Gulf War Syndrome II

Steve Rosenfield, TomPaine.com

April 8, 2003

Viewed on April 9, 2003

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.



Their concern comes as troops are engaged in the most intensive fighting of the Iraq War.



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."



In 1991, Desert Storm Commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf asked Rokke to oversee the environmental clean up and medical care of soldiers injured in friendly fire incidents involving DU weapons. Rokke later wrote the DU safety rules adopted by the Army, but was relieved of subsequent duties after he criticized commanders for not following those rules and not treating exposed troops from NATO's war in Yugoslavia.



Rokke said today's troops have been fighting on land polluted with chemical, biological and radioactive weapon residue from the first Gulf War and its aftermath. In this setting, troops have been exposed not only to sandstorms, which degrade the lungs, but to oil fires and waste created by the use of uranium projectiles in tanks, aircraft, machine guns and missiles.



"That's why people started getting sick right away, when they started going in months ago with respiratory, diarrhea and rashes -- horrible skin conditions," Rokke said. "That's coming back on and they have been treating them at various medical facilities. And one of the doctors at one of the major Army medical facilities -- he and I talk almost every day -- and he is madder than hell." Rokke declined to identify his Army medical contact.



DU, or Uranium-238, is a byproduct of making nuclear reactor fuel. It is denser and more penetrating than lead, burns as it flies, and breaks up and vaporizes on impact -- which makes it very deadly. Each round fired by a tank shoots one ten-pound uranium dart that, in addition to destroying targets, scatters into burning fragments and creates a cloud of uranium particles as small as one micron. Particles that small can enter lung tissue and remain embedded.



Efforts to contact Pentagon officials for comment at the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses and officials at the Veterans Administration who deal with DU-related illness were not returned.



What Rokke and other outspoken Desert Storm veterans fear is today's troops are being exposed to many of the same battlefield conditions that they believe are responsible for 'Gulf War Syndrome.' These illnesses have left 221,000 veterans on medical disability and another 51,000 seeking that status from the Veterans Administration as of May 2002.



"Yeah, I do fear that," said Denise Nichols, a retired Air Force Major and nurse, who served in Desert Storm and is now vice-chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition. "We're sitting here watching it happen again and wondering if the soldiers are going to be taken care of any better [than after the 1991 war]."



Nichols' lobbying sparked Congress to pass a 1997 law requiring the Pentagon to conduct a physical and take blood samples of all soldiers before and after deployment. In a House hearing on March 25 on that requirement, Public Law 105-85, Pentagon officials said the military had not conducted those baseline tests for Iraq War soldiers, saying they asked troops to fill out a questionnaire instead.



"Their actions not to fully implement PL 105-85 and go beyond the words of the law, show their lack of caring for the human beings that do the work and place their lives in jeopardy for this nation," Nichols said in testimony submitted to the Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn) the Government Reform-National Security Subcommittee chairman, who held the hearing and told military officials they were "not meeting" the letter or spirit of the law.



"I hope that when the soldiers return that the standard tactic of blaming PTSD [Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder] or stress will never be allowed to block soldiers from getting fast answers to what is happening to their health," Nichols testified.



"If you don't look, you don't find," Rokke said, commenting on the Pentagon's failure to assess soldiers' health. "If you don't find, there is no correlation. If there's no correlation, there's no liability."



Both Rokke and Nichols says health problems associated with DU exposure are likely to be more widespread in the current war than in 1991. That's because the military relies more heavily on DU munitions today and there's more fighting in this war.



When Rokke sees images of soldiers and civilians driving past burning Iraqi trucks that have been destroyed by tank fire, or soldiers or civilians inspecting buildings destroyed by missiles, and these people are not wearing respirators, he says they all risk radiation poisoning, which can have lifelong consequences.



"He's going to be sick," Rokke said. "He's supposed to have full respiratory protection on. That's required by his Common Task [training manual]. And when he comes by and he's downwind, he is supposed to have a radio-bio-assay. That's urine, feces and nasal swabs within 24 hours."



When asked why those protocols -- part of the DU rules he wrote for the Army -- apparently aren't being followed, Rokke said the military doesn't want to lose the use of DU weapons. He said as early as 1991 the military issued memos saying DU ammo could become "politically unacceptable and thus be deleted" if health and environmental impacts were emphasized.



Outside the military, medical journals say the jury is still out on DU's potential health impacts. Although the government says it is safe, medical researchers say not enough is understood about DU's acute and long-term effects, wrote Brian Vastag in the April 2 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.



Veterans disagree, however, saying the military has known about low-level radiation poisoning since the development of atomic weapons in the 1940s. They say the military will not disclose its DU test results and that it's almost impossible to do medical research while combat rages.



