RAMALLAH, March 26, 2006, (WAFA) - Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) stated that some Israeli- American researchers are insisting to misuse official statistics for political purposes.... In a press release issued on Sunday, President of PCBS, Mr. Luay Shabaneh, said that Israeli-American researchers (Zimmerman and others) misused statistics as they produced a document stated dramatic new findings about the Palestinian population, depending on selective, picky, biased and relied on poor quality sources without investigating reliability..... Shabaneh asserted that the above mentioned researchers presented their document to the Middle East Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, on March 8 by Bennett Zimmerman, Project Leader of the American-Israeli Demographic Research Group (ADRG).... "The conclusions about the Palestinian population claiming that the PCBS statistics overestimates the Palestinian population by 1.4 million," President of PCBS stated.... He pointed out that these researchers "misused statistics and were selective, picky, biased and relied on poor quality sources without investigating reliability, and not well documented references, while ignored well document sources and references.... Shabaneh revealed that the document relies on a number of data sources, including the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH), which covers only the reported births and deaths. The document refers that the total fertility rate (TFR) derived from MoH is 3.87 this figure is quite far from reality because it depends only on the registered births while the denominator includes all the women aged 15-49 in the population register regardless of their place of residence. In fact, direct figure according to Health Survey 2000 was 4.9 births and Demographic and Health Survey-2004 was 4.6 births.... The reported live births and deaths are exposed to incomplete and under coverage problems, particularly in the rural areas and during the political crisis where people suffer from mobility restrictions.... Actually, the data used was proved to suffer from under coverage by 16% in 2001, the researchers used also contradicted figures for the same vital event (number of live births) for the same reference year when calculating different rates. The researchers can claim that these statistics were quoted from Palestinian sources, but even so, they are still contradicted and proved to suffer from under coverage and under reporting and are not scientifically accepted to calculating total fertility and infant mortality rates according to PCBS statement.... The document mixed between census coverage and base population for the projections made by PCBS. The base population for the projections is the de facto population excluding all other categories of the population included in the census coverage. The major misuse concerning the Palestinian census of 1997 is what the document stated concerning the inclusion of the census of about 325 thousands living abroad.... Shabaneh mentioned that an assessment made by a number of knowledgeable Israeli demographers including Professor Sergio Della Pergola and the demographers of the Israeli central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) supported the Palestinian statistics and doubted the integrity and motivation of Zimmerman's report.... Proving the professionalism and credibility of PCBS, Shabaneh revealed that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked the chief government statistician of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) to make professional assessment to the document, who replied by stating that he has no reason to doubt the Palestinian census as it was conducted professionally in cooperation with United Nations and very internationally knowledgeable experts.... "Moreover, a group of researchers of Harvard University, led by Professor Claude Bruderlein, Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research produced an independent set of projections for Gaza Strip, where the outcome of this research supported the Palestinian estimates," Shabaneh said.... President of PCBS concluded by urging all relevant bodies to rely on well documented and scientifically proved sources of information, and not to contribute to the misuse of statistics for political purposes, and support the professionalism, integrity and independence of the statistical systems.... S.A.S. (20:02 P) (18:02 GMT)