100,000 deaths a 'conservative' estimate. posted by Richard Seymour

"Here we have a conflict going on in a densely populated urban setting and populations are at risk."


Ordinarily you have to pay for access to this website, but I have cunningly cached it, and so you can access it here . It contains an extensive interview with one of the authors of the report published in the Lancet which estimated 100,000 excess deaths as a result of the war:

IRAQ'D: The number you're citing--100,000 Iraqis dead as a result of the intervention. There have been a number of studies by human rights organizations and other organizations that have put high totals of civilian casualties dramatically lower. The highest total I've seen is 30,000. This is a rather staggeringly high number, and I was wondering if you could explain how your model is a sound and responsible model, methodologically.

BURNHAM: Let me first say that at least in the public health model, we generally have two ways of collecting information. One, we have passive data collection, and that's like doctors turning in their reports, and the hospitals filling out their data sheets and so forth. And then we have active surveillance: You go out in the community and actually find what's going on--how many people have HIV, how many people have TB and so forth. Those numbers [between active and passive collection] are always different. Sometimes they're not so different, sometimes they're dramatically different, because a system just never captures all the things that are happening. That's why we have syntheses and those kinds of things, going out to find where people live and getting data from them directly.

...

Now, you can argue, is this increased mortality rate 70,000? Is it 60,000, is it 150,000, is it 200,000? Our best guess, on a conservative side, is 100,000. But it could be less and it could be more. Because just by the statistical nature of this thing, the kind of zone around this number where we are sure this answer truly lies is fairly broad. It's a national survey, it's a massive survey, but it's not a national census.

...

IRAQ'D: Was this study peer reviewed?

BURNHAM: Oh, my goodness, was it ever. [Laughs] First off, nothing, nothing ever gets in the Lancet without a vigorous peer review. It's heavily peer-reviewed. And in the case of this article, it went through the full editorial review board several times and they sent it out for multiple reviews. I've written a few papers for the Lancet over the years and I've never had anything like the scrutiny that this one had.

...

Here's a conflict situation. Militaries, by their very nature, do not count civilian casualties. You can't blame them for that, because that's just how they operate. Yet here we have a conflict going on in a densely populated urban situation and populations are at risk. Somebody needs to look at what the public health implications are.

This is a study, as the authors note, with many limitations which they have attempted to account for in presenting the results. It has been vigorously peer-reviewed. It has estimated 100,000 excess deaths on account of the war as a 'conservative' figure. Unsurprisingly, Downing Street and many helpful media outlets have already produced a series of accusations and "ah buts" based on limitations which the authors have already acknowledged and discounted for.