"Lung ailments rise among Iraq, Afghan veterans; Scientists, officials debating extent of the problems" June 20, 2011|By James Dao, New York Times
NEW YORK — As a teenager in northern New York, Gary Durham ran cross-country and hiked the Adirondacks’ high peaks. In Army basic training, he did 2-mile runs in less than 13 minutes. But after a yearlong deployment to Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division in 2003, he said he started gasping for air while just mowing the lawn.
Emerging research indicates Durham is among tens of thousands of US service members who are reporting respiratory problems such as coughing, wheezing, or chest pains that started during deployment and continued after they returned home....
On one side are scientists, many working for the government, who say that a large number of returning troops have serious and potentially lifelong ailments. They point to an array of respiratory hazards in Iraq and Afghanistan — including powerful dust storms, fine dust laced with toxins, and “burn pits’’ used to incinerate garbage at military bases — as potential culprits.
See: Poisonous War Profiteers
Those scientists also question whether the government has acted swiftly enough to study the effects of prolonged exposure to dust, allergens, and pollution in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether it is properly compensating those who may have service-connected lung ailments.
“I’m concerned that this exposure is not getting the serious review it needs,’’ said Captain Mark Lyles, chairman of medical sciences and biotechnology at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies in Newport, R.I., who has studied dust from Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the other side of the debate are officials with the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs who assert that research remains inconclusive. They acknowledge that some troops are returning with respiratory symptoms but say those problems vary widely depending on genetic background or location of deployment and are usually temporary....
It's the same with every f***ing war; they poison the troops and then deny it along with their health care.
When Durham returned in 2004, he was coughing up phlegm daily. Running became impossible. Yet lung tests showed nothing wrong. Before he was medically discharged as a sergeant in 2005, an Army doctor suggested his problem might be psychological, records show....
Un-flipping-real!
It's the DEPLETED URANIUM SYNDROME all over again!
Respiratory problems among returning troops have been the subject of Senate hearings and Pentagon studies that have focused heavily on the burn pits found at scores of bases across Iraq and Afghanistan.
Imagine what those fires did to the indigenous population.
But a growing number of researchers say the problem is probably more complex than those fires.
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