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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=1>From: "Marcy Bloom" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:marcybloom@comcast.net"><FONT face=Arial
size=1>marcybloom@comcast.net</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=1>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=1>> <BR>> Editor's Note: The cost of the Iraq
War in blood and money keeps rising.<BR>Still, perhaps the most shocking recent
news was<BR>> the study by medical experts estimating that the war has caused
the deaths of more than 600,000 Iraqis.<BR>> Last week, the medical journal
The Lancet <</FONT><A href="http://www.thelancet.com/"><FONT face=Arial
size=1>http://www.thelancet.com/</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT
size=1>><BR>> released an epidemiological study concluding that 655,000
Iraqis died from war-related injury and disease from March 2003 to July 2006.
This shockingly<BR>> high figure has drawn attacks from the Bush
administration and right-wing pundits.<BR></FONT>>
************************************<BR>> By Curren Warf,
MD (excerpts)<BR>> October 18, 2006 <FONT size=1>Professor
of pediatric medicine and a board member of the Physicians for Social
Responsibility,</FONT> <BR>> I wish to set the record straight. The
Lancet<BR>> study is superb science. The study followed a strict, widely
accepted methodology to arrive at its sobering conclusion. The study is
being<BR>> attacked not on scientific grounds, but for ideological
reasons.<BR>> <BR>The Iraq study was subjected to a thorough peer-review
by specialists in the field of epidemiology.<BR>> <BR></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>The survey involved a total of 1849 Iraqi households. It
documented a four-fold increase in the crude mortality rate from the
pre-invasion to the post-invasion periods. <BR>> <BR>> The investigators
followed the same methodology in Iraq that has had been<BR>> used in
estimating death and disease in other conflicts such as the Congo --where the
Bush administration uncritically accepted their results. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <BR> We must also not discount the
possibility of bias by government officials in releasing officia figures; the
U.S. and Iraq have much to gain by minimizing civilian deaths.<BR>> <BR>>
At his Oct. 11 press conference President Bush asserted "No, I don't call it a
credible report." He said he asked the generals and the generals told him it was
wrong. <BR>> <BR>Critics have attempted to discredit the Hopkins study
without specifically addressing the science whatsoever.<BR>> <BR></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>> As physicians, we realize the horrible human cost and
needless suffering the American invasion has brought on the people of Iraq. The
war has also terribly harmed our own American soldiers, 2,765 of whom have been
killed<BR>> and 20,000 of whom have suffered disabling
injuries.<BR>> <BR> 655,000 is not a guess. It is the best
estimate<BR>> that we have to date of the human tragedy in Iraq.
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