Baltimore Sun

The Johns Hopkins University has disciplined the lead author of a widely publicized study that reported widespread civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion.

Dr. Gilbert Burnham is barred for five years from serving as a principal investigator on research involving human subjects after a yearlong investigation by the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The school said yesterday that Burnham violated its protocols in collecting the full names of Iraq survey participants, potentially putting them at risk.

No one was harmed as a result of the collection, the school determined, and the identifying information was never released. The violation did not affect the results of the study, which found that 654,000 Iraqis died of various causes because of the invasion, the school said.

“The protocols are put in place to minimize the risk to participants, and a violation of those protocols could potentially put people at risk,” said Tim Parsons, spokesman for the Bloomberg School. “And that’s a serious matter.”