Iraq Researcher Sanctioned

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Associated Press
Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is sanctioning the lead author of a 2006 study that suggested massive civilian deaths in Iraq.

The school announced yesterday that it is barring Gilbert M. Burnham from serving as a principal investigator on projects involving human subjects, saying he violated school policies by collecting the names of those interviewed.

The school completed an internal review of the study, which estimated that nearly 655,000 Iraqis had died because of the U.S.-led invasion and war in Iraq. The review found that inclusion of identifiers did not affect the results of the study.

The school says the paper published in the Lancet medical journal incorrectly stated that identifying data were not collected. A correction will be submitted.