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Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants 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."
Additional reporting: Enas Ibrahim.
- Posted in
86 Comments so far
Show AllThat video just breaks my heart. I get angry when the innocent of the world have to suffer because of the actions of others who don't care how their actions effect others.
These beautiful children have no chance of a good quality life. Even if they survive they will be facing an uphill battle just to survive.
I blame all the governments who say they love children but who do not take into consideration the effects that their actions have on the children in the world. Who don't care that because of their chemicals that children are being born into a toxic world that makes them sick, are born into a world that they suffer from birth deficts, or that they are living in hell.
We citizens of the United States must get real......it is not 'some' governments; it is OUR GOVERNMENT. This evil act was done to the unborn children of Faluja, and all the nation of Iraq, by the United States of America. The same results of our use of depleated Uranium was seen in Yugoslavia as well.
The government of the United States of America is evil and the worst terrorist nation on earth. It is nothing to be proud about. It is the responsibility of the citizens of this nation to change our government. Our elected officials are not working to provide us an opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: and what our government is doing through its foreign policies is evil and must be changed.
Take a look at those corrupt individuals and groups (our two major political parties) in our national government and you should feel nothing but anger and disgust.
Our Congress is nearly completely corrupt. Maybe you can find one 'representative' who voted with the people and against the big bucks on the bankster bailout, the surge in Afghanistan and against Obama care (wanting to vote for Medicare for all, Single Payer which was "off the table")----maybe even two of these ethical people can be found---but the rest of them----CORRUPT TO THE CORE.
Kick them out of Congress. Don't vote for the reelection of the corrupt.
"you should feel nothing but anger and disgust"
how about rage and revulsion?
We citizens of the United States must get real......it is not 'some' governments; it is OUR GOVERNMENT. This evil act was done to the unborn children of Faluja, and all the nation of Iraq, by the United States of America. The same results of our use of depleated Uranium was seen in Yugoslavia as well.
You might believe that it is 'our government' but I believe Americans have lost our democracy. It is no longer my/our government. We are owned by corporate interests, big businesses. My vote doesn't mean much these days.
This was inevitable.
Meanwhile, this is a badly constructed article, with the first sentence defective:
"Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants..."
Fifteen times as many as...WHAT? Or as BEFORE what?
"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."
No mention in the article of "depleted uranium." Most people do not understand that "depleted uranium" is still radioactive, but that even if it were not radioactive, uranium is highly toxic to humans, and our war machine has spread it throughout much of Iraq in inhalant form. And in the soil upon which crops are grown.
Chernobyl was a terrible accident, leaving a radioactive wasteland. The irradiation of Iraq was intentional. Much of it is not habitable, yet people are forced to live there. This is the Greater Crime of the United States.
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OleManRiver; you are wrong in my humble opinion about the 1st sentence, it's crystal clear; relative to a recent previous point in time, by a factor of about 15, infant deformities have increased. "War ravaged," infers things are untidy, conclusions from there NOT drawn in a lab.
I too kept waitinfg to hear DU mentioned....maybe the Brit's used a lot too, so willie-peter, US, rings sweeter. That felt unbalanced/contrived.
Late-uh; moi viejo aussie....
The umentioned DU is glaring.
This is what Falujah suffers for having executed three Backwater mercenaries.
The Vietnamese are still having birth defects from and waiting for reparations for agent orange.
it is discouraging that DU is left to be deduced under the umbrella of "controversial weaponry".
the sad thing is that any blowback may never touch the real culprits.
Also unmentioned white phosphorous, although I think some of the flares heading to the ground from the sky and from U.S. weapons might possibly be some WP bombs or shells, whatever they're called. They look, in this video, like what we see in videos from Israel's firing of WP over Gaza last winter anyway.
From a relatively recent article and/or video on deformities found in, I believe, Fallujah, maybe also other parts of Iraq, but am pretty sure it was only about Falluja when it came to the topic of WP having been used ... plenty by the U.S. there, the report stated that it's been found that this is another toxic substance that not only horrifically burns people and animals, but also poisons the environment and, thereby, people and animals.
And this is besides all of the other poisons, toxic pollution, in large amounts, that U.S., British, NATO wars cause whereever these countries attack. Bombings of buildings causes toxicities to spread, including in dust form, but I suppose that there are definitely other examples of toxic pollution caused by these wars, the massive bombings committed.
