Has anyone got any evidence to suggest a contrary motivation on Burnham’s part?

Were all the peer-reviewers similarly biased? – & does TM Lutas’ conspiracy theory extend to them?

Ok, you don’t like Wiki? How about the World Health Organization? They also say that DU is not this big health scare. Don’t believe me? Here’s a link:(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/).

Uranium is not a healthy thing, neither is eating shampoo or toothpaste for that matter. One might say that gunpowder isn’t healthy to eat, but that doesn’t make it’s use a war crime!

Anything in a high enough dose can be harmful. Even water.

Now, let’s get serious. You are quoting publications who are vehemently anti-American and will say anything to make the U.S. look bad.

You need to learn how to shut up about things you don’t understand. Now, be a good wife and go make your husband a sandwich.

http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2005/12/death_of_statis_1.html

That seems to be the criterion for the contribution from main street households to dominate but even when they don’t dominate the bias can be as large as 100%.

That depends on the parameters. If the population living on main streets is only 1% of the total population, then if the rate of death there is as much as 20-fold higher than for the whole population, you’d still only underestimate the total deaths by 20% by ignoring the main street deaths.

Sam said:

What am I missing? Aren’t most of the reports of bombings in markets, on main commercial streets, near police stations, by lines for whatever?

Yes, and the victims would likely have their homes mostly on residential streets in the neighborhood, and would therefore be detected in the survey.

I wrote ‘hidden from alquaisa’

I meant hidden from aljezeera, i.e. the normal arab inhabitant.

Tom W said:

“According to Burnham et. al., all interviews were restricted to residential street households. If main streets are indeed more dangerous then this would lead to a bias in the opposite direction and perhaps even lead to an overall underestimate of the number of deaths.”

It depends on what a “main street” means. On a “main drag” you’d be less likely to find residences. The people planting IED’s or car bombs, or participating in attacks on military convoys passing through, or having “work accidents”, would likely be living on the nearby residential streets that were by definition (“crossing the main street”) singled out for the survey.

What am I missing? Aren’t most of the reports of bombings in markets, on main commercial streets, near police stations, by lines for whatever?

Manipulating this study would be *easy* and not detectable unless you verify the data.

That seems to be the criterion for the contribution from main street households to dominate but even when they don’t dominate the bias can be as large as 100%.

It would if the density of residences (normalized to average) times the density of deaths (normalized) is bigger than one. A main drag would more likely have stores, market places, police stations, targets. But as you say, people are not going to set off IED’s next to their own houses. If I was running the insurgency, I would look for operatives who live in the neighborhood, who know the place and can case the targets, and can slink off back home, a couple of blocks away.

It could be miles away.

True, but if they conveniently destroyed that information, there’s no way of checking it. A residential street that’s miles long? Doesn’t sound typical to me.

Bottom line: You just have to see the actual data. There’s plenty of reason for skepticism.