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The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 � A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here. The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion. But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths. It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It uses samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006. The findings of the previous study, published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, in 2004, had been criticized as high, in part because of its relatively narrow sampling of about 1,000 families, and because it carried a large margin of error. The new study is more representative, its researchers said, and the sampling is broader: it surveyed 1,849 Iraqi families in 47 different neighborhoods across Iraq. The selection of geographical areas in 18 regions across Iraq was based on population size, not on the level of violence, they said. The study comes at a sensitive time for the Iraqi government, which is under pressure from American officials to take action against militias driving the sectarian killings. In the last week of September, the government barred the central morgue in Baghdad and the Health Ministry � the two main sources of information for civilian deaths � from releasing figures to the news media. Now, only the government is allowed to release figures. It has not provided statistics for September, though a spokesman said Tuesday that it would. The American military has disputed the Iraqi figures, saying that they are far higher than the actual number of deaths from the insurgency and sectarian violence, in part because they include natural deaths and deaths from ordinary crime, like domestic violence. But the military has not released figures of its own, giving only percentage comparisons. For example, it cited a 46 percent drop in the murder rate in Baghdad in August from July as evidence of the success of its recent sweeps. At a briefing on Monday, the military�s spokesman declined to characterize the change for September. The military has released rough counts of average numbers of Iraqis killed and wounded in a quarterly accounting report mandated by Congress. In the report, �Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,� daily averages of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers rose from 26 a day in 2004 to almost 120 a day in August 2006. The study uses a method similar to that employed in estimates of casualty figures in other conflict areas like Darfur and Congo. It sought to measure the number of deaths that occurred as a result of the war. It argues that absolute numbers of dead, like morgue figures, could not give a full picture of the �burden of conflict on an entire population,� because they were often incomplete. The mortality rate before the American invasion was about 5.5 people per 1,000 per year, the study found. That rate rose to 19.8 deaths per 1,000 people in the year ending in June. Gunshots were the largest cause of death, the study said, at 56 percent of all violent deaths, while car bombs accounted for about 13 percent. Deaths caused by the American military declined as an overall percentage from March 2003 to June 2006. Violent deaths have soared since the American invasion, but the rise is in part a matter of spotty statistical history. Under Saddam Hussein, the state had a monopoly on killing, and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds that it caused were never counted. While the near collapse of the Iraqi state makes precise record-keeping difficult, authorities have made considerable progress toward tracking death figures. In 2004, when the Johns Hopkins study was first released, authorities were still compiling deaths on an ad hoc basis. But by this year, they were being provided regularly. Iraqi authorities say morgue counts are more accurate than is generally thought. Iraqis prefer to bury their dead immediately, and hurry bodies of loved ones to plots near mosques or, in the case of Shiites, in sacred burial sites. Even so, they have strong incentives to register the death with a central morgue or hospital in order to obtain a death certificate, required at highway checkpoints, by cemetery workers, and for government pensions. Death certificates are counted in the statistics kept by morgues around the country. The most recent United Nations figure, 3,009 Iraqis killed in violence across the country in August, was compiled by statistics from Baghdad�s central morgue, and from hospitals and morgues countrywide. It assumes a daily rate of about 97. The figure is not exhaustive. A police official at Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he had seen nationwide counts provided to the hospital that indicated as many as 200 people a day were dying. Gilbert Burnham, the principle author of the study, said the figures showed an increase of deaths over time that was similar to that of another civilian casualty project, Iraq Body Count, which collates deaths reported in the news media, and even to that of the military. But even Iraq Body Count puts the maximum number of deaths at just short of 49,000. As far as skepticism about the death count, he said that counts made by journalists and others focused disproportionately on Baghdad, and that death rates were higher elsewhere. �We found deaths all over the country,� he said. Baghdad was an area of medium violence in the country, he said. The provinces of Diyala and Salahuddin, north of Baghdad, and Anbar to the west, all had higher death rates than the capital. Statistics experts in the United States who were able to review the study said the methods used by the interviewers looked legitimate. Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was �the best of what you can expect in a war zone.� But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed � 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion � was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country. Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had �a tone of accuracy that�s just inappropriate.�

