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TechCentralStation
Medact
Malpractice
by Howard Fienberg
November 18, 2002
Since 9/11 disabled the
emotional support upon which many international activists rely, they have had
to delve more often into research and data to prop up their causes. When America was busy deposing the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Professor Marc Herold came up with a
much-publicized faulty accounting of civilian casualties. As the U.S. prepared for war with Iraq, activists trotted out
claims dating from the mid-90's that the UN sanctions killed millions of
Iraqi children. Later, Professor William Nordhaus
declared his somewhat dubious estimates of the economic costs of war (a
condensed form of which was recently published in the New York Review of
Books).
On November 12 came the
latest rush to data, in the form of a report from Medact
called "Collateral Damage." Medact, a
nonprofit activist group composed of "health professionals who are
concerned about major threats to health such as violent conflict, poverty and
environmental degradation," tries to catalogue the effects of the first
Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions, and then estimate the expected costs
of a second war with Iraq.
Australian General Pete Gration, who opposes war
with Iraq,
endorsed the Medact report as "no exaggerated
tract by a bunch of zealots. It is a coldly factual report by health
professionals." James Snyder, a spokesman for the anti-war activist
group Physicians for Social Responsibility, told the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution that "the estimates and ranges are based on
sound science and previous experience."
Medact's
data is largely unreliable, and focuses only on possible costs of war while
ignoring any possible benefits. But dwelling on the data deficiencies only
strengthens the organization's hand. The real problem lies not in the
presented data, but in what is missing from them. Sanctions and war, hardship
and heartache are all catalogued as if they were acts of nature or the
effects of freakish chance. However, all of Medact's
detailed situations, casualty figures, grisly war scenarios, and
environmental and health impact estimates result from one cause, which does not
get mentioned more than once or twice in the whole report.
·
A flow chart, adapted from a 2002 UNICEF
report, outlines a "causal analysis of the fulfillment of children's
rights to life and survival in Iraq." It starts with
"basic causes" (like systems failures, crises, and sanctions),
which lead to "underlying causes" (like poverty and the decline in
infrastructure), which then lead to "immediate causes" (disease and
malnutrition), and result in the "outcome" of high rates of infant
mortality and under-five mortality, as well as underweight, stunted and
emaciated growth. While the chart looks impressive and businesslike, it
studiously ignores the impetus behind this chain of events.
·
Medact recounts the
psychological impact of the first Gulf War, from combat exposure,
bereavement, loss and chronic stress due to "further threats" and
fears that "the experience of another war is likely to magnify
psychological disturbances already present in adults and children." War
is never pretty, this is true. But while the further threats Medact seems to be referring to are from the West, the
Iraqi people are perhaps more disturbed by living in a totalitarian state
where imprisonment, torture and murder are run of the mill occurrences. Might
not liberation from this regime bring an improvement in psychological
well-being? Medact fails to speculate.
·
Iraq's ignition of Kuwaiti oil
wells during its retreat in the Gulf War was an environmental nightmare. Medact fears the same thing could happen if Iraq
were invaded. The use of weapons of mass destruction is similarly feared. But
every time these problems come up, they are discussed in the abstract, as
they were simple byproducts of war.
Medact
avoids apportioning blame. If Iraqis' ill health, poverty and environment are
merely the results of "war" and "sanctions," then it
becomes the United States'
fault, since they imposed these twin boogeymen on Iraq.
But what if the boogeymen were just resulting from
the actions of one person (whose last name does not end in Bush). Well, that
would be too simple, wouldn't it?
And yet, it is that
simple. Sadaam Hussein invaded Kuwait and prompted the Gulf War.
He set the oil wells of Kuwait
ablaze. He invited sanctions by continuing to build weapons of mass
destruction and foiling the efforts of weapons inspectors. He frittered away
money on himself and his military, which could have been spent to rebuild and
improve his country and his people. He paid cash rewards to suicide bombers
who killed innocent Israelis.
Medact offers dozens of "mutually
reinforcing and synergistic" actions to better the situation in Iraq
and improve international security. But none of them targets the real
problem. There hopefully will come a time for Medact's
proposed actions, but only after the fall of the Sadaam
Hussein. No dazzling array of "sound science" and data can alter
that inescapable fact.
See the original: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=111802A
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