The Social Medicine Portal

The War in Iraq

Health Impact of the War in Iraq

For specific information on the health impact of the current war in Iraq, the MEDACT site offers a number of excellent reports. Information on civilian casualties in Iraq is maintained by Iraq Body Count. Military casualties are logged by the Iraq Casualty Count.

An editorial, entitled “The War Comes to Our Waiting Room,” which discusses the impact of the war on a medical practice in the US was published by Social Medicine in Volume 1, number 2.

Medical Personnel and Torture

In July of 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report by M. Gregg Bloche, M.D., J.D., and Jonathan H. Marks, M.A., B.C.L. on the involvement of medical personnel in the interrogation of Guantanamo detainees. This report is available as a PDF download as well as an audio interview with Jonathan Marks. Similar concerns about the use of psychologists to design “scientific” interrogations were also voiced in July of 2005 in the New Yorker magazine. Medscape General Medicine has compiled a list of recent articles on medical personnel involvement in torture.

Physicians for Human Rights provides a more general discussion of physicians and torture.

Opportunities to Work for Peace

Organizations of physicians such as Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have been in the forefront of efforts to prevent violence.

A call to oppose a “medical draft” can be found on the website of Edward Hasbrouck (”the practical nomad”) has set up an interesting page opposing the medical draft. There are a number of interesting links from this page.

Dr. Walter Lear discussed Health personnel who have opposed war throughout the 20^th century in Volume 2, No 3 of Social Medicine.

Sources of Information on War and Health

It is often difficult to get non-corporate news about the current conflicts and particularly the war in Iraq. Here are some sites from the alternative media:

• www.indymedia.org is an activist oriented general news source.
• www.democracynow.org (”the exception to the rulers”) produces a War and Peace report with independent coverage and interesting views.
• www.indybay.org is a San Francisco Bay Area based independent media org.
• For independent news in Spanish, consider Emilio J. Corbière’s Argen Press. “La muerte no es verdad cuando se ha cumplido bien la obra de la vida.” (José Martí)
• www.alternet.org seems to focus more on uncovering lies or ambiguities in current headlining news.
• www.mediachannel.org is a NY-based organization that presents itself as a news-watch news channel. It critiques current news.
• www.informationclearinghouse.info is a one-man website, but it hosts a few health related articles, e.g. “Military mental health workers in Iraq.”