Dr Riyadh Lafta, Professor of Community Medicine in the Medical College of Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, had no problem visiting the UK in June 2005 when he was involved in a project to measure the level of depleted uranium in children’s teeth.1 On that occasion he was granted a visa for a week in order to deliver the teeth to Leicester University for isotopic analysis.

The Lancet study was released in October 2006 and drew immediate condemnation from the US and UK administrations.2 Subsequent FoI requests by BBC reporter Owen Bennett-Jones have found that the government’s own scientists had advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian mortality was accurate and reliable.3

After publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate." The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap." President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report."

However, according to the FoI requests, scientists at the UK's Department for International Development thought differently. They concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested." Indeed, the Johns Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of mortality." The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was "robust," close to "best practice," and "balanced." He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study."

Dr Lafta was invited to speak in late April at a University in Vancouver, Canada; he had tickets to fly from Amman to London and from London to Vancouver but the UK denied him a visa to change planes at Heathrow airport.4 It seems likely that the visa denial is related to his involvement in the Iraq Mortality Studies published in the Lancet. Although he has sent his children to live abroad, Dr Lafta chooses to live and work in Baghdad.

"If proved to be true, this case is testament to the continued state of denial by Number 10 over the conduct and appalling human cost of the Iraq war, " said CADU spokesperson Doug Weir. "It is clear from the BBC's FoI requests and from the journal's own peer-review process that the Lancet study used best practice to reach its horrific conclusions. This move to silence critics of the war smacks of nothing less than desperation."


Ends

Notes for Editors

1.  http://www.cadu.org.uk/action/tooth_project.htm
2.  http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1339638,00.html
3.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2044157,00.html
4. See Dr Lafta embassy denial jpg (attached)


The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium CADU was launched in 1999 to focus specifically on trying to achieve a global ban on the manufacture, testing, and use of DU weapons. We also have a strong interest in identifying the extent of its civilian use and achieving as much limitation of this as possible. Our eventual goals include compensation for civilians and veterans exposed to DU and the environmental remediation of radioactive battlefields.


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