Counting Votes First, Dead Later

Visiting professor of public health epidemiology at Oxford University, Klim McPherson, notes that while the British government has criticized estimates that put the number of Iraqi casualties of the war at 100,000, a defence ministry group has been slow to produce a better estimate. "Electorates, in Iraq and elsewhere, have a right to know. To procrastinate further for no good reason is to devalue public health processes, not to mention Iraqi lives. As public health professionals we need to know the health costs," he wrote.