Let the Economists Look Into It

Residents of New Orleans harbor a belief that their mortality rate has picked up after Hurricane Katrina.

The daily newspaper has seen a rise in reported deaths. Local funeral homes are burying just as many people as they did last year, though the population has decreased. Families say that their kin who had been in good health are dying, and attribute that to the stress brought on by the hurricane, flooding and relocations.

It is too early for state officials to have statistics for last year, said Bob Johannessen of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. And epidemiologists are reluctant to draw conclusions based on anecdotal information.

So the epidemiologists are reluctant to draw conclusions? Let the economists look into it! Maybe they can come to a conclusion because they aren’t quite as weighed down by the rigors of empirical science, which can’t logically infer cause and effect relationships.