0.7 million Iraq deaths - top expert endorses Lancet methods

Professor Mike Toole, Centre for International Health, Melbourne - methodology used in The Lancet study is consistent with "standard practice" survey methodology for estimating avoidable (excess) mortality.

Professor Mike Toole is from the Centre for International Health, Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health, Melbourne. His comments were in a letter toThe Age newspaper, Melboiurne, Australia published on Saturday October 14, 2006 (search the letter archive using the link provided).

Key quote from this top medical epidemiological expert: " The methodology used is consistent with survey methodology that has long been standard practice in estimating mortality in populations affected by war. For example, the Burnet Institute and International Rescue Committee (IRC) used the same methods to estimate mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The findings of this study received widespread media attention and were accepted without reservation by the US and British governments. The Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health's Centre for International Health endorses this study."

Comment: In addition, the estimates of 655,000 post-invasion Iraqi avoidable deaths (excess deaths) is in good agreement with estimates from 3 separate data sets that have been publicly available for several years, specifically (1) from UN Population Division data (563,000); (2) UNICEF data (639,000); and (3) unamended estimates published in The Lancet in October 2004 (791,000) (for details see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10149/42/ ).

The latest estimates - by a top medical epidemiologists, from a top medical department in a top US university, peer-reviewed by top experts and published in a top medical journal - have been dishonestly denied and offensively disparaged by the war criminal UK, US and Australian Governments.

The prior estimates in categories 1-3 have been publicly available for several years but have been remorselessly ignored by lying, racist Western politicians, officials and corporate media in a continuing process of sustained, racist holocaust denial.

The awful truth is even more awful: thus from UN Population Division Data the post-invasion avoidable deaths in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan (as of October 2006) are 563,000 and 2,090,000, respectively, for a total of 2,653,000 avoidable deaths; by way of comparison, the corresponding post-invasion under-5 infant mortality figures are 437,000 and 1,665,000, respectively, for a total of 2,102,000 under-5 infant deaths (i.e. numerically about 80% of the total avoidable mortality) (for details see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10149/42/ ).

What is urgently needed is zero tolerance for politician, official and media lying and spin; cessation of the Bush Wars; public scrutiny of the lying and spin by politicians, officials and media; compensation for the Iraqi and Afghan victims; and arraignment of the main Coalition perpetrators (notably Bush and Blair) before the International Criminal Court (ICC).