DU, WP, and all of the other poisonous crap? The affected country doesn't have a hope for future generations; unless they hope for misery, which we can know that none of these victims do.
There's a LOT that this video report omits. It's so damn cheap that it's rather worthless; except for criticing its lack of truly informative reporting. It's barely informative at all and, due to this, I think it can be considered as insulting for Fallujans, their doctors, and for viewers; as if we're all dumb and haven't viewed related videos and read related articles of [qualitative] sort before. It can be considered in this way, and it's what I think of the video report; it's insultingly omissive.
"The Vietnamese are still having birth defects from and waiting for reparations for agent orange." –(glenn ford)
–As half Vietnamese, half American this is a matter close to my heart. America does not 'do' reparations. That would be contraindicated.
Although painful to me especially as an M.D. I thank you for providing and remembering the historical continuity. The continuum is unbroken. Without the memory, no one can begin to understand the present; nor can they formulate the future.
Americans forget everything. That is why they have no future except more of the same. as the blood testament of current history incisively proves.
In retrospect, the majority of the maternal side of my family– which was slaughtered gratuitously by American soldiers in Vietnam– were the lucky ones.The agent orange saturations were two valleys northwest from their village.
Only the survivors are dead. It is true that the ravages of 'agent orange' continue and remain contemporaneous 'medical' problems after more than 40 years.
Only the devil would know for sure how the after effects of the new death technologies of 'depleted uranium', white phosphorous' or 'neutron' bombs' will haunt the future for the victims of American imperialism.
And good 'progressives' everywhere intend to 'vote' those responsible from office by finding better candidates? America does not 'learn,' it only repeats the same, only more exigently.
Settle into the darkness...know it and understand it.
Think again, and formulate a politics worthy to truly redress Falluja, Gaza and Vietnam, not simply acknowledge there was an 'injustice' done by aberrant politicians. There is nothing anomalous at all about Falluja: It is a totalized distillation of what America 'is.'
But then, I was lucky enough to know other members of my family who marched into Saigon as soldiers with the liberating North Vietnamese Army. Those who drove the imperial fascist Americans from the country by force.
Maybe someday similar memories may grace the survivors who drive the Americans from Baghdad, Kabul and probably Caracas, Venezuela as well.
"People do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void." –(Maximilien Robespierre)
America into 'the void?' No. America is the void.
–(Jill Bains)
OleManRiver is right, while you're the one who's mistaken about the first sentence of the article. It's not for us to insert "relative to a recent previous point in time", which is more wording than needed, anyway. It's not for us to insert a shorter and more precise, correct reference, such as, "since the start of 2009", or 2008, or an earlier year, whatever it is. Defend when it's right to defend, but not otherwise; and your defence of the author of the article is nonsense, for he clearly was negligent as OleManRiver described.
Mike Corbeil: I'm ashamed to have expressed a perception, an opinion w/o clearing it with you first. I apologize.
You're post was rude, insipid and arrogant. Handed down from on high. Let's avoid each other! I don't learn from you. I ain't read one a your posts in months. TJ, cygnus, SR, sirius 333, JB, MD, GM; teachers.
There was nothing to defend and you tried. There's nothing "on high" about proper grammar and semantics.
I think it highly unlikely that depleted uranium has anything to do with neural tube defects.
We know that the incidence of NTDs in normal environments can be dramatically reduced by having women who are at risk of pregnancy take supplemental folic acid. Furthermore, unless the article is biased to NTDs, it seems that NTDs are greatly increased while other defects may not be. This leads me to suspect some chemical residue acting as a folate anti-metabolite.
Dave Lindorff recently wrote a couple excellent pieces on Depleted Uranium.
I believe he said that the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in D.U. remains in Iraq.
I hope he provided sources for his information, for it's not his area of expertise. There are people who have this sort of expert knowledge, however, and Leuren Moret, who's known worldwide, has previously stated that much of the whole Middle East will be poisoned with this radiological poisoning. There were reports of I believe two sudden readings of serious increases of radiation in England and maybe Greece, or another European country; being pretty sure it wasn't in England in both cases. These sudden changes occurred exactly or around nine days after this present war on Iraq was launched, when psychopath Gen. Tommy Franks had commanded the massive opening bombardments of or on Iraq. It was believed that this was the only likely explanation for the sudden jumps in radioactivity in whatever part of England was affected, and the other country, which I don't recall enough to say which one it was. Like Leuren Moret explained plenty of times, the very tiny dust particles formed from when DU munitions strike are so small that people wearing masks aren't protected and the winds blow this stuff around [all over the place], including upwards, into winds that travel great distances, like jet streams, I guess.
