What have WE done to the people of Iraq??

Drowned Out wrote:

…..’cause all any thread about soaring infant mortality and severe birth defect rates needs is just a little ray of sunshine.…..whatever helps us sleep at night, right?

And that’s why these posts are somewhat offensive – the OP topic was, and is still being, ignored completely. Trying to put a positive spin on occupation, war crimes, and suffering children is…not cool, to put it nicely. I don't see a single word of condemnation towards the people who caused this massive ongoing tragedy, nor a word of sympathy for the victims…..just one lil positive story about those benevolent servicemen.


btw - “servicemen”….that term cracks me up. Like a bunch of fuckin janitors n cable guys went to Iraq to set up charities for sick Iraqi kids.

thanks for bringing attention to the fact that op has been ignored and this has mutated into another thread about having empathy for the people doing the killing :fp:

yes, as if one heartwarming story cancels out an entire generation having an abnormally large number of severe birth defects, sickness, and suffering... try telling that to the iraqis who are forced to bear witness to that. we had no fucking business even going into iraq. history had proven that, and i was right.... i should have posted the pics, perhaps it would have spurred the discussion i wanted to have on this topic. all of us would have had to bear witness to that, to those photos.... those things that were the outcomes of actions done in OUR names....nobody even read or commented on the links, they just tried to justify the war crimes that were committed in OUR names. :fp:

it is as if people are trying to discount the concept of cause

---

> effect and outcomes/consequences, in favor of diverting attention away from those outcomes. because doing so makes us feel better about it somehow...

redrock wrote:

We have committed too many atrocities under false pretenses. Atrocities that will have consequences for generations to come for the victims.

the attitude is, "Well, it didn't happen to me, my babies are being born normal, carry on..."

pandora wrote:

Yes a positive perspective is very important in life. To listen to some good and hold onto it.
Who knows it might even inspire one's own heart to do good as these servicemen did.

:fp:

this is not about one serviceman!!

this is about the abnormally high (higher that hiroshima and nagasaki after the nuclear attacks) number of terrible birth defects which are a direct result of your "servicemen" using depleted uranium and white phorphorus munitions.

please refer to the original post!

Birth Defects Plague Iraq, But Cause Unknown

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/birth-defe ... d=18793428


Hanan Ali, seven days old and weighing 2 kilos, was born premature with birth defects at the Al Alwya Pediatric hospital in this November 15, 2003 file photo from Baghdad, Iraq. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)




March 25, 2013





The Iraq War may be over, but the casualties continue for Iraqi couples trying to have children without life-threatening birth defects.

An apparent rise in Iraqi birth defects has left parents, doctors and researchers scrambling for answers – and wondering whether there's a link between the war and babies born with deformities that often render them unable to survive until their first birthday.

"They [parents] feel desperate," Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a reproductive toxicologist who used to work at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told ABCNews.com. She traveled to Iraq's Fallujah General Hospital in 2010 to research the birth defects and co-authored studies in 2010 and 2012. "One major problem we had was that there weren't enough families who had normal children, and therefore we ended up with fewer normal family studies."


Savabieasfahani and her colleagues concluded that many Iraqi babies were born with congenital heart defects, spina bifida and other deformities because their parents had high levels of lead, mercury and uranium levels in their hair, nails and teeth. They suggested that the toxins came from airborne pollutants released during the Iraq War.

"Toxic metals such as mercury (Hg) and Pb [lead] are an integral part of war ammunition and are extensively used in the making of bullets and bombs," it says in the results section of the study.

However, the U.S. Department of Defense believes the evidence is insufficient to determine whether war pollutants caused a rise in birth defects, said department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith. For example, researchers did not account for whether mothers had adequate nutrition or access to medical care during pregnancy, and they did not always consider whether the parents were cousins, she said.

"The studies have instead relied on the occurrence of conflict during specified years, and then presumed exposure of individuals to specific munitions," Smith told ABCNews.com. "The studies have also presumed specific health effects from the claimed exposures without benefit of any scientific evidence proving the association of health effects with those exposures."

Savabieasfahani collected tissue samples from 56 families at Fallujah General Hospital to see whether parents of babies with birth defects had more lead and mercury in their bodies than parents of babies without birth defects. Savabieasfahani's co-author, Dr. Muhsin Al-Sabbak, collected similar data for 28 families at the Al Basrah Maternity Hospital, where he is a gynecologist and obstetrician.