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/w...gin&oref=slogin

The Lancet, if you remember, published a similar study a while ago placing the death toll at 100,000 and it was largely dismissed for its shoddy sampling and statistical inference. This study, however, seems to be much larger in scope and much better attested to by independently reached statistics:

quote:

The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in the 14 months before the invasion and in the period after. The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates. According to the survey results, Iraq's mortality rate in the year before the invasion was 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people; in the post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The difference between these rates was used to calculate "excess deaths." Of the 629 deaths reported, 87 percent occurred after the invasion. A little more than 75 percent of the dead were men, with a greater male preponderance after the invasion. For violent post-invasion deaths, the male-to-female ratio was 10-to-1, with most victims between 15 and 44 years old. Gunshot wounds caused 56 percent of violent deaths, with car bombs and other explosions causing 14 percent, according to the survey results. Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said. Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq's pre-invasion death rate -- 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people -- found in both of the Hopkins surveys was roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team's results. [...] Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have." This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy" of the survey.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...s_world/mideast

quote:

Paul Bolton, a public-health researcher at Boston University who has reviewed the study, called the methodology "excellent" and said it was standard procedure in a wide range of studies he has worked on. "You can't be sure of the exact number, but you can be quite sure that you are in the right ballpark," he said.

http://online.wsj.com/public/articl...ff_main_tff_top

Here's the study in full if anyone with a better grasp of maths than me wants to poke holes in it:

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/i...73606694919.pdf

It goes without saying, but this is seriously disturbing if it's anywhere near accurate. Even Iraqbodycount.net places the civilian death toll at "only" 50,000: the minimum estimates for this study are 9 times that amount...

ITS OK!!! According to some folks on this forum, its well worth the democracy that is being built in Iraq, which I laugh at. If you are an Iraqi journalist, and you'll write criticising American forces, you'll be thrown in jail. HAIL TO DEMOCRACY!

More innocent Iraqis, mainly women and children, have been killed since 1991 than all people from all kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

HOORAY ... Iraq's terrorist regime that helped shelter and fund 9/11 attackers is gone for good(sarcasm)! Iraq was such a huge threat to the world, they would've attacked and capture the entire Middle East, annihilated them with terrible terrible weapons. Iraq posed a huge threat to world security (sarcasm again) ... Hail to emperor Bush! They found the weapons of mass destruction, stopped the nuclear holocaust (that was being planned in Hussein's dreams), Iraq is mostly rebuilt and more people have jobs, security, lots of money and stability. Heck, I'd be able to walk down the street saying I am from North America and I'd be completely safe!

Freedom isn't cheap. It'll cost you an arm, a leg, maybe your life ... times 600,000.

500 a day.?

yeah, thats pretty fucked. but id like to point out that whenever there was a power vacuum in iraq (and it would have happened eventually) i dont see the figures being that much different. well, asides from the civilians the americans have killed of course

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN vaccuum

HAHA, I corrected you, dude!

haha. im sorry to do this to you metalgear

quote:

vac-u-um �noun 1. a space entirely devoid of matter. 2. an enclosed space from which matter, esp. air, has been partially removed so that the matter or gas remaining in the space exerts less pressure than the atmosphere (opposed to plenum). 3. the state or degree of exhaustion in such an enclosed space. 4. a space not filled or occupied; emptiness; void: The loss left a vacuum in his heart. 5. a vacuum cleaner or sweeper. 6. Physics. a state of lowest energy in a quantum field theory. �adjective 7. of, pertaining to, employing, or producing a vacuum. 8. (of a hollow container) partly exhausted of gas or air. 9. pertaining to a device or process that makes use of a vacuum to accomplish a desired task. 10. noting or pertaining to canning or packaging in which air is removed from the container to prevent deterioration of the contents. �verb (used with object) 11. to use a vacuum cleaner on; clean with a vacuum cleaner: to vacuum rugs. 12. to treat with any vacuum device, as a vacuum drier. �verb (used without object) 13. to use a vacuum cleaner: to vacuum in the dining room.