If David Lindorff didn't cite or name his sources, then he should have. Anyone correctly writing would.
Just an aside to this thought process...whatever DU poisons the Middle East, will eventually make its' way around the world. We all breathe the same air. It does not stop at borders. Man is poisoning the planet with his war.
Who will finally step up in the international arena and demand the United States government goes on trial for genocide and war crimes?
Count me in.
Me too.
Me three.
Add a fourth.
Same here.
The vast majority of the world's population has.
Just not the colluding empowered minority...
It's already been done once, but not on the government level. A world tribunal was inititated by the Japanese for the war on Afghanistan years ago (2002, I believe), and there was a related international conference held Oct. 28th to the 30th or 31st, 2009, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the "War Crimes Conference & Exhibition", which is or was about more than the war on Afghanistan. Among other speakers were George Galloway, who mostly spoke on the crisis for Palestinians and the extreme crimes of Israel treated with impunity, and there was Cynthia McKinney, who at least begins with reference to the Hurricane Katrina event(s). The PM or President of Malaysia spoke more than the others and officiated the opening of the war crimes exhibition, which clearly includes the crimes committed by the U.S. at Guatanamo Bay Prison and other U.S. GWoT prisons.
This is for another world tribunal against the criminal U.S. wars, genocide, etcetera; and it evidently includes U.S.-Israel war on Palestine. They want a world tribunal and hope we'd get governments to support an official kind, but without believing that the governments will agree to this. They'll nevertheless have a Peoples international tribunal, which, like they say, realistically is all we can hope for without dreaming. But governments are still encouraged to call for and support an official tribunal.
The videos are available at Youtube and they can all be easily found by searching Youtube using only ""War Crimes Conference & Exhibition" criminalisewar" (without the outer quotes) for search terms. People can get the 12 videos at the criminalisewar channel at Youtube, but I just checked it and didn't find a convenient playlist, while the Youtube search is simple, quick, and lists all 12 of these videos posted by criminalisewar. At the channel, we can select viewing the contents in grid view, as opposed to player view, and then click on "see all" beneath the column of videos, which, in that page, lack the videos with the Malaysian PM or President. That provides a good horizontal index of the videos, two rows, while a single column listing can be obtained by clicking "see all" in the main channel page and for the set of "Uploads (13)". I prefer the clean horizontal index with practically nothing else on the page; or using the Youtube search results. Those two ways provide clear indexes.
Thank you.
Tardy on my part, but you're welcome.
"Yeah, but Saddam WAS a bad man." - Unca Sam
The Doctor, The Depleted Uranium, and The Dying Children
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5146778547681767408#
And to think that it didn't have to be this way.
D U continues to kill the innocent children and people of Iraq
SHAME!
To really draw more attention to the video you posted a link for, you should've quoted the text for the piece, so I'll now do this.
Quote:
The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children
53:02 - 2 years ago
An award winning documentary film produced for German television by Freider Wagner and Valentin Thurn. The film exposes the use and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. The story is told by citizens of many nations. It opens with comments by two British veterans, Kenny Duncan and Jenny Moore, describing their exposure to radioactive, so-called depleted uranium (DU), weapons and the congenital abnormalities of their children. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Gunther, a former colleague of Albert Schweitzer, and Tedd Weyman of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) traveled to Iraq, from Germany and Canada respectively, to assess uranium contamination in Iraq.
End quote
But there's also more than DU that poisons all of Iraq with the present and prior U.S. wars there. With the present one, there's also white phosphorous, in Falluja anyway, and then there are the many toxicities caused without even using DU and WP. All combined, we have a much worse "cocktail" for Iraq, and for its neighbouring countries, as well.
THANKS very much for the link though. I look forward to viewing this nearly one-hour documentary and will likely do this before "hitting the sack", tonight.
Your tax dollars at work.
Hitler would've been proud of Obama and his white clones predecessors in the White House, Bush and Clinton.
This is a gift to the children of the world from George and Laura Bush.
did you mean george and barbara?
Here in Los Angeles. is the belly of the beast for high tech weapons systems and fabrication.
The idea of revealing the extent of the poisoning of the "cradle of civilization" and NOT pointing the finger directly at DU is EXCRUCIATING.
