Thermal injury historically constitutes approximately 5% to 20% of conventional warfare casualties. This article reviews medical planning for burn care during war in Iraq and experience with burns during the war at the US Army Burn Center; aboard the USNS Comfort hospital ship; and at Combat Support Hospitals in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Two burn surgeons were deployed to the military hospital i...

CONTEXT The effects of war-zone deployment on neuropsychological health remain poorly understood. Neuropsychological performance deficits serve as sensitive measures of neural dysfunction and are often associated with psychosocial and occupational problems. Previous studies have not conducted objective neuropsychological assessments both before and after a major war-zone deployment. OBJECTIVE...

Sulfur mustard or mustard gas has been widely used as a chemical weapon in the first world war and Iraq-Iran war. It causes acute and chronic complications in lungs, eyes and skin. In skin, mustard is toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic via alkylation of cellular proteins in enzymes, cell membranes, cytoplasm and particularly cell nucleus as well as in DNA components of the epidermis, dermis and...

For 15 years, the debate about depleted uranium (DU) and its detrimental effects on the health of veterans of the Gulf War of 1991, on the Iraqi people and military (and subsequently on the people of Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq during the second war) has remained unresolved. Meanwhile, the number of Gulf War veterans who have developed the so-called Gulf War syndrome has risen to about one-th...

background: sulfur mustard (sm) has been considered as a carcinogen in the laboratory studies. however, its carcinogenic effects on human beings were not well discussed. the main purpose of our study is to assess carcinogenesis of sm following acute and/or chronic exposures in human beings. methods: the valid scientific english and persian databases including pubmed, web of science, scopus, ira...

The “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch was one of the most extensively covered events of the 2003 US-led war on Iraq. In the 14 days after her rescue, Lynch drew 919 references in major newspapers. In contrast, General Tommy Franks, who ran the war, got 639 references, and Dick Cheney got 549 (Christopher Hanson 2003). The coverage of the Lynch story continued well into the year and far outstrip...

BACKGROUND To assess any health consequences of the anthrax vaccination programme in UK Armed Forces deployed to Iraq. METHODS Data were collected from two samples simultaneously. The first was 5302 randomly selected UK service personnel. The second was 607 service personnel involved in a longitudinal study, where pre-vaccination health had previously been collected. Both samples were offered...

Dr. Jonathan B. Tucker is Director for Chemical/Biological Weapons Proliferation Issues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Prior to this appointment, he worked at the U.S. Department of State, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Chemical and Biological Policy Division of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and on...