- Steven Rosenfeld has a provacative article, <http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7570Gulf
War Syndrome, The Sequel, over at TomPaine.com. Rosenfeld says the Pentagon
failed to follow a law requiring screening of soldiers bofore and after
deployment and that some soldiers already are sick.
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- Soldiers now fighting in Iraq are being exposed to battlefield
hazards that have been associated with the Gulf War Syndrome that afflicts
a quarter-million veterans of the 1991 war, said a former Central Command
Army officer in Operation Desert Storm.
Part of the threat today includes greater exposure to battlefield byproducts
of depleted uranium munitions used in combat, said the former officer and
other Desert Storm veterans trained in battlefield health and safety.
Complicating efforts to understand any potential health impacts is the
Pentagon's failure, acknowleged in House hearings on March 25, to follow
a 1997 law requiring baseline medical screening of troops before and after
deployment.
"People are sick over there already," said Dr. Doug Rokke, former
director of the Army's depleted uranium (DU)project. "It's not just
uranium. You've got all the complex organics and inorganics [compounds]
that are released in those fires and detonations. And they're sucking this
in.... You've got the whole toxic wasteland."
More specifically,
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- Rokke said today's troops have been fighting on land
polluted with chemical, biological and radioactive weapon residue from
the first Gulf War and its aftermath. In this setting, troops have been
exposed not only to sandstorms, which degrade the lungs, but to oil fires
and waste created by the use of uranium projectiles in tanks, aircraft,
machine guns and missiles.
"That's why people started getting sick right away, when they started
going in months ago with respiratory, diarrhea and rashes -- horrible skin
conditions," Rokke said. "That's coming back on and they have
been treating them at various medical facilities. And one of the doctors
at one of the major Army medical facilities -- he and I talk almost every
day -- and he is madder than hell."
As of May, 2002, 221,000 Gulf War I vets were on medical disability, and
56,000 more were seeking such status.
In 1997, Congress passed a law, Public Law 105-85, that required each soldier
to have a physical and have blood drawn before and after deployment. In
congressional testimony, Pentagon officials said that they opted for a
questionnaire instead of phyiscals and blood tests
Former military officials say that labeling the soldiers' post-war maladies
as PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) may once again mask the true nature
of their illnesses.
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- When Rokke sees images of soldiers and civilians driving
past burning Iraqi trucks that have been destroyed by tank fire, or soldiers
or civilians inspecting buildings destroyed by missiles, and these people
are not wearing respirators, he says they all risk radiation poisoning,
which can have lifelong consequences.
"He's going to be sick," Rokke said. "He's supposed to have
full respiratory protection on. That's required by his Common Task [training
manual]. And when he comes by and he's downwind, he supposed to have a
radio-bio-assay. That's urine, feces and nasal swabs within 24 hours."
The White House dismisses the claims.
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- On March 18, it issued "Apparatus of Lies,"
a report which, among other things, attacked claims that DU fallout from
Operation Desert Storm has caused higher disease rates among Iraqi citizens.
Those claims were part of "Saddam's disinformation and propaganda"
campaign, the White House said.
http://www.talkleft.com/archives/002910.html
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