Medical October Surprise

While here in America everyone is talking of the study in the Lancet and stressing the apparent "Englishness" of this report, the BBC reports it like this

An estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 who might still be alive but for the US-led invasion, according to a survey by a US university.

It doesn't even mention the Lancent till almost the very end of the article. The American university mentioned is John Hopkins, specifically the Bloomberg School of Public Health which also gave us...

...an earlier Johns Hopkins study _ that one was released just before the November 2005 presidential election. At the time, the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest estimate.

Here's some more info on the Lancet editor from LGF