Les Roberts on counting casualties from war and disease

Les Roberts on counting casualties from war and disease
Les Roberts on counting casualties from war and disease

Les Roberts on counting casualties from war and disease

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The Marjorie Kovler Center, the second torture survivors treatment center in the US, was founded in Chicago in 1987. They since have treated over 2000 torture survivors. Many view them as a moral beacon in our community. Thursday night, they’ll award their Robert Kirshner Human Rights Award to Epidemiologist Les Roberts. He made lots of news during the 2003 Iraq war from his casualties study, the Lancet Report. It showed many more fatalities than other estimates. Supporters of the War hotly disputed his findings, even though Roberts used widely accepted methodologies. He was on our show several times during the 2003 Iraq war. Most recently, he’s worked in Sierra Leone on the Ebola crisis. PHOTO: A man washes his hands in at a checkpoint in Sierra Leone, as the country enters the third and final day of a three day country wide lockdown on movement of people to combat the Ebola virus in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Sunday, March. 29, 2015.(AP Photo/ Michael Duff)