link

Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Here's the study in full if anyone with a better grasp of maths than me wants to poke holes in it: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/i...73606694919.pdf It goes without saying, but this is seriously disturbing if it's anywhere near accurate. Even Iraqbodycount.net places the civilian death toll at "only" 50,000: the minimum estimates for this study are 9 times that amount...

I'll go ahead and try and poke holes at this.
It strucks odd because it really doesn't pass the common sense test.

Firstly, using the same methodolgy in 2004 they got a different conclusion (100,000 extra deaths as you mentioned). The difference was back then they used 33 clusters with 30 households, and in this study they used 47 clusters with 40 households.

I am not sure exactly where they got pre-invasion data from, but I assume they just asked the same people they surveyed.

The interesting thing here really is that they attribute all the non-violent death discrepancy to the Iraq war. Yet they try to dismiss them off the bat by using a false analysis (all deaths by cause) instead of the amount of death.

I urge you all to look at Table 2: Pre-Invasion and post-invasion deaths by age and cause.

You will find some very interesting thins, for instance:
Did you know that the cancer rate doubled, primarly in women, after the invasion? 15 people were reported to have died of cancer before the war, but 33 after.

Chronic Illness also doubled. Yet death due to old age grew from 8 occurences in the sample before the invasion to 19 after.

One elderly person was killed by airstrike before the invasion and one was killed by an explosion. Crime, or violent deaths aside from these two incidences apparently never existed in pre-Invasion Iraq.

I guess it is obvious, the war makes people older and therefore kills them. In fact when you add up all non-violent deaths before the invasion 80 247-to 247, you have a little more than a 300% increase in non-violent death after the invasion.

Why? They do not accurately address this question.

My answer, is most likely that people remember more recent things (even death) more vividly then things farther in the past.
Also, you maybe having a "baby-bomber" like generation in Iraq who's time is expiring that happens to coincide with after the invasion; explaining the high instances of cancer, old age, and heart disease stroke.

Anyway my take on it, is that you can't really state too much on it, because there seems to be a huge problem with the pre-war data for some reason. And until this can be explained, one should be cautious of the larger conclusions from this study.

Did 500 people a day die under Hussein because of Hussein? I doubt it, but he was terrible too.

Its a choice between the two evils .... poor Iraqis, jammed between crappy politics that are killing them in large numbers.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Freedom isn't cheap. It'll cost you an arm, a leg, maybe your life ... times 600,000.

Yes, but whats going on in Iraq right now, I wouldn't call it freedom. I'd call it freedom to kill whomever you want whenever you want wherever!

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium Did 500 people a day die under Hussein because of Hussein? I doubt it, but he was terrible too. Its a choice between the two evils .... poor Iraqis, jammed between crappy politics that are killing them in large numbers.

There's no contest...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_...Saddam%27s_Iraq

Magnetonium, this guy is more of a moonbat than most moonbats...

But considering your arguments lately, you're two peas in a pod...

Re: Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus I'll go ahead and try and poke holes at this. It strucks odd because it really doesn't pass the common sense test.

I admit I was a bit skeptical as well, but let's also keep in mind that the same methodology has been used for other death estimates, such as Darfur. Are we all incorrect about >3 million deaths there too with such erroneous methodology?

quote:

I am not sure exactly where they got pre-invasion data from, but I assume they just asked the same people they surveyed.

