Epidemic of Birth Defects and Cancer
in Iraq: America's Toxic Legacy
Stephen Lendman
6-12-13
America's Gulf War, intermittent bombings in the 1990s, the 2003 war, and
aftermath left a toxic legacy.
Children born with two heads reflect it. Some had only one eye. Missing
sockets look like the inside of an oyster. They're milky and shapeless.
Some children had tails like a skinned lamb. One or more had a monkey's
face. Girls had their legs grown together. They were half fish, half human.
Miscarriages are frequent. Hundreds of newborns have cleft pallets,
elongated heads, overgrown or short limbs, and other malformed body parts.
Some are too gruesome to view.
Deformed Iraqi newborns are commonplace. So are virtually every known
illness and disease. They're inordinately frequent. They range from severe
headaches, muscle pain and debilitating fatigue, to serious infections,
cardiovascular disease, brain tumors and numerous type cancers.
They include leukemia, Hodgkin's disease and multiple myeloma. Others affect
the bile ducts, bones, brain, breasts, colon, prostate, esophagus, gall
bladder, liver, lungs, pancreas, pharynx, ovaries, salivary glands, small
intestine, stomach, thyroid, urinary tract, and pelvis.
Cancer's been around a long time. In October 2010,
<http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v10/n10/abs/nrc2914.html> Nature.com
headlined "Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?"
It said a "striking rarity of malignancies in ancient physical remains might
indicate that cancer was rare in antiquityâ¤|."
University of Illinois School of Public Health/Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chairman/Professor Emeritus Samuel S. Epstein titled his 1978 award-winning
book "
<http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Cancer-Samuel-Epstein/dp/0385151675> The
Politics of Cancer."
Twenty years later, he updated it. It's called "
<http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Cancer-Revisited-Samuel-Epstein/dp/091489647
4> The Politics of Cancer Revisited."
He's an internationally recognized cancer expert. He calls it a growth
industry. Over recent decades, the incidence of numerous types skyrocketed.
He referred to doing so in modern societies. Iraq and other US war theaters
are different. Iraq perhaps is in a class of its own. Vast parts of the
country are irradiated.
On May 21, <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130521105557.htm>
Science Daily headlined "Cancer and Birth Defects in Iraq: The Nuclear
Legacy," saying:
Ten years after the 2003 war, Mosul-based scientists "detected high levels
of uranium contamination in soil samples at three sites in the province of
Nineveh which, coupled with dramatically increasing rates of childhood
cancers and birth defects at local hospitals."
Iraq's a toxic wasteland. Scores of pollutants include dangerous chemicals
and metals, oil, gasoline, pesticides, bacteria, other poisons, and
irradiation. Widespread depleted uranium use caused it.
US bombs, missiles, shells and bullets use solid DU projectiles or warheads.
They're de facto nuclear bombs. Their widespread use is more harmful than
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Inhaled or ingested DU particles or dust is highly toxic. They're designated
illegal weapons for good reason. America prioritizes their use. Iraqis
suffer horrendously.
Radioactive contamination is virtually everywhere. DU's half-life is 4.5
billion years. Contamination is permanent. According to Helen Caldicott:
America's two Iraq wars "have been nuclear wars because they have scattered
nuclear material across the land, and people, particularly children, are
condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for
eternity."
>From 1991 - 2008, the incidence of birth defects and childhood cancer spiked
sevenfold. Over one-third of US Gulf War vets are dead, seriously ill, or
permanently disabled.
Science Daily said widespread "carcinogenic material across Iraq suggests
the public health legacy of the two Gulf Wars is only going to get worse."
It does so annually.
In October 2012,
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-health-cr
isis-silence> London's Guardian headlined "The victims of Fallujah's health
crisis are stifled by western silence."
Four new studies link "one of the most severe public health crises in
history" to America's two November 2004 assaults on the city. Cancer rates
and birth defects spiked dramatically.
Cancer expert Dr. Chris Busby studied conditions. He called Fallujah's
crisis "the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied."
In some respects, Basra replicates it. Its neural tube defects (aka "open
back") incidence is unprecedented. Numbers keep rising.
Hydrocenphalus (water on the brain) cases among newborns are sixfold higher
than America. US munitions bear full responsibility.
In September 2012, the
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-health-cr
isis-silence> Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (BECT)
headlined "Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects
in Iraqi Cities."
Evidence it reported was damning. From October 1994 - October 1995,
congenital defects per 1,000 live births in Basra's Maternity Hospital was
1.37.
In 2003, it was 23. It represented an "astonishing 17-fold (increase) in the
same hospital." From 2003 - 2011, annual evaluations were conducted.
Congenital birth defect occurrences and types were reported.
Metal levels in hair, toenails and teeth were provided. Children with birth
defects had nearly three times more lead in the enamel portion of deciduous
teeth than others living in unimpacted areas.
Parents were abnormally affected. Pregnant mothers and growing fetuses are
especially vulnerable. Exposure to toxic air, water, and soil pollutants
assures trouble.
Following US bombings, contamination increased dramatically. Cancer, other
diseases and birth defects followed. They're at epidemic levels. They keep
rising.
Populations in war zones suffer horrifically. Radiation-affected theaters
compound it. BECT said nationwide Iraq ill health reports suggest greater
crisis ahead.
"News of increases in childhood cancers, of perinatal and infant morbidity
and mortality, and of unusual increases in congenital birth defects, have
continued to emerge from across Iraq."
Data from central Iraq's Al-Ramadi corroborated Fallujah findings. Basra's
seriously affected.
"Present knowledge on the effects of prenatal exposure to metals, combined
with our results, suggests that the bombardment of Al Basrah and Fallujah
may have exacerbated public exposure to metals, possibly culminating in the
current epidemic of birth defects."
Internal pre-Gulf War data showed cancer incidence at 40 per 100,000. By
1995, it was 800. By 2005, it doubled to 1,600. Annually, numbers increase.
They understate the problem's severity. Cancer and birth defect rates are
likely much higher. Reporting falls short of what's needed.
Iraq's a cauldron of disease, malformed newborns, pain, suffering, misery,
deaths and despair.
Daily violence, extreme poverty and unemployment, malnutrition, repression,
dysfunctional infrastructure, permanent occupation, and other imperial
priorities compound other problems.
Media scoundrels don't explain. US ones hail an Iraq success story. In
August 2008, The
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/middleeast/21general.html?ex=121989
6000&en=2755b2f512f5992a&ei=5070&emc=eta1&_r=0> New York Times called "Iraq
a remarkably safer place than it was when" Petraeus arrived.
Violence "plummeted" significantly. Streets "are flourishing with life. The
worst, for now, has been averted." America's toxic legacy was ignored.
Violence then was more than acknowledged. Today it's out-of-control.
Resource theft, ecocide, human misery, and health crisis conditions go
unreported.
News most fit to print is suppressed. Official fabrications substitute. It's
standard scoundrel media practice.
Most Americans don't know what's been done in their name. It's true in all
US war theaters. They don't ask. They're not told. It happens every time.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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