Your correspondent suggests that science may be making the combat theater safer for soldiers.[1] She neglects to mention that one may also "measure the effects of hell on earth" in the affected civilian population. A recent extraordinary epidemiologic study, undertaken at significant risk to the interviewers, suggested an approximate Iraqi death toll of 100,000 in the recent conflict, a figure far higher than that of press accounts.[2] Studies of violence and mortality have been performed in Darfur, Sudan, demonstrating high mortality rates among civilians due to armed conflict.[3] These scientific studies tell us as much about ourselves as does biomonitoring. Let "collateral damage" not be an afterthought.