From what I read from the study, the "field manager" made the decision. I don't know exactly what or how such a decision was made, though I would assume the randomness of the pickings must be maintained, but that's admittedly an assumption:

quote:

Decisions on sampling sites were made by the field manager. The interview team were given the responsibility and authority to change to an alternate location if they perceived the level of insecurity or risk to be unacceptable. In every cluster, the numbers of households where no-one was at home or where participation was refused were recorded. In every cluster, queries were made about any household that had been present during the survey period that had ceased to exist because all members had died or left. Empty houses or those that refused to participate were passed over until 40 households had been interviewed in all locations. page 2: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/i...73606694919.pdf

quote:

The interesting thing here really is that they attribute all the non-violent death discrepancy to the Iraq war. Yet they try to dismiss them off the bat by using a false analysis (all deaths by cause) instead of the amount of death.

I did not read anywhere that stated this as such. Rather, they were investigating and comparing the death rate prior to the war versus after the war, and they then separated out those deaths in accordance to the method of death (cancer, gunshot, etc.). No where did I see such a conclusion that such deaths were made by the Iraqi War itself on nonviolent deaths. Is there a quote I overlooked that points this out?

quote:

I urge you all to look at Table 2: Pre-Invasion and post-invasion deaths by age and cause. You will find some very interesting thins, for instance: Did you know that the cancer rate doubled, primarly in women, after the invasion? 15 people were reported to have died of cancer before the war, but 33 after. Chronic Illness also doubled. Yet death due to old age grew from 8 occurences in the sample before the invasion to 19 after.

A closer look reveals your error - the survey has two timelines, pre-war and post-war. Pre-war examines the time between January 2002 and the invasion of March of 2003, versus the post-war period between March of '03 to July 2006. So that's 1 yr., 2 mo. pre-war versus 3 year, 4 mo. post-war. You are comparing the raw data between two very different time periods, which the latter (post-war) being >2x greater than the former (pre-war). Furthermore, look at the sample size that you're comparing:

prewar: n = 82
postwar: n = 547

The more relevant data are the comparisons per 1000 people in the later Tables and Figures, which normalizes the data between the two variables considered.

The rest of your post here continues down this line of thought that is incorrect based on this initial false premise.

quote:

Anyway my take on it, is that you can't really state too much on it, because there seems to be a huge problem with the pre-war data for some reason. And until this can be explained, one should be cautious of the larger conclusions from this study.

I think it's okay to question the study if one understands it and the methodology utilized (which admittedly I'm not too knowledgeable myself, but neither are a slew of Wingnut bloggers and Bush supporters critizing this piece on the Net right now), but the sampling methodology utilized is, as I understand it, very acceptable and well-used in epidemiological studies. The low margin of error is also pretty interesting as well.

I am, too, skeptical about these statistical inferences - and I read in Danish media that statisticians were as well - but sadly I don't have time to go through them at this point. But right off the bat, I'm convinced that this bit

quote:

But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.

is the standard mis-interpretation of confidence interval that journalists are so good at making. Given the methodology of the method, the lower bound on the range of uncertainty extends at least to (40*47=1880).

Anyway, no matter how you look at it the death toll is terrible. I tend to agree with pkc that

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN whenever there was a power vacuum in iraq (and it would have happened eventually) i dont see the figures being that much different.

Re: Re: Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 I did not read anywhere that stated this as such. Rather, they were investigating and comparing the death rate prior to the war versus after the war, and they then separated out those deaths in accordance to the method of death (cancer, gunshot, etc.). No where did I see such a conclusion that such deaths were made by the Iraqi War itself on nonviolent deaths. Is there a quote I overlooked that points this out?

