Kerr Eby was initially a member of the Ambulance Corps in the U.S. Army in World War I, then transferred to the Engineers, and went to the front lines in France. His painting depicts a group of soldiers blinded during a gas attack. Whereas the neuropsychiatric casualties of other forms of warfare may present as individuals, the casualties of nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare are most of...

An overview is given of biological markers of exposure to chemical warfare agents. Metabolites, protein, and/or DNA adducts have been identified for most nerve agents and vesicants and validated in experimental animals or in a small number of human exposures. For several agents, metabolites derived from hydrolysis are unsatisfactory biomarkers of exposure because of background levels in the hum...

On-site monitoring and detection are necessary in the crisis and consequence management of wars and terrorism involving chemical warfare agents (CWAs) such as sarin. The analytical performance required for on-site detection is mainly determined by the fatal vapor concentration and volatility of the CWAs involved. The analytical performance for presently available on-site technologies and commer...

During the Iraq-Iran war of 1980 -1988, the most commonly used chemical warfare agents (CWA) were nerve agents and sulfur mustard gas (SM). SM was used frequently as a chemical weapon by Iraq during the war against Iran, and had deleterious effects on Iranian military troops and the unprotected inhabitants of Sardasht, Iran and Halabche, Iraq. In this report, we review the scientific literature...

use by the OPCW inspectorate. Use of GC with one or more spectrometric technique such as mass spectrometry is required to conRrm the presence of chemical warfare agents. For this reason many analyses are carried out by GC-MS under electron impact or chemical ionization conditions. For analyses involving low levels of chemical warfare agents in the presence of high levels of interfering chemical...

Forensic laboratories do not have the infrastructure to process or store contaminated DNA samples that have been recovered from a crime scene contaminated with chemical or biological warfare agents. Previous research has shown that DNA profiles can be recovered from blood exposed to several chemical warfare agents after the agent has been removed. The fate of four toxic agents, sulfur mustard, ...

The study sought to understand better how people come to believe they have been exposed to biological and chemical warfare. We conducted telephone interviews with 1,009 American veterans (65% response rate) deployed and not deployed to the Gulf War, a conflict during which there were credible threats that such warfare could be used. Only 6% of non-Gulf War veterans reported exposure to biologic...

we aimed to evaluate clinical, high resolution computed tomography (hrct) and pulmonary function test (pft) findings after 18-23 years of exposure in veterans of sulphur mustard (sm) exposure. we performed a cross-sectional study of 106 patients. inclusion criteria were 1: documented exposure to sm as confirmed by toxicological analysis of their urine and vesicular fluid after exposure 2: singl...

Ethylarsine dichloride was used during WW I as a chemical warfare agent. Residues of this chemical warfare agent and its metabolites are still present today and continue to contaminate soil and water. A gas Chromatographic method for the detection and determination of ethylarsine dichloride is shown. Six dithiols were tested as possible derivatization reagents for ethylarsine dichloride. With s...

Chemical agents such as mustard gas (or sulfur mustard), which has alkylating characteristics, were used against Iranian combatants in the Iraq-Iran war. Previous studies have not shown a strong link between these chemical agents and the development of chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the increased risk of CML development in Iranian soldiers exposed t...