AAPOR slams researcher over Iraqi death survey

US-- A researcher has been criticised by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for refusing to share information on his study into civilian deaths in Iraq.

AAPOR said that Dr Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health had “repeatedly refused” to make facts about his research publicly available after it was published in medical journal The Lancet in 2006.

Burnham's survey of 2,000 Iraqi households led to the claim that the civilian death toll since the US and UK-led invasion of 2003 was more than 600,000 – three times higher than previous estimates.

AAPOR began an investigation last March following complaints about the survey from members. It “formally requested on more than one occasion” to see information such as the wording of questions and instructions given to respondents.

The association's ethics code states that “researchers must disclose, or make available for public disclosure, the wording of questions and other basic methodological details when survey findings are made public” but Burnham “explicitly refused” to provide complete information when asked, AAPOR said.

Burnham is not a member of the AAPOR, but the association said today that his actions were in violation of its ethics and practices code.

Richard Kulka, AAPOR president, said: “When researchers draw important conclusions and make public statements and arguments based on survey research data, then subsequently refuse to answer even basic questions about how their research was conducted, this violates the fundamental standards of science, seriously undermines open public debate on critical issues and undermines the credibility of all survey and public opinion research.”

Calls to Burnham and Johns Hopkins were not returned but a spokesman from the university told the Associated Press it was “disappointed” with the AAPOR's announcement.

Author: James Verrinder