Page 1, the findings, copied here and highlighted:
Findings Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained
12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation
period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5�5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4�3�7�1), compared with 13�3 per
1000 people per year (10�9�16�1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been
654 965 (392 979�942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2�5% of the
population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369�793 663) were due to violence, the most
common cause being gunfire.

quote:

A closer look reveals your error - the survey has two timelines, pre-war and post-war. Pre-war examines the time between January 2002 and the invasion of March of 2003, versus the post-war period between March of '03 to July 2006. So that's 1 yr., 2 mo. pre-war versus 3 year, 4 mo. post-war. You are comparing the raw data between two very different time periods, which the latter (post-war) being >2x greater than the former (pre-war). Furthermore, look at the sample size that you're comparing: prewar: n = 82 postwar: n = 547 The more relevant data are the comparisons per 1000 people in the later Tables and Figures, which normalizes the data between the two variables considered.

Thing is I don't want to do the math to extrapolate to per 1000 comparisons, and at this point I don't think we need to.

First, it strikes me odd that they looked at only 1 year and 2 months before the invasion for there pre-sample, not the same period of 3 years and 4 months.

Second, if we do some very simple math: 80 (which repersents the number of non-violent deaths in 1 year and 2 months before the invasion) multiplied by 2.83333 (the number of years of the analysis after the invasion) we get 226. Which is a little lower than the 247 deaths they reported over a 3 year 4 month period after the invasion.

I believe when you get into it then, 21 deaths really to denote the whole difference of an extrapolation using two unbalanced samples you could potentially run into some areas of trouble.

Ok found a way to do a per 1000, according the sample the ~1850 or so people polled represent 11956 people. Plugging in the numbers above we get:
- 5.6 non-violent deaths per 1000 people a year for the pre war period
- 6.2 non-violent deaths per 1000 people a year for the post war period.

So thats with the non-violent deaths.

I find their violent death statistics uncomparable and therefore I don't look at them. For instance, in the pre-war period one person is reported to have died due to a coalition air strike. But I am unaware of any air strikes that were conducted before the invasion and if they can be usedas a repersentation.

Also, the complete unreporting of any violent deaths by crime or other circumstances before the pre-war period raises concerns on my part on how the survey was conducted.

Just an interesting thing.
I was playing with the numbers now that I have the count of non-violent deaths per 1000.

According to the study Iraq has a population of 27,139,584.
Using the non-violent death rate of 6.2 per 1000 people a year, that means:
27139584/1000 = 27139.58
27139.58 * 6.2 = 168265.42 <-- number of non-violent deaths per year
168265.42 * 3.333 (timeframe of post-war study) = 560,828


So, if we are to assume that all the violent deaths are completely attributable to the war in Iraq, that would mean:

654965 (total death violent and non-violent over period) - 560828 (violent death over period) = 94,137 deaths.
Or 31,379 violent death a year. Still a staggering figure, but not as staggering for sure.

And much more inline with other estimates, such as Iraqiy (a source cited in the study which estimated 128,000 deaths) and the Iraq Body Count (~50,000). The Interior Ministry, as reported in the study predicted around 87,500 (75% higher than the bodycount).

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus Page 1, the findings, copied here and highlighted: Findings Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5�5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4�3�7�1), compared with 13�3 per 1000 people per year (10�9�16�1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979�942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2�5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369�793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

I think you're ignoring the fact that non-violent deaths can be attributed to the Iraq war. Let's not forget that health programs and general well being (employment, wages, social stability, etc.) can be tied to deaths. The study correctly distinguishes between non-violent and violent deaths and truth be told even if we were to completely factor out the non-violent deaths that would only result in a difference of 50,000 or 60,000 people. Using cursory analysis, it looks like your math is wrong in your subsequent post about 6.2 deaths per thousand Iraqis because it looks like you're mistaking the absolute number of deaths with the excess number of deaths as a result of the Iraq war (which is what the study is attempting to segregate if I'm not mistaken). In other words, the standard Iraq death rate may be 600,000 but after the invasion, the death rate is 600,000 in excess of that. Please correct me if I misunderstood that.