Meanwhile, in political circles, the White House has dismissed DU issues. On March 18, it issued "Apparatus of Lies," a report which, among other things, attacked claims that DU fallout from Operation Desert Storm has caused higher disease rates among Iraqi citizens. Those claims were part of "Saddam's disinformation and propaganda" campaign, the White House said.



Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com.

The one thing the government is trying real hard to avoid, and the shills in lockstep moronic fashion, to discredit are the very real dangers to both our Soldiers and the Iraqi People by the inhuman use of DU Weapons which will continue killing long after the war is a memory.

DU has a half-life measured in BILLIONS of years.

The gift that keeps on giving - death.

Like they were when they inoculated the surplus

population in Africa with Hep B and AIDS.

Do you guys know that DU is so NON-radioactive, it's used as a radiation shield?

Guess you didn't.

...you are an idiot and a disinformationist. DU in large chunks is not the main problem. You betray your complete and total ignorance with your post. Obviously you did not read this article or any other.

Do a Google on Dr. Doug Rokke - he was the Army"s Expert and he says otherwise and has the evidence to back it up.

You daveman are on the other hand a complete Poltroon with no understanding, wit, or intelligence.

P.S. Wipe that drool off your chin.

>Do you guys know that DU is so NON-radioactive, it's used as a radiation shield?

No, we didn't know that, for to do so would require thought and effort, something of which we are not familiar.

"-

Hepatitis B Vaccine and the

Origin of HIV/ AIDS (continued)

by DR. LEONARD HOROWITZ



Genocide is defined as the mass killing of people for economic, political, and/or ideological reasons.

In the October 2000, issue of the esteemed American Journal

of Public Health, Dr. Stephen Kunitz, considered among America1s most prominent medical sociologists, concluded

much like Africa1s most esteemed medical sociologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Adeoye Lambo (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria), that where capitalism, colonialism, and "WASP (White Anglo Saxion

Protestant) directed globalism" goes, the expected and

consistently observed outcome is the mass killing of native populations.

My thesis raises this spectre concerning HIV/AIDS following the administration of experimental hepatitis B (HB) vaccines given to gay men in New York City (NYC) and Blacks in Central Africa in 1974 and early 1975.

Could what I am about to present represent genocide? Might it be standard Machiavellian theory in practice? That is, creating the problem to profit from the solution; in this case from pharmaceutical sales while reducing undesired populations?

Might the same instigators be suppressing lower cost, lower

risk, and highly effective alternative therapies? This is certainly a most heretical, politically challenging, ethically and morally disconcerting possibility. Yet, based on the evidence I will summarize here, a theory whose time has come for close examination; a theory I conclude should, if not must, be conducted by an independent scientific and ethics committee charged by the United Nations to discern the truth.

To summarize my findings, (first slide) you are now looking at the United States Government contract under which numerous AIDS-like and Ebola-like viruses were bioengineered using crude and tedious laboratory methods, by Litton Bionetics researchers, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. As you can

see, Dr. Robert Gallo, "Project Officer" for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), oversaw this contract which, as documented, began on February 12, 1962.

On the next slide, reprinted from the United States Congressional Record, Litton Bionetics is listed as the sixth leading biological weapons contractor for the U.S. Army in 1969.

The next slide is reprinted from the journal Nature, December 5, 1970, wherein you can see Dr. Gallo from the NCI as lead author, with co-investigators from Litton Bionetics, reporting on their studies of RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (more commonly known as "reverse transcriptase") in human acute leukemic cells. As you may recall, Dr. Gallo was the 1984 alleged discover of HIV. It was later determined that he did not discover it alone, but with Luc Montagnier from France. Dr. Gallo was then credited with the co-discovery of the AIDS virus.

Yet, the problem is, this unique enzyme that is central to the function of HIV/AIDS, and critical to leukemia virus activity as well, was being investigated before 1970. This is approximately fifteen (15) years prior to Dr. Gallo1s alleged discovery of HIV, and almost nine (9) years before his is credited for the discovering the first leukemia virus (HTLV-I).-"

His web page:

http://www.tetrahedron.org/

[Our dear doctor. Like an Arlen Spector of biobullets]

"-At this time, most evidence suggests that AIDS has its roots in Africa. In the early 1980s, Robert Gallo speculated that HIV crossed species to humans from an

African green monkey. Although this idea has since been discredited, it is still widely believed that HIV came into the human population from one or more non-human primate species.-"**And this site has a monkey picture, Bush Admirer.**

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite.jsp?doc=2098.3cce

[Now the casual link]

These search terms have been highlighted:

dr

robert

gallo

world

health

organization

huge link; try this page of google:

Dr. Robert Gallo world health organization

Look at TIME LINE.

