Iraq records huge rise in birth defects
Source: The Independent
It played unwilling host to one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war. Fallujah's homes and businesses were left shattered; hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed. Its residents changed the name of their "City of Mosques" to "the polluted city" after the United States launched two massive military campaigns eight years ago. Now, one month before the World Health Organisation reveals its view on the legacy of the two battles for the town, a new study reports a "staggering rise" in birth defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war.
High rates of miscarriage, toxic levels of lead and mercury contamination and spiralling numbers of birth defects ranging from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs have been recorded. Even more disturbingly, they appear to be occurring at an increasing rate in children born in Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
There is "compelling evidence" to link the increased numbers of defects and miscarriages to military assaults, says Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the lead authors of the report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. Similar defects have been found among children born in Basra after British troops invaded, according to the new research.
US marines first bombarded Fallujah in April 2004 after four employees from the American security company Blackwater were killed, their bodies burned and dragged through the street, with two of the corpses left hanging from a bridge. Seven months later, the marines stormed the city for a second time, using some of the heaviest US air strikes deployed in Iraq. American forces later admitted that they had used white phosphorus shells, although they never admitted to using depleted uranium, which has been linked to high rates of cancer and birth defects.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/iraq-records-huge-rise-in-birth-defects-8210444.html
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dkf
(37,305 posts)unapatriciated
(5,390 posts)I thought we would of heard about it a lot sooner than now.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)but that its a toxic heavy metal, which (like cadmium and many others) accumulates in tissues, and the body has no effective way of eliminating it. DU munitions become aerosols or fine dust after impact, contaminating the air and soil of the area of use.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)means nothing. The proof of the case is all the malformed and birth defect babies. That is just wrong to use this type of armament. Generations will hate America every time they wake!!!! War criminals does not begin to cover it. All this because of a lie. Humans are a sad, sad species in regard to how we treat each other.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)Agent Orange was used on Vietnam
its a legacy
and
Depleted Uranium will have its legacy
DhhD
(4,695 posts)It was linked to pesticides in the sands against biting mites and there was radiation also. A Study of Finding was issued from the University of Texas Southwest Medical School. The 101st Airborne came within 100 miles of Baghdad.
GreenPartyVoter
(72,377 posts)behooves us to stop using DU.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Stories have been all over the web via Non MSM, for the last few years.
It is not just Fallujah, this is happening all over Iraq.
Who will...who CAN?....hold the US accountable for war crimes?
I wish I knew for a certainty that the sleep of the guilty is populated with nightmares.
I wish I knew for a certainty that Justice will return from where ever it is hiding.
Overseas
(12,121 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)Berlum
(7,044 posts)Bigmack
(8,020 posts)pitbullgirl1965
(564 posts)The suffering we have caused is never talked about.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)Vidar
(18,335 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)That way, the Iraqis pool of young men full of piss and vinegar would have been significantly depleted by the miscarriages and birth defects caused by the earlier war.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)As Germany fell at the closing months of WWII, citizens local to the NAZI concentration camps were made to view and work to clean up the nightmare that their government caused.
I would like to see the chicken hawk supporters of Bush Jr.'s war based on lies forced to view the unreported aftermath of what they helped bring about.
ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)By Robert Koehler
Thursday, 18 October 2012 16:58
The Moral Equivalent of Nuremberg
...Another study has come out, this one underwritten by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan, linking the U.S.-British war in Iraq with a hideous, heartbreaking and staggering increase in birth defects in areas of the country where bombing and heavy fighting occurred.
When does amorality turn to immorality? How bad must the crime of war reveal itself to be before those who wage it cease and desist, of their own volition or in deference to global outrage?
More.