War on Iraq: the public health perspective.

The extent to which public health practitioners and researchers focus on health risks seems to be incongruous with the extent to which they pay attention to war and its atrocities on ordinary citizens throughout the world. Let us examine the war against Iraq waged by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies. What are the health consequences for the citizens of Iraq, Israel, Palestine, or elsewhere in the Middle East? Could public health workers have done something to voice their concerns, or at least express their views about the negative health consequences, economic losses, and above all, social injustice? Epidemiologists do not need a case-control study or cohort study to document the magnitude of the risk factor—war. They should be able to evaluate the quantum of the death toll, and the incidence of serious injury and of associated adversity and morbidity—famine, infectious diseases, mental trauma—all atrocities resulting from the breakdown of the social fabric. The list is endless. The environmental health expert should also estimate the consequential damage to the environment—from damage to the flora and fauna to the effects of toxic residue on people, the contamination of the water and soil, and the potential breakdown of the ecosystem.