Source: The Guardian
by Sarah Boseley
March 11, 2005

Experts in public health from six countries, including the UK, today castigate the British and American governments for failing to investigate the deaths of civilians caught up in the conflict in Iraq.

Twenty-four experts from the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Spain and Italy say the attitude of the governments is "wholly irresponsible". They say the UK government's reliance on "extremely limited data" from the Iraqi ministry of health is "unacceptable" because it is likely to seriously underestimate the casualties.

Their hard-hitting statement, published online by the British Medical Journal, comes nearly five months after the Lancet published a household survey of civilian deaths in Iraq which estimated that about 100,000 civilians had died - most of them women and children.

The study caused controversy and was dismissed by the British government as unreliable, partly because the authors admitted that, under the difficult circumstances, it could not be precise.

The experts lambast the government for criticising the data without conducting inquiries of its own. "The obvious answer to removing uncertainties that remain is to commission a larger study with full official support and assistance, but scientific independence," they say.