BACKGROUND In previous studies an association between deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan and an overall increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in UK armed forces has not been found. The lack of a deployment effect might be explained by including, in the comparison group, personnel deployed on other operations or who have experienced traumatic stressors unrelated to deployment. ...

BACKGROUND Previous estimates of mortality in Iraq attributable to the 2003 invasion have been heterogeneous and controversial, and none were produced after 2006. The purpose of this research was to estimate direct and indirect deaths attributable to the war in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. METHODS AND FINDINGS We conducted a survey of 2,000 randomly selected households throughout Iraq, using a...

Even when American decision-makers were denying it, ordinary Iraqis in the neighborhoods of Baghdad fearfully anticipated the dangerous consequences of the U.S.-led invasion. We use two unique Iraq datasets to analyze the self-fulfilling neighborhood specific forces set loose following the U.S.-led invasion. Sectarian criminal violence by Shia militia disproportionately forced Sunni residents f...

From the Department of Community Medicine (Al-Rubaii, Al-Ward) and the Department of Dermatology and Venereology (Al-Waiz), College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Bab-Al-Mu’adham, Baghdad, Iraq. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Makram Al-Waiz, Department of Dermatology and Venereology, College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, PO Box 61301, Postal Code 12114, Bab-AlMu’a...

Given this history and the fact that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are serving for prolonged periods in a hazardous combat environment, we expect the mental health care needs of our newest veterans to be great. In a survey of 3671 Army soldiers and Marines who were involved in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, up to 17 percent of those returning reported symptoms consistent with major depre...

Black Seed The date and location of domestication of Nigella sativa is not clearly established, but the plant was certainly under wide cultivation more than 3000 years ago, when it was placed in the tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamun. Historical evidence also shows contemporaneous, or earlier, black seed cultivation in Jordan and Iraq. In addition, wild types of Nigella sativa grow in Turkey, Sy...

Outside intervention in civil warfare is important for humanitarian, theoretical, and practical policy reasons—since 2006, much of the debate over the war in Iraq has turned on the danger of external intervention if the United States were to withdraw. Yet, the literature on intervention has been compartmented in ways that have made it theoretically incomplete and unsuitable as a guide to policy...