I looked at your numbers for about 10 minutes so I could be wrong. However, I think that the polls findings are completely justifiable since all other liberal indiciations of death counts were based on media reports (Iraqbodycount.org, etc.) When you consider the media is concentrated around major cities, I'm sure a lot goes unnoticed around teh fringes.

[/QUOTE]

Nobody answered me, but - is there really a democracy in Iraq right now? Journalists are oppressed, violence, murder and crime are high, religious intolerance is growing, more Iraqis are unhappy with American regime ...

no doubt, even though it might not be 600,000, it has got to be a least a portion of that, at least 100,000 deaths. Thats a lot. Where's the value of human life? At this pace in 5-10 years there will be many more dead, as violence is on the rise. What about the civilian deaths in Afghanistan? Is there democracy there - no, the women are still haunted and threatened, prevented from reaching the same status as men, schools are closed because of sectarian pressure and fires, women still forced to wear those all-cover hoods, and what my Canadian peacekeepers are fighting for, is not democracy ... they're dying for nothing, for American agenda.

Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/w...gin&oref=slogin The Lancet, if you remember, published a similar study a while ago placing the death toll at 100,000 and it was largely dismissed for its shoddy sampling and statistical inference. This study, however, seems to be much larger in scope and much better attested to by independently reached statistics: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...s_world/mideast http://online.wsj.com/public/articl...ff_main_tff_top Here's the study in full if anyone with a better grasp of maths than me wants to poke holes in it: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/i...73606694919.pdf It goes without saying, but this is seriously disturbing if it's anywhere near accurate. Even Iraqbodycount.net places the civilian death toll at "only" 50,000: the minimum estimates for this study are 9 times that amount...

Well at least Bush has now got revenge for 3,000 deaths on 9/11

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

quote:

Originally posted by occrider I think you're ignoring the fact that non-violent deaths can be attributed to the Iraq war. Let's not forget that health programs and general well being (employment, wages, social stability, etc.) can be tied to deaths. The study correctly distinguishes between non-violent and violent deaths and truth be told even if we were to completely factor out the non-violent deaths that would only result in a difference of 50,000 or 60,000 people. Using cursory analysis, it looks like your math is wrong in your subsequent post about 6.2 deaths per thousand Iraqis because it looks like you're mistaking the absolute number of deaths with the excess number of deaths as a result of the Iraq war (which is what the study is attempting to segregate if I'm not mistaken). In other words, the standard Iraq death rate may be 600,000 but after the invasion, the death rate is 600,000 in excess of that. Please correct me if I misunderstood that.

No, I believe you are wrong. I am not exactly sure how the excess number of deaths is caclulated, but I believe it is something like absolute or near absolute. I am pretty certain they attribute 100% of the non-violent and violent deaths above the pre-war level to the Iraq war (whereas I don't because of the violent death discrepancy before the war).

But even when I assume there assumption there statistic is way off, let me demonstrate:

According to their Findings:
Findings Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained
12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation
period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5�5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4�3�7�1), compared with 13�3 per
1000 people per year (10�9�16�1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been
654 965 (392 979�942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2�5% of the
population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369�793 663) were due to violence, the most
common cause being gunfire.

So first of all the 40 month post-invasion period = 3.333 years
The population of Iraq according to the article is 27,139,584 (Table 1).

The difference in mortality rate between the periods is 13.3 - 5.5 = 7.8 deaths per 1000 per year.

So: ((27,139,584/1000) * 7.8 ) * 3.333 = 705,622.

So I'm assuming this is the how they got it, and they cut off some 50,000 deaths for this reason or anothe rto get to there figure.

However when you look at my complaints:
1) Why are there no violent deaths before the invasion?
2) Why was the pre-invasion period only 1 year and 2 months instread of 3 years and 4 months?
3) Using there data like infant births, old age births, one could as easily assume that the war increased the Iraqi population's health as decreased it, due to an influx of western medicine, food, highly trained specialist, clean water, equipment, etc.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Lancet: Iraq Death Toll Hits 600,000

I haven't read the report yet, so I'm just basing this on the summaries I've read, but:

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus So I'm assuming this is the how they got it, and they cut off some 50,000 deaths for this reason or anothe rto get to there figure.

