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IRAQI
BIRTH DEFECTS WORSE THAN HIROSHIMA
10
April, 2013
(warning:
graphic images)
The
United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi
bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come
in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing
cancer rates.
Al
Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that
contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU)
munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions.
“[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one
eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and
complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital
birth defects being
linked to
military-related pollution.
In
certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly
worse than
those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end
of WWII.
The
highest rates are in the city of Fallujah, which underwent two
massive US bombing campaigns in 2004. Though the U.S. initially
denied it, officials later admitted using
white phosphorous. In addition, U.S. and British forces unleashed an
estimated 2,000
tons of
depleted uranium ammunitions in populated Iraqi cities in 2003.
DU,
a chemically toxic heavy metal produced in nuclear waste, is used in
weapons due to its ability to pierce through armor. That’s why the
US and UK were among a handful of nations (France and Israel) who in
December refused
to sign an
international agreement to limit its use, insisting DU is not
harmful, science be damned. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s refusal to
release details about where DU munitions were fired has made it
difficult to clean up.
Today,
14.7 percent of Fallujah’s babies are born with a birth defect, 14
times the documented rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallujah’s
babies have also experienced heart defects 13 times the European rate
and nervous system defects 33 times that of Europe. That comes on top
of a 12-fold rise in childhood cancer rates since 2004. Furthermore,
the male-to-female birth ratio is now 86 boys for every 100 girls,
indicating genetic damage that affects males more than females.
(On
a side note, these pictures are rather sanitized compared to other
even more difficult to look at images. See here if
you can bear it.)
If
Fallujah is the Iraqi Hiroshima, then Basra is its Nagasaki.
According
to a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination
and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern
German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the
number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003.
According
to the Heidelberg study, the concentration of lead in the milk teeth
of sick children from Basra was almost three times as high as
comparable values in areas where there was no fighting.
In
addition, never before has such a high rate of neural tube defects
(“open back”) been recorded in babies as in Basra, and the rate
continues to rise. According to the study, the number of
hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) cases among new-borns is six
times as high in Basra as it is in the United States.
This
isn’t isolated to Fallujah and Basra. The overall Iraqi cancer rate
has also skyrocketed:
Official
Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the
First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out
of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000
people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000
people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
As
Grist’s Susie Cagle points
out,
“That’s potentially a more than 4,000 percent increase in the
cancer rate, making it more than 500 percent higher than the
cancer rate in the U.S.“
Dr.
Mozghan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, told Jamail that “These observations collectively
suggest an extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq. Such a
crisis requires urgent multifaceted international action to prevent
further damage to public health.”
Instead,
the international community, including the nation most responsible
for the health crisis (hint: it starts with a “U” and ends with
an “S”), is mostly
ignoring the problem.
To
make matters worse, Iraq’s healthcare system, which was once the
envy of the region, is virtually nonexistent due to the mass
exodus of Iraq’s medical doctors since
2003. According to recent estimates, there are currently fewer
than 100
psychiatrists and 20,0000
physicians serving
a population of 31 million Iraqis.
Dahr
Jamail was on Democracy Now this morning discussing the horrific
effects of military-related pollution in Iraq:
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