Doubts grow about Lancet study on Iraq War deaths

The (London) Times is reporting that skepticism is increasing regarding the number of Iraqi deaths related to the U.S.-led invasion that were reported by the British medical journal, The Lancet, in October.

Recall that The Lancet study placed the number of Iraqi dead at more than 650,000, a number that would have represented one in 40 Iraqis. This compares to 50,000 the number of deaths that were estimated by Iraq Body Count, an organization that the Times describes as "an antiwar web-based charity that monitors news sources." This lower figure was essentially corroborated by the United Nations Development Agency.

Lancet claimed that it arrived at its estimate by asking Iraqi doctors to knock on doors in Iraq in order to inquire about the number of deaths that had occured in a given household.

According to the Times:

Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts. Iraq Body Count says there is “considerable cause for scepticism” and has complained that its figures had been misleadingly cited in the The Lancet as supporting evidence.

One critic is Professor Michael Spagat, a statistician from Royal Holloway College, University of London...Professor Spagat says the Lancet paper contains misrepresentations of mortality figures suggested by other organisations, an inaccurate graph, the use of the word “casualties” to mean deaths rather than deaths plus injuries, and the perplexing finding that child deaths have fallen. Using the
"three-to-one rule” – the idea that for every death, there are three injuries – there should be close to two million Iraqis seeking hospital treatment, which does not tally with hospital reports. “The authors ignore contrary evidence, cherry-pick and manipulate supporting evidence and evade inconvenient questions,” contends Professor Spagat, who believes the paper was poorly reviewed. “They published a sampling methodology that can overestimate deaths by a wide margin but respond to criticism by claiming that they did not actually follow the procedures that they stated.” The paper had “no scientific standing”. Did he rule out the possibility of fraud? “No.”

The Times suggests that politics may have been involved:

One of The Lancet authors, Dr Les Roberts, campaigned for a Democrat seat in the US House of Representatives and has spoken out against the war. Dr Richard Horton, editor of the The Lancet is also antiwar.