How can we be this cowardly and wicked that we cannot even look upon it, we dare not discuss it we cannot address it???? HOW!?
Will we end up on some list? For seeing the obvious??
I am so sad, what vengance have we earned?
Unfortunately, neither GB or Darth Cheney will be having deformed babies any time soon.
This is directly attributable to DU. The deformities will be showing up in US babies once the marines and soldiers are having babies. The military brass will deny all responsibility for this abomination.
"The deformities will be showing up in US babies once the marines and soldiers are having babies."
another reason to neuter all recruits.
these people sign up to destroy life, not create it.
best to get their genes out of the pool.
The big brass will deny any harmful effects of DU Munitions for the next 20 years.
Then the science will be overwhelming so that the ill effects can no longer be denied. Class action lawsuits will be filed. Then a "Compassionate President" will speak tearfully of the harm done to "Americas Finest" and pass legislation recognizing it as harmful and releasing funds to treat the Americans harmed by the same. (Conveniently in such legislation will be clauses added to prevent lawsuits against the Weapons Manufacturers)
Then the people will point to this and say "See how GOOD we are. See how we treat our OWN and admit to our mistakes?"
And in the nation of Iraq millions will have still live with these deformities for generations to come but the USA will admit to no wrong or no role in it for like the peoples in Vietnam...If you are not "American" you are not really a person.
This while they are busily bombing another nation...a South Africa or a Brazil perhaps, using the latest and greatest weapons of destruction that their scientists have been devloping in labs to destroy "Latin American Terrorists" or "South African Fascists".
Thank you for posting this article. One thing people fail to mention in articles is the true extent that Fallujah has suffered over the years, since even the Gulf War. The city was bombed by the U.S. and British back then, too. The sharp increase in birth defects and cancers is undoubtedly due to the accumulation of toxins (DU and white phosphorus, especially) in Fallujah over the years. And, even if there are other factors that contribute to these birth defects and cancers, overall, the invasion and occupation of Iraq have proven to have disastrous health consequences on the population of Fallujah (and other people in Iraq).
One problem that I have noticed over the years since the Gulf War is that Iraqi medical professionals had a very difficult time getting publications "out there" about the cancers and birth defects increasing in Iraq due to war and sanctions... it was even difficult for them to get articles "out there" regarding the rampant, fully preventable diseases that, thanks to war-ravaged sewage and hospital systems, were on the rise in Iraq. Although I don't believe that academics/medical professionals in the U.S. are necessarily pro-war, there is definitely a bias in the medical journals regarding what is worthy of being published. For instance, the death tolls reported in The Lancet (which is actually a very well-ranked, peer-reviewed medical journal, world-wide) are more of an anomaly, if you think about it - how many other journals are publishing similar statistics? And, I don't, for one minute, believe that other journals aren't publishing on the topic because the statistics are invalid (that's why we have peer review - to independently validate by other medical professionals/academics that the methods used are correct).
I've come to believe that even in academic, medical literature, there is an inherent disregard for the consequences of U.S. wars and foreign policy on the health of affected civilians. And, if medical journals want to prove me wrong - if they want to prove to us all that there is no such bias - then I challenge them to do so. Anyway, this bias can be more-or-less inferred from the article. The reports on the effects of war on the population of Fallujah derive from news agencies who contact the Iraqi doctors, themselves, and not from the medical literature.
The sad thing is: why did we wait so long to document these effects? Isn't it a little too late?
I have been posting links to such articles for well over 5 years wherein Doctors in Iraq were reporting ever higher numbers of birth defects. Most everyone pooh poohed this claiming it simply enemy propaganda. The only newspapers that would carry such stories were foreign sources.
Al Jazeera was reporting on this years ago.
Jesus had something to say about people who would harm a single hair on a Childs head did he not?
It simply could not be the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium sprayed into the city, because the Army has told us that particular material is safe. It must be something else. I wonder what it could possibly be.
The US is a Toxic Substance. It delivers toxins to other parts of the globe.
This is prima facie evidence of war crimes.
I first saw this reported on June 12, 2008, after the massacre in Falluja. (See http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42762)
Because of the incredibly long half life of the radioactive waste in depleted uranium, Iraq, the cradle of civilization, will be toxic to all generations to come. "Depleted" uranium is a misnomer - it is still radioactive waste.
the US had been looking for a way to get rid of this stuff since the Manhattan Project.
