Gulf War Syndrome Redux?
Steven Rosenfeld has a provacative article, Gulf 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.
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."
< Welfare Drug-Testing Law Struck Down | Red Cross: Hospitals in Dire Straits Due to Baghdad Anarchy > |