They concluded that parents of children with birth defects had higher levels of lead, mercury and uranium than parents of normal children.

Savabieasfahani also wrote in her 2010 study that birth defects were present in 15 percent of all Fallujah births. (They make up 3 percent of births in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

However, the Federal Ministry of Health of Iraq and the World Health Organization have yet to release their joint study exploring the prevalence of birth defects in Iraq. Its results are expected to be published this spring. The study is a response to smaller, independent studies about birth defects, and an increased number of birth defect reports submitted to the ministry, according to the World Health Organization's website.

Savabieasfahani said it was sometimes difficult to persuade parents to participate in her study because birth defects are a source of shame in Fallujah. As such, she thinks birth defects and miscarriages may be underestimated.

Al-Sabbak, who is based in Basrah, Iraq, told ABCNews.com he is sure that more of his patients have either given birth to babies with multiple birth defects or suffered multiple miscarriages, and that many of them lived in areas where they would have been exposed to pollution from the war.

One of Al-Sabbak's patients had 19 miscarriages, Savabieasfahani said.

"They're actually asking whether they should stop conceiving," Al-Sabbak said. "They do ask me, 'What am I going to do?' I don't have the answer."

from 2009


Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/no ... th-defects

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants, compared to a year ago, and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.

"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically."

The rise in frequency is stark – from two admissions a fortnight a year ago to two a day now. "Most are in the head and spinal cord, but there are also many deficiencies in lower limbs," he said. "There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of less than two years [old] with brain tumours. This is now a focus area of multiple tumours."

After several years of speculation and anecdotal evidence, a picture of a highly disturbing phenomenon in one of Iraq's most battered areas has now taken shape. Previously all miscarried babies, including those with birth defects or infants who were not given ongoing care, were not listed as abnormal cases.

The Guardian asked a paediatrician, Samira Abdul Ghani, to keep precise records over a three-week period. Her records reveal that 37 babies with anomalies, many of them neural tube defects, were born during that period at Falluja general hospital alone.

Dr Bassam Allah, the head of the hospital's children's ward, this week urged international experts to take soil samples across Falluja and for scientists to mount an investigation into the causes of so many ailments, most of which he said had been "acquired" by mothers before or during pregnancy.

Other health officials are also starting to focus on possible reasons, chief among them potential chemical or radiation poisonings. Abnormal clusters of infant tumours have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf – areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.

Falluja's frontline doctors are reluctant to draw a direct link with the fighting. They instead cite multiple factors that could be contributors.

"These include air pollution, radiation, chemicals, drug use during pregnancy, malnutrition, or the psychological status of the mother," said Dr Qais. "We simply don't have the answers yet."

The anomalies are evident all through Falluja's newly opened general hospital and in centres for disabled people across the city. On 2 November alone, there were four cases of neuro-tube defects in the neo-natal ward and several more were in the intensive care ward and an outpatient clinic.

Falluja was the scene of the only two setpiece battles that followed the US-led invasion. Twice in 2004, US marines and infantry units were engaged in heavy fighting with Sunni militia groups who had aligned with former Ba'athists and Iraqi army elements.

The first battle was fought to find those responsible for the deaths of four Blackwater private security contractors working for the US. The city was bombarded heavily by American artillery and fighter jets. Controversial weaponry was used, including white phosphorus, which the US government admitted deploying.

Statistics on infant tumours are not considered as reliable as new data about nervous system anomalies, which are usually evident immediately after birth. Dr Abdul Wahid Salah, a neurosurgeon, said: "With neuro-tube defects, their heads are often larger than normal, they can have deficiencies in hearts and eyes and their lower limbs are often listless. There has been no orderly registration here in the period after the war and we have suffered from that. But [in relation to the rise in tumours] I can say with certainty that we have noticed a sharp rise in malignancy of the blood and this is not a congenital anomaly – it is an acquired disease."

Despite fully funding the construction of the new hospital, a well-equipped facility that opened in August, Iraq's health ministry remains largely disfunctional and unable to co-ordinate a response to the city's pressing needs.

The government's lack of capacity has led Falluja officials, who have historically been wary of foreign intervention, to ask for help from the international community. "Even in the scientific field, there has been a reluctance to reach out to the exterior countries," said Dr Salah. "But we have passed that point now. I am doing multiple surgeries every day. I have one assistant and I am obliged to do everything myself."