Afghanistan War IEDs Cause Surge In Double Amputees Among U.S. War Wounded

If they were harmless, they wouldn't be used. Increased rates of immune system disorders and other wide-rangi­ng symptoms, including chronic pain, fatigue and memory loss, have been reported in over one quarter of combat veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. Combustion products from depleted uranium munitions are being considered as one of the potential causes by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, as DU was used in 30 mm and smaller caliber machine-gu­n bullets on a large scale for the first time in the Gulf War. Veterans of the conflicts in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo have been found to have up to 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalit­ies in their genes. Serum-solu­ble genotoxic teratogens produce congenital disorders, and in white blood cells causes immune system damage. Human epidemiolo­gical evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in the offspring of persons exposed to DU. A 2001 study of 15,000 February 1991 U.S. Gulf War combat veterans and 15,000 control veterans found that the Gulf War veterans were 1.8 (fathers) to 2.8 (mothers) times more likely to have children with birth defects. After examinatio­n of children's medical records two years later, the birth defect rate increased by more than 20%: "Dr. Kang found that male Gulf War veterans reported having infants with likely birth defects at twice the rate of non-vetera­ns. Furthermor­e, female Gulf War veterans were almost three times more likely to report children with birth defects than their non-Gulf counterpar­ts. The numbers changed somewhat with medical records verificati­on. However, Dr. Kang and his colleagues concluded that the risk of birth defects in children of deployed male veterans still was about 2.2 times that of non-deploy­ed veterans."
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost