[Peace-discuss] A medic in the Iowa Army National Guard says......

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Iraqi medical reports from World Conference at University of Hamburg in 
Germany are available at:

http://www.traprockpeace.org/jawad_al-ali_iraq.html


doug.

and from current Army medicine:

This is a PM disgrace.  We had 700,000 troops in Desert Storm.  20 cases of 
Leishminaisis.

120,000 troops in Iraq and the cases are in the thousands.

PM has totally collapsed.  No wonder they are ashamed to report the DNBI.   
Why are the PM people not speaking out on the lack of personnel and total 
neglect of a preventable illness?

When they gutted PM what did they expect. The of course "saved" money in the 
short term but it will cost thousands to treat these soldiers.  There is one 
heat machine made to treat the severe lesions and each machine cost hundreds of 
thousands of dollars and comes only from one mfr.


 
Baghdad Boil' Afflicting U.S. Troops 
Sun Apr 18, 5:36 PM ET

By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer 
WASHINGTON - Staff Sgt. Eric DiVona didn't notice the small bumps on his face 
and left earlobe until he returned from serving nine months in Iraq (news - 
web sites). Nothing much, he thought, probably just a spider bite. 
 
But soon those bumps erupted into open sores, one growing to the size of a 
half dollar. The left side of his face puffed up, a swelling that wouldn't go 
away. And he noticed he was not the only one in his unit with such symptoms. 
"A lot of people started coming down with sores," he said, sitting at Walter 
Reed Army Medical Center with an IV taped to his right arm. "It was like, 'You 
ain't cool unless you got it.'" 
What DiVona thought was a spider bite was actually caused by a tiny sand fly 
with a fierce parasite stewing in its gut, an organism that causes stubborn 
and ugly sores that linger for months. 
Scientists and doctors refer to the disease caused by the parasite as 
cutaneous leishmaniasis. But soldiers serving in sand-fly rich Iraq call it, with 
little affection, the "Baghdad boil." 
The sores are not painful or contagious, but left untreated they can