Posted on 01/10/2008 7:44:28 AM PST by ZGuy
Three weeks before the 2006 elections, the British medical journal Lancet published a bombshell report estimating that casualties in Iraq had exceeded 650,000 since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. We know that number was wildly exaggerated. The news is that now we know why.
It turns out the Lancet study was funded by anti-Bush partisans and conducted by antiwar activists posing as objective researchers. It also turns out the timing was no accident.
Skeptics at the time (including us) pointed to the Lancet study's manifold methodological flaws. What the National Journal adds is that the Lancet study was funded by billionaire George Soros's Open Society Institute. The two co-authors, Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins University opposed the war from the outset and sent their report to the Lancet on the condition that it be published before the election.
Then there is Lancet Editor Richard Horton, "who agreed to rush the study into print, with an expedited peer review process and without seeing the surveyors' original data. He has also made no secret of his politics, 'This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease.'"
We also learn that the key person involved in collecting the Lancet data was Iraqi researcher Riyadh Lafta, who has failed to follow customary scientific practice. Mr. Lafta had been an official in Saddam's ministry of health.
In other words, the Lancet study could hardly be more unreliable. Yet it was trumpeted by the political left because it fit a narrative that they wanted to believe. And it wasn't challenged by much of the press because it told them what they wanted to hear. The truth was irrelevant.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Not a surprise, but still Wow at the audacity.
To those on the political left, the truth was irrelevant,
the truth is irrelevant,
and the truth will be irrelevant.
The left have taken over almost all of our academic and journalistic institutions. They have ruthlessly driven out those who disagree with their point of view.
Now, with no one inside left to challenge their dogma, they are using their power to pursue their political agenda without any regard for truth, balance, or scientific method.
Fortunately, the internet and blogosphere have risen up as a counterbalance. You can expect relentless attacks against all of these naysayers.
Doesn’t Paul Harvey referrence the British journal Lancet often. I hope he can address the issue.
The Lancet lied and should not have printed the lies.
These anti-war Dhim-bulbs are so pathetic.
Didn't know that. I know he does an odd anti-Iraq war rant periodically. He's pretty clueless for political or cultural commentary nowadays. Some people have their 15 minutes and it's up. His appears to be more like 56 years as a syndicated broadcaster, which I acknowledge is not too shabby.
Liked him better during the Nixon years.
NEVER!
And *that*, my friends, is the problem, in a nutshell.
As far as I can recall, the Rathergate affair is the *only* time that the liars paid a price for their behavior.
referance ping
The WHO recently pared this figure down to 150,000. To put this in perspective, there were more than 80,000 fatalities by homicide in the US during the same time frame. And then there’s the annual culling of the herd on US highways.
see my “paranoid” vanity from November. The same physician received the complimentary subscription for about 2 months, now stopped.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1734101/posts
Yet the media repeats that number without qualification. Why? Because it fits the media template.
This is a tragedy. The Lancet is one of the oldest medical journals in circulation. In fact, I once subscribed. To see it become a political tool is just devastating.
not to pester, but please see my post #11
That reminds me — this post qualifies as “Extended News”!
The father of a friend of mine was a one time editor of The Lancet. He was one of the most moral and ethical people I have ever met...can't imagine this sort of thing happening during his watch.
It is indeed a tragedy.
That’s the “peer-reviewed” Lancet. This wasn’t one rogue statistician.
According to a real count at IRAQ BODY COUNT ( http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ) the number is about 80K right now and the civilians killed by the coalition in year 2006 was about 526. In year 2005 civilians killed by the coalition was about 350.
Far cry from that nonsense that the left foams over.
That price was paid only because of economic sanctions that were going into effect from the general population. That is the only way to stop this rush to socialism. Wherever possible Lancet subscriptions need to be canceled and advertisers contacted. It works and it is the only thing that works. There is no ‘fairness doctrine’.
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