At 20:42 08/12/04 +0000, Ted Harding wrote (in small part):
>This estimate (as of 8 Nov) was "just under 4,000" (see above),
>it is the lowest of all the numbers floating around (and, in
>relation to Martin Bland's point, it is outside the Lancet's
>Confidence Interval of 8000-193000). It represents (if I understand
>aright) the numbers of "civilian" deaths that have occurred in
>Iraqi hospitals (i.e. not counting those of people classified as
>"combatant", for which the criterion apparently is "Male, 15-59
>years old -- see the Hansard statement).
Hmmmmm. Two immediate observations:
1...The exclusion of 'combatants', defined as you mention, is clearly going
to result in a serious underestimate of what you and I would regard as
'civilian deaths'.
2...In most countries I know about (and I admit that does not include
Iraq), only a very small proportion of those dying from major trauma die in
hospital, or ever get near a hospital - such that a hospital-based estimate
of deaths could easily be an order of magnitude lower than the truth. If
you caste your mind back to September 11th 2001, I suspect the estimates of
the number who died on that day as a result of the 4 plane 'crashes' would
be close to zero had it been based on hospital data.
Kind Regards,
John
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