Have some, take a trip to battlefield Iraq.

Thanks Sheepdog,

Just thought I'd quote the good doctor from his own page.

"Who Am I To Make Such Claims?

Let me briefly summarize my training. In 1977, I received my doctorate in medical dentistry from Tufts University in Boston. I later received several advanced degrees... One in public health from Harvard University. I joined the faculties at Tufts University and Harvard. I directed an alternative health center for more than a decade. In the early 1980s, the Associated Press featured my work as a trendsetter. My clinic integrated dentistry with general medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, massage, homeopathy, and other "alternative" methods of healing."



Excellent source!

Who better to expose the Government's nefarious viral attack on the World?

Ad Hominem? You Bet!

Damn, an alternative too...

A what point was his thesis incorrect, doctor?

Uranium mine workers have no greater incidence of lung cancer than other types on mine workers, whose illness is due to breathing radon.

Man, I got all my links at home, not here at work...

But you know what? You would just start shouting "propaganda!" and ignore it all.

So what's the point? If you would rather believe that the government is a big scary monster, and wants to eat your teddy bear, you go right ahead. Out here in the real world, it's much nicer; strangers actually smile at you.

I know, I know...I'm a government stooge, a tool, a minion of Satan, whatever the right-bashing insult du jour is. What-EV-er

But here's a hint: I don't care what you think! Ha ha! You may think you're a relavant and vital force in this world, but to me, personally? NOT! Ha ha!

And there's NOTHING you can say to make you matter to me!

After reading several of his articles concerning this "government flu", I'd have to say that it all starts to fall apart for him at the point where his ONLY evidence is the (and I'll take his word for this, since it's a different matter) vaccinations of NY Gay men and Africans for Hep B coincide roughly with the onset of Aids. As compelling as that sole piece of evidence is, I'm sure you can understand why I'm not swayed.

Just out of curiosity, is there ANY conspiracy theory you DON'T buy hook line and sinker?

' Uranium mine workers have no greater incidence of lung cancer than other types on mine workers, whose illness is due to breathing radon.'

0

The radiation exposure considered includes inhalation of radon, short-lived radon progeny,

lead-210, uranium dust, and external gamma radiation exposure. The exposure data can be selected

from a list of data sets provided, or own data can be entered. -

Cute chart, try it.

http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/rdcum.html

prolonged breathing of air containing a high concentration

- of radon, may have caused what was estimated at that time to be a 30 fold increase in the incidence of lung cancer.-

Only a 30 fold increase? Let's consult the accountants and do a quick cost benefit analysis.

And now you're telling us DU is safe.

I mean you ARE telling us it's safe, right?

...it's safer than some people with agendas want you to believe.

It's not Satan's toenail clippings, people. It's not lime jello, either. But it won't make your head spontaneously fall off.

...But it won't

make your head spontaneously fall off.

...Sheepdog.

Sar.

Cas.

M.



Good, now try all by your self...

That's pretty good! Just keep practicing!

Yes, agendas, please tell me about these agendas of people saying that uranium is dangerous, sounds like conspiracy theories to me.

There's ALL this almost pure U258 hanging around.

We use it in war.

Problem

solved.

U238

Opps

...of those who make money with scare tactics.

...of those who want others to hate the big bad US war machine.

...of those who see the word "uranium" and pee their pants, because it SATAN'S ELEMENT!

...of those who so oppose anything the US governemnt does they latch on anything even remotely dangerous-sounding to promote their hate.

Any questions?

Still waiting....

After reading several of his articles concerning this "government flu", I'd have to say that it all starts to fall apart for him at the point where his ONLY evidence is the (and I'll take his word for this, since it's a different matter) vaccinations of NY Gay men and Africans for Hep B coincide roughly with the onset of Aids. As compelling as that sole piece of evidence is, I'm sure you can understand why I'm not swayed.

Just out of curiosity, is there ANY conspiracy theory you DON'T buy hook line and sinker?

"

Don't keep begging for more abuse.

It's like a dog at the dinner table, so

quit whining for godsake.

Damn, you don't have to be convinced. You're a

shill for god's sake.

This information is for the sane unbloodthirsty types.

Let them decide.

Up yours, Sheepshit.

Up your's

"Don't keep begging for more abuse.

It's like a dog at the dinner table, so

quit whining for godsake.

Damn, you don't have to be convinced. You're a

shill for god's sake.

This information is for the sane unbloodthirsty types.

Let them decide."

Is that the best you can do when trampled.

Answer the questions and the accusations.

Your "doctor" is a phony. His science is non-existent. Your claim therefore is inane.

And, ARe there any conspiracy theories you don't buy?

Answer, boy.