Further readings on the Iraqi excess deaths study 

 Today's papers were full with reports of a new study in the Lancet ( here ) on counting the excess deaths in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003.  The article by Johns Hopkins researchers is an update on a study published in 2004 which generated a huge debate about the political as well as statistical significance of the estimates.  This time the media's attention is again on the magnitude of the estimate (655,000 excess deaths, most of them due to violence) which is again vastly higher than other available numbers.  The large uncertainty (95% CI 390,000 - 940,000) gets fewer comments this time, maybe because the interval is further away from 0 than in the 2004 study. 

 Just to point you to some interesting articles,  here   is a good summary in today’s Wall Street Journal.  Wikipedia has a broad overview of the two studies and criticisms  here . Brad deLong responded to criticisms of the 2004 study  here ; he also covers problems with the cluster sampling approach.   And check  this  and  this  for some related posts on this blog. 

 By the way, the WSJ article has a correction for misinterpreting the meaning of 95% confidence.  Maybe you can use it convince your stats students that they should pay attention.