Poll of the Day > George Washington University stands by Puerto Rican death toll study.

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://thehill.com/latino/406535-george-washington-university-stands-by-puerto-rican-death-toll-study

George Washington University (GWU) is standing behind a study produced by university researchers that determined Hurricane Maria led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans.

The statement backing up the university's study comes hours after President Trump on Thursday morning called into question the death toll, claiming it was inflated by Democrats.

Donald Trump Tweeted...

3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000. This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!

"We stand by the science underlying our study which found there were an estimated 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria," reads the statement from GWU's Milken Institute School of Public Health, obtained by NBC. "We are confident that the number 2,975 is the most accurate and unbiased estimate of excess mortality to date."

The Milken Institute School of Public Health did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment.

The statement details how researchers came to the number, which has been accepted by the Puerto Rican government as the hurricane's official death toll.

Trump in a pair of tweets claimed 3,000 people did not die as a result of hurricanes Maria and Irma, adding the revised death toll was "was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico."

Multiple lawmakers have come out strongly against Trump's denial, standing by the report's findings.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossell in a statement on Thursday said "it is a fact" that 2,975 people died following the devastating hurricane.

The GWU report came to the 2,975 estimate by assessing how much "excess mortality" there was following the Category 5 hurricane, which devastated the island's infrastructure and resources in 2017.

The researchers assessed typical mortality rates from 2010 to 2017, then compared that figure to the number of deaths in the six months after Maria.

"Overall, we estimate that 40 percent of municipalities experienced significantly higher mortality in the study period than in the comparable period of the previous two years," the report says.

The study, commissioned by the government of Puerto Rico, found risk of death was 45 percent higher for "populations living in low socioeconomic development municipalities" and men 65 years or older.

"This study, commissioned by the Government of Puerto Rico, was carried out with complete independence and freedom from any kind of interference," the GW statement states. The study followed multiple other studies using different methods that also estimated the Puerto Rican death toll to be much higher than early estimates that put it at less than 100.

Politicians/the general public seem to disavow studies far too regularly these days (not that they haven't always done this).

nearly 3,000 people died. why don't we lie about how many people died during 9/11 and see how Trump feels?
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Fuck Trump

ReturnOfFa posted...

Politicians/the general public seem to disavow studies far too regularly these days (not that they haven't always done this).

nearly 3,000 people died. why don't we lie about how many people died during 9/11 and see how Trump feels?

Can't trust what they don't understand.

Trump accuses the Democratic party of inflating the numbers by including things like death by old age. And to be honest, I wouldn't put it past them.

But I have no fucking clue why he cant grasp the notion that deaths caused due to lack of medical attention from the hurricane are considered hurricane deaths.

Does he think you had to drown or get hit by a flying fuckin fence post to be considered a hurricane casualty?
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Ya.

Statistically very few people die "during" a hurricane... the majority of deaths are afterwards
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