Jousting with the Lancet: Pajamas Media Interviews Professor Gilbert Burnham
Burnham is either being disingenuous in his response to the question about his claimed 5.5/1000 prewar death rate, or he is academically incompetent. An older population does NOT imply a higher death rate: it implies the opposite. The way a country achieves an older population is by its population living longer, which requires a lower death rate. If a country has half the death rate of Sweden, we would expect its average age to be roughly twice as old.
PajamasMedia: The Lancet study uses a baseline mortality rate (the rate during Saddam years) of 5.5/1000 – almost half of the mortality rate of Europe. The mortality rate in the EU is 10.10/1000. [...] how is it possible that Iraq’s baseline is half that of the EU?
Burnham: One of the most important factors in the death rate is the number of elderly in the population. Iraq has few, and a death rate of 5.5/1000/yr in our calculation (5.3 for the CIA), the USA is 8 and Sweden is 11. This is an indication of how important the population structures are in determining death rates.
Dishonest or incompetent? Either way, he is not to be taken seriously.
