Worldwide War Deaths Underestimated (stimates of 58000 the report shows. In Z...)

Worldwide War Deaths Underestimated

Date:6/19/2008

stimates of 58,000, the report shows. In Zimbabwe, the researchers estimate that 130,000 people have died in times of conflict, compared with earlier estimates of 28,000.

The findings are published in the June 20 online edition of the British Medical Journal.

According to the authors, current methods of collecting data on those killed during war are plagued by biases that produce inaccuracies and underestimate the number of people actually killed. This can lead to widely varying casualty estimates. For example, in Iraq, a report published in the medical journal The Lancet in 2006 estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by that time since the start of the war -- a claim disputed by the White House, whose own estimates put the death toll at 30,000.

In their study, Obermeyer's team drew on several sources to try to more accurately estimate the number of military and civilian deaths from recent wars. Their estimates do not include people who died during the war from starvation, sickness or other conditions indirectly caused by war.

"There is a notion in political thought that the number of deaths due to war has been declining in recent years," Obermeyer noted. "That is attributed to a lot of different things, but among them technological innovations like 'smart' bombs and different strategic priorities. This idea appears to be supported by media reports. But what we are finding is these reports are not a reflection of reality."

Contemporary media reports of deaths are not to be fully trusted, Obermeyer addeds. "The reason we should be skeptical of media reports is that they are subject to political pressures and cannot always be verified," he said. "These numbers can be pushed up or down, depending upon what kind of political pressure is being exerted."

Richard Garfield, a professor of clinical international nursing at Columbia University in New York City and the author of
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