> Iraqi professor addresses war casualty research
Iraqi professor addresses war casualty research
Contact:
Tim Takaro, 604.268.7186, ttakaro@sfu.ca
Amy Hagopian, University of Washington, 206.616.4989, hagopian@u.washington.edu
Carol Thorbes (PAMR), 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Backgrounder is attached below
Tim Takaro, 604.268.7186, ttakaro@sfu.ca
Amy Hagopian, University of Washington, 206.616.4989, hagopian@u.washington.edu
Carol Thorbes (PAMR), 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Backgrounder is attached below
April 11, 2007
Simon Fraser University is the venue for an Iraqi medical school professor’s speech about the public health impacts and casualties of the war in Iraq —because he can’t get into the United States.
Riyadh Lafta, who teaches medicine at Baghdad’s Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine, will deliver his free public speech Friday, April 20, 7 p.m. at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver.
Lafta will review research showing that the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq has claimed more than 650,000 Iraqi lives. The finding was published in an October 2006 Lancet medical journal article, co-authored by Lafta.
Lafta will also spend one week at SFU meeting with researchers, including Tim Takaro, an associate professor of health sciences at SFU. Lafta and Takaro, along with another Iraqi scientist and two American scientists, compose a research team that is studying a rise in childhood cancer in Iraq, especially leukemia. Puget Sound Partners, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative, is funding the research.
Despite widespread speculation about the causes of Iraq’s rising child mortality rates since the 1991 war in Iraq began, Takaro, an environmental health expert, emphasizes, “Our study is not looking at cancer causes yet. We’re focused on nailing down the rate of increase in childhood cancers in South Iraq from 1990 to 2006, what kinds of cancers are most prevalent and which age groups are most affected.”
Media reports have frequently linked Iraq’s rising cancer rates to exposure to depleted uranium, oil fires and chemical munitions since the outbreak of the first gulf war.
The University of Washington (U of W) in Seattle was supposed to host the week-long meeting of international collaborators on this project, as the U of W launched the study with the University of Basra in Iraq.
But Takaro notes that Lafta is just one example of many Middle Eastern researchers who can’t meet with collaborators on American soil because the U.S. State Department is denying them entry visas. Americans wanting to view Lafta’s speech will be able to do so via a video link to Seattle at U of W’s Campus Kane Hall.
Backgrounder on Riyadh Lafta
Riyadh Lafta, who teaches medicine at Baghdad’s Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine, will deliver his free public speech Friday, April 20, 7 p.m. at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver.
Lafta will review research showing that the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq has claimed more than 650,000 Iraqi lives. The finding was published in an October 2006 Lancet medical journal article, co-authored by Lafta.
Lafta will also spend one week at SFU meeting with researchers, including Tim Takaro, an associate professor of health sciences at SFU. Lafta and Takaro, along with another Iraqi scientist and two American scientists, compose a research team that is studying a rise in childhood cancer in Iraq, especially leukemia. Puget Sound Partners, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative, is funding the research.
Despite widespread speculation about the causes of Iraq’s rising child mortality rates since the 1991 war in Iraq began, Takaro, an environmental health expert, emphasizes, “Our study is not looking at cancer causes yet. We’re focused on nailing down the rate of increase in childhood cancers in South Iraq from 1990 to 2006, what kinds of cancers are most prevalent and which age groups are most affected.”
Media reports have frequently linked Iraq’s rising cancer rates to exposure to depleted uranium, oil fires and chemical munitions since the outbreak of the first gulf war.
The University of Washington (U of W) in Seattle was supposed to host the week-long meeting of international collaborators on this project, as the U of W launched the study with the University of Basra in Iraq.
But Takaro notes that Lafta is just one example of many Middle Eastern researchers who can’t meet with collaborators on American soil because the U.S. State Department is denying them entry visas. Americans wanting to view Lafta’s speech will be able to do so via a video link to Seattle at U of W’s Campus Kane Hall.
Backgrounder on Riyadh Lafta
- Trained at Baghdad University College of Medicine as a physician (1984), epidemiologist and planner (1994).
- Worked 14 years for the Ministry of Health in Iraq (1984-1997), including as head of the sections of communicable disease (1995-96) and primary care (1997).
- Conducted immunization campaigns in rural areas for UNICEF
- After leaving the ministry, Lafta became a lecturer, then assistant professor, professor and even dean at Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine. During this time, he has also been a consultant to the Ministry of Health and conducted research with colleagues around the world, including the World Health Organization (WHO).
- One of his most notable recent achievements is work with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University to measure “Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq” (10/04, Lancet), and then the follow up study, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: a Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” (10/06, Lancet). Both studies received widespread international attention for their efforts to establish a casualty count for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The methods used to obtain these counts required door-to-door surveying in war zones.
- Lafta’s publications include various epidemiological studies reported in an Iraqi community medical journal (1999 through 2007) on the nutritional status of children, nasal polyposis, school drop out, pneumonia in children, hematological values, vaccination and measles, neonatal mortality, malaria, the Iraqi health system, mental disorders in children, age in pregnancy, and diabetes.