Lancet study validity in doubt - Page 4

RightinNYC · 01-20-08, 01:59 AM

Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study - Times Online

Quote:

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Quote:

Roberts said this weekend: “In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research.”

In retrospect, Robers is a dumbass.

Billo_Really · 01-20-08, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RightinNYC

Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study - Times Online
In retrospect, Robers is a dumbass.

In retrospect, anyone who says they "know", is a liar!

cherokee · 01-20-08, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billo_Really

In retrospect, anyone who says they "know", is a liar!

In retrospect, anyone who believes a survey over actually searching for death certificates is a moron.

Billo_Really · 01-20-08, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cherokee

In retrospect, anyone who believes a survey over actually searching for death certificates is a moron.

That statement right there shows how ignorant you are of the facts. And what makes it worse, you don't even show any signs of wanting to know the truth.

The institutions that put together that report are experts in the field of epidimeology, which makes their opinion much more credible than yours or mine.

cherokee · 01-20-08, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billo_Really

That statement right there shows how ignorant you are of the facts. And what makes it worse, you don't even show any signs of wanting to know the truth.

The institutions that put together that report are experts in the field of epidimeology, which makes their opinion much more credible than yours or mine.

Hmm.... speculated data over recorded data....

Billo_Really · 01-20-08, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cherokee

Hmm.... speculated data over recorded data....

Are you an expert in epidimeology?

cherokee · 01-20-08, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billo_Really

Are you an expert in epidimeology?

Yes I follow the cause and distribution patterns of diseases in my spare time.

Ok that was a lie, no I am not a epidemiologist.

Billo_Really · 01-20-08, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cherokee

Yes I follow the cause and distribution patterns of diseases in my spare time.

Ok that was a lie, no I am not a epidemiologist.

Neither am I.

So you and I will certainly not solve this controversy.

RightinNYC · 01-20-08, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billo_Really

Neither am I.

So you and I will certainly not solve this controversy.

I don't understand your insistence on this issue.

Are either you or I an expert pollster? No.

But I'm willing to bet that if a new poll came out using a completely different polling method, conducted by a well known Fox news pollster and paid for by Ann Coulter, that showed that Bush actually had 60% approval ratings, you and I could come together to agree that it was absolute bull****.

In both cases, it's a poll conducted by a person who's ostensibly qualified yet highly partisan, paid for by an even more partisan purpose, done using a new method, and incredibly far outside the boundaries of every other conducted poll.

So why the different treatment for this poll?

Billo_Really · 01-20-08, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RightinNYC

I don't understand your insistence on this issue.

Are either you or I an expert pollster? No.

But I'm willing to bet that if a new poll came out using a completely different polling method, conducted by a well known Fox news pollster and paid for by Ann Coulter, that showed that Bush actually had 60% approval ratings, you and I could come together to agree that it was absolute bull****.

In both cases, it's a poll conducted by a person who's ostensibly qualified yet highly partisan, paid for by an even more partisan purpose, done using a new method, and incredibly far outside the boundaries of every other conducted poll.

So why the different treatment for this poll?

Because the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA (authors L Roberts PhD, G Burnham MD) and the Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq are medical institutions, not political ones. They are experts in their field, not simply political pollsters.