I believe you're more or less right here: they are arriving at the figure of 654,000 by comparing pre-invasion mortality rates with post-invasion mortality rates. The "violent deaths" figure, however, doesn't seem to be an arbitrary "cut off" figure, at least as far as I can tell, but rather is based on information received from the death certificates they asked to see. In other words, presuming integrity of polling, a large percentage of the death certificates they saw would have listed the cause of death as violent in some way.

quote:

However when you look at my complaints: 1) Why are there no violent deaths before the invasion?

Good point, and accounting for this would probably reduce the figure somewhat, but even if all the deaths in pre-war Iraq were counted as violent deaths, there is still a large discrepancy. I don't have time (or the skill, really ) to do the maths, but I'd imagine that you'd still end up with a number of "excess" violent deaths far exceeding any of the previous body count estimates that have been thrown around before this one.

quote:

2) Why was the pre-invasion period only 1 year and 2 months instread of 3 years and 4 months?

Is this likely to make a difference? The pre-war mortality figures they're using are consistent with those reached in other studies (CIA, for instance, put pre-war mortality rates at 5.37 / 1000 - link) so do you have any reason to suspect that their pre-war estimates are somehow questionable, or serve to cast doubt on their post-war findings?

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3) Using there data like infant births, old age births, one could as easily assume that the war increased the Iraqi population's health as decreased it, due to an influx of western medicine, food, highly trained specialist, clean water, equipment, etc.

Yes, but what statistics (or reliable reports, even) would indicate to you that "the Iraqi population's health" has improved since the invasion? Large parts of the country (including Baghdad for more than half the day) are without electricity (let alone access to drinking water, basic levels of sanitation or reliably delivered medical supplies) so I find it hard to believe that the hospitals are better equipped to deal with the sick, especially considering the numbers of violent casualties coming through, than they were before the war.

Oh and here's a brief interview with John Zogby about it, if anyone cares (starts about 3 mins in):

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/V...re_of_1011.html

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JOHN ZOGBY, ZOGBY INTERNATIONAL: The methodology of the survey, I think, from what I've seen so far is quite good, following all the rules of random sampling to a degree that it's possible in a country like Iraq, and cluster sampling. zeroing in on sampling points that are representative. I think where some of the disconnect may very well be is that this was indeed according to the methodology statement that I read a nationwide survey, including clusters of areas that are not within the daily purview of where the media are and where many public officials are who report those body counts. And so, I mean, translated, the media clustered in about five or six cities, and that's where much of the body count comes from. There is so much more to Iraq than just five or six cities.

Gotta kinda wonder when he says that "my company and others are able to call U.S. elections and European elections with pinpoint precision using a sample of a thousand [people]" though - wasn't it Zogby who predicted Kerry would win with 300+ of the electoral college votes in the days before the 2004 election? :-/

15,000 people lost lives this month.

Just put in 15,000 people/graves at one place and try to pic how much that number is.

All for the fucking freedom formula of Bush, mission accompolished!

This wont be forgotten, Iraqies will not forget what happened to them.

And Magnetonium whatever you are saying has been said and done here couple of times before.. we have all gone through this again and again couple of times before.. just wait till someone comes in and says terrorist country Iran should be 'liberated' too; they got WMDs and no 'democracy'.

Edit: After posting just realised that the word 'Iraqies' just sound synonymous with 'terrorist' nowdays; how much this administration has misused this word.

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Originally posted by Magnetonium Nobody answered me, but - is there really a democracy in Iraq right now?

Yea, they had a vote and everything...

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Originally posted by Fir3start3r Yea, they had a vote and everything...

And it's a nice stable democracy too. Thank goodness Bush liberated them.

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