lancet has been owned by Elsevier since 1991. As of 1995^[update], the editor-in-chief is Richard Horton. The journal has editorial offices in London, New York, and Beijing.

In the 2010 Journal Citation Reports, The Lancet's impact factor was ranked second among general medical journals, at 33.63, after The New England Journal of Medicine (53.48).

The Lancet also has several speciality journals all bearing the parent title: The Lancet Neurology (neurology), The Lancet Oncology (oncology), and The Lancet Infectious Diseases (infectious diseases), all of which publish original research and reviews. These three journals have established significant reputations as important journals in their medical speciality. According to the 2010 Journal Citation Reports by Thomson Reuters, The Lancet Neurology's impact factor is 21.66, The Lancet Oncology 17.76, and The Lancet Infectious Diseases 16.14. There is also an online journal for students entitled The Lancet Student.

Brian Deer is a British investigative reporter, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine and social issues for the Sunday Times of London.

After graduating in philosophy from the University of Warwick, he became editor and press officer for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was a member of The Leveller magazine collective. Subsequently he joined The Times, then The Sunday Times, first as a business news subeditor and then as a staff news reporter and feature writer. In the 1980s, under Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, he was the UK's first social affairs correspondent, and between 1990 and 1992 reported from the United States.

One of Deer's early investigations caused uproar in the drug industry when in 1986 he revealed that research into the safety of the contraceptive pill was fabricated at Deakin University, Australia, by scientist Professor Michael Briggs, employed by the German company Schering AG. In 1994, his investigation of The Wellcome Trust led to the withdrawal in the UK of a blockbuster antibiotic, Septrin, Bactrim, and the sale of the trust's pharmaceutical subsidiary Wellcome Foundation. In 2005, the withdrawal of the Merck painkiller Vioxx was followed by an investigation by Deer into the British medical chiefs^{[clarification needed – what does this opaque term denote?]} behind the drug's introduction. In 2008, a celebrity psychiatrist, Raj Persaud, was suspended from practising medicine and resigned his academic position after being found guilty of plagiarism following a Deer investigation.

Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957) is a British former surgeon and medical researcher, known as an advocate for the discredited claim that there is a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, autism and bowel disease, and for his fraudulent 1998 research paper in support of that claim.

Four years after the publication of the paper, other researchers' results had still failed to reproduce Wakefield's findings or confirm his hypothesis of a relation between childhood gastrointestinal disorders and autism. A 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part, and most of his coauthors then withdrew their support for the study's interpretations. The British General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wakefield and two former colleagues. The investigation centred on Deer's numerous findings, including one that autistic children were subjected to unnecessary invasive medical procedures, such as colonoscopy and lumbar puncture, and that Wakefield acted without the required ethical approval from an institutional review board.

Richard Horton, BSc MB FRCP FMedSci, (born 29 December 1961) is the present editor-in-chief of The Lancet, a United Kingdom-based medical journal.

Horton studied at Bristol Grammar School from 1969 to 1980 and at the University of Birmingham from 1980 to 1986, receiving his BSc (in physiology) in 1983, and qualifying in medicine in 1986. He completed his general medical training in Birmingham before moving to the liver unit at the Royal Free Hospital.

In 1990, he joined The Lancet as an assistant editor and moved to New York as North American editor in 1993. Two years later he returned to the UK to become Editor-in-Chief.

He was the first President of the World Association of Medical Editors, and is a Past-President of the US Council of Science Editors (2005–06). He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University College London, and the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Founder Fellow of the UK's Academy of Medical Sciences.