Quite true. They have gotten quite imaginative at it too. A by product (nice PR name, huh? I produce a brownish by product every day.) of nuclear power plants (a radioactive isotope) is presently being injected into people doing a treadmill test. It's called cardiolite and it costs a fortune. These bastards try to make a profit on anything.
I'm sure that if they could get away with it, they'd sell us radioactive waste as cleaning products (Buy this! It REALLY kills germs!).
where do you think the flouride in toothpaste comes from!?
google: flouride nuclear byproduct
The US military destroyed Falluja. They didn't like what happened to the four hung contractors/invaders that the locals dealt with. Don't mess wit the US military was the message. This is all part of the sorry invasion that Bush/Cheney saddled the people of Iraq with. The quicker we get out of Bush/Cheney foreign occupied territory, the better--out of Af-Pak, Iraq, etc.
HENRY8! Where the fork are you? It was YOUR "kids" that did this!
Hello?
Stop hiding and send money to Fallujah for the murder and pollution you profit from every month when you collect your marine corps officer pension.
Send at least 10%. God doesn't mind if you don't give it to the pastor bigot at your church.
The "honor" of the USMC is at stake! Get your bayonet out!
What can you say about this sort of thing???
I suppose the pro-lifers would argue that at least the fetus' had a chance to be born before they died.
It makes me wish that there was indeed an afterlife, as there cannot be enough punishment in this life to begin to atone for such an evil act.
Azjoe, for whose postings I generally have high regard, writes:
"OleManRiver; you are wrong in my humble opinion about the 1st sentence, it's crystal clear; relative to a recent previous point in time, by a factor of about 15, infant deformities have increased. ..."
But which "recent previous point in time"? For example, since the First Gulf War? Before the First Gulf War? The U.S. used DU during that earlier bombing campaign, so the stuff was spreading around the Iraq environment for a decade before Dubya invaded.
Agreed, that the article seems to be suggesting a sudden spike in early childhood deformities including brain tumors (which are generally quite rare elsewhere) and the Iraq doctors seem unable to hone in on a specific source. But what do we expect of their medical infrastructure given that in the first battle of Fallujah (if memory serves it was to retaliate for the four Blackwater deaths) the Americans invaded their main hospital and shot it up. What the hell, most American hospitals lack the capacity to confirm a diagnosis of swine flu and they've had around a year to prepare for what is now a global pandemic (declared so by the UN on 6/11/09)!
Meanwhile, I recall reading a Lindorff article on the subject of DU many months ago and was impressed by his methodology. This country's use of depleted uranium is, as noted by others here, an international war crime, grossly under-reported by the MSM. And, yes, this failure to report is reminiscent of decades of denial of the effects of Agent Orange on both the Viet Namese and American soldiers exposed to it. In both cases--depleted uranium and Agent Orange---we are contaminating our own and the world's gene pool, producing EXTREMELY complex and expensive debilitating disease and illness and pain and suffering extending over generations. So much for health care costs...
Hey AGG, tell us more about this treadmill cardiolite test. I've had some sort of flu for more than a month, with cardiac symptoms. I've been trying to fortify with Vitamin C, but then just read at wikipedia that H1N1 actually takes advantage of "strong immunity" and can produce something called a "cytokine storm" (hypercytokinemia). So now, if I want a cardiologist to check me out, they're gonna inject me with radioactive tracers while they put me on a treadmill to find out at what stage I collapse? This is medicine? What if we imposed the Hippocratic Oath on the American military? 'FIRST, DO NO HARM'? Just a thought...
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OleManRiver,
I hear you. They injected me while I was on a treadmill. All this came about because my heart stopped in the emergency room and I ended up with a pacemaker. The test was given to me a month later. They "watch" the trace of the blood flow around your heart on a computer screen and measure ejection fraction (see wikipeda) and any possible blockage or valve flutter. However, if you have a condition which might make your blood vessels react adversly (sudden compression or dilation due to a hypersensitive immune system), don't let them do it. There are other ways to measure clinical heart disease. The tracer just makes their job easier. It doesn't make you healthier. If your cardiologist swears up and down that it's okay, ask him when the last time he had cardiolite injected into him was.
This is the FDA web site on cardiolite:
http://www.drugs.com/pro/cardiolite.html
By the way, there is no way that I'm getting that H1N1 shot.