----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Lewis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 5:30 AM Subject: Re: Iraq civilian casualties.
> On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 12:58:41 -0600, Dan Minette > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Finally, if anyone else wants to give a more positive review of the > > technique, I'd be happy to hear it. > > This positive review of the technique and round up of Lancet > criticism was published to today: Thanks for the leg work...but it didn't impress me...here's the response I posted: There are several clear problems with the Lancet report that have not been adequately addressed by this blogger. I would like to address two. They are the infant mortality rate, and the clear, overwhelming overestimation of the violent deaths in the Fallujah area. First, let me consider the infant mortality rate. Quoting the report: First, the preconflict infant mortality rate (29 deaths per 1000 livebirths) we recorded is similar to estimates from neighboring countries. The use of neighboring countries appears reasonable.given the tacit assumption that no better comparisons are available from Iraq itself. However, as the initial article here mentioned, there was a study, sponsored by UNICEF. It is available at: http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm Some relevant numbers are: 24,000 households in the South/Center of Iraq (85% of the population, Arabs) 16,000 households in the North of Iraq (15% of the population, Kurds) were randomly sampled. This is far greater than the Lancet survey, which surveyed, roughly, 1000 households. Second, the infant mortality rate was measured at: 108 per 1000 live births in the South/Center not given in the North but said to have fallen like the under 5 mortality rate The under 5 mortality rate was 138 per 1000 live births in the South/Center 72 per 1000 live births in North. So, we have an under-5 mortality rate of 12.8%, and an estimated infant mortality rate of 10% for the entire country in 1999. This contrasts with the remembered estimate of 29 per 1000 live births pre-invasion in the Lancet study. It is considered good technique to address previous literature in the field. This study stands out as important relevant literature. Yet, it was ignored. If these numbers were correct, then one would expect a death rate of 130/5 per year for children under 5. With infant mortality being the majority of this, we can estimate that 1006 under 5 year olds seen correspond to at least 1100 live births in the last 5 years. (This gives a birth rate that is slightly lower than the pre-invasion birth rate 226/year given in the Lancet study. Using these UN figures, we would expect that there would be 32 under 5 deaths during the pre-invasion interval. The Lancet report gives only 12 deaths under 15.and doesn't break it down by under 5 and over 5. This difference of 20 deaths over 14.6 months is absolutely critical. With that age cohort representing 39% of the total population, it also represents a difference in the under 15 contribution to the mortality rate of 6.4 deaths/1000. With an Iraq population of, approximately, 25 million, this translates to over 125,000 deaths per year.more than the 98,000 given in the Lancet. Given this, the authors of the Lancet study have a duty to mention the UN study and then explain why they think the death toll showed an unprecedented decline between '99 (Feb to May) and '02. (Jan 02, to mid-Mar 03) AFAIK, this decline far surpasses any other three-year decline. Since the author of the blog states that the start of the oil for food program is the cause of the improvement, let me address that. There are a couple of problems with this: first the oil for food program started in ' 96. With infant mortality, in particular, it is hard to see why it would not have had an effect on infants born two years later. Second, during that time, the oil- for-food program was raided by Hussein for other purposes. One would need to provide evidence that this stopped in '98 and '99 in order to argue that the infant mortality rate fell tremendously. The second suspect number is the Fallujah death toll in 8-04 and 9-04. Reading the graph, I obtain 33 deaths in two months in Fallujah. Given that the total sample rate is, roughly, 1 in every 3200 Iraqis, this can be extrapolated to more than 100,000 deaths in this area during those two months. The city only has a population of 250,000. Since civilians were allowed to escape, why would they stay when people were dying at that rate? Further, how would it go unnoticed? As mentioned in the Lancet study, deaths must be taken care of quickly in Arab countries. Wouldn't 100,000 requests for death certificates, 100,000 funerals, be noticed. Further, since there are usually >1 wounded per death in military actions of this type, wouldn't nearly everyone else be wounded? Wouldn't the hospitals and morgues be more than overwhelmed? Wouldn't someone notice the smell of the rotting bodies, since there wouldn't be enough able-bodied people to take care of the dead? Yet, the authors simply glide over this point.stating that there was a low possibility that this outlier was improperly sanding Even decent technique would require this type of cross checking between sampling and more direct measurement. Given these two examples of bad technique; given contrary data that appears to be much more solid, I don't think the Lancet article can be taken seriously. My question is what sort of peer review goes on at the Lancet. It might be the same folks who reviewed Sokal's paper. :-) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
