I strongly suspect that those finding fault are driven by politics (TIA)

We do not disagree in this point. Politics often is the motivation for one group to make the study, and for another to criticise. But the arguments against the study do not come from politics.

I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election. ...I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives (one of the authors of the older Lancet study)

Wolfgang