Credentials in war deaths

Thanatology is the study of causes of death i.e. the cessation of life. Biochemistry is the study of the molecular basis of life, the chemical basis of life (and death). 
 
I have had a 4 decade career as a biochemist in which I published over 100 scientific papers, overwhelmingly in refereed scientifc journals. The most recent scientific paper which I co-authored was on the complete chemical structure of a complex fungal toxin (2006). 
 
In 2003 I published a huge pharmacological reference text entitled \"Biochemical targets of plant bioactive compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects\" (860 pages, Taylor & Francis/CRC Press London & New York, 2003) (dealing in part with the structure, sources and modes of actions of thousands of toxic substances)(see: Biochemical targets. 
 
That said, what was crucially important in assessing evidence for war-associated deaths and in particular excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not happen) was (1) recognizing that we are responsible for what we do and for what we do not do (the world\'s most prominent bioethicist, Professor Peter Singer, Princeton)(for details see my chapter in Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics, edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007 and also: Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality; (2) that excess deaths can be violent (from bullets and bombs) and non-violent (through deprivation) but that either way the end result and the culpability is the same; (3) appreciating authoritative data sources (e.g. UN agencies, top medical epidemiologists published in peer-reviewed scientific papers as opposed to biased government and media assertions); (4) arithmetic and analytical competence as opposed to the Orwellian \"2 plus 2 does not equal 4\" that has become a media and politician reality in our world of propaganda and Bush-ite spin; (5) scepticism of current spin and preparedness to ask the questions and honestly attempt to find answers, notably upper estimates, to the question: how many people have died avoidably post-invasion in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories?  
 
Actually a very simple, rough methodology for answering this question is outlined in my article \"Layperson\'s Guide to counting Iraq deaths\" (see MWC News at the link below or  
Layperson\'s guide to counting Iraq deaths. It turns out that for impoverished Third World countries under-5 year old infant deaths are about 0.7 of the excess deaths; UNICEF data (see: UNICEFtell you the annual under-5 infant deaths, estimate this over the post-invasion years and then divide by 0.7 to get an estimate of post-invasion avoidable non-violent deaths (a minimal estimate of post-invasion deaths that does not include violent deaths from bombs and bullets). 
 
I trust that this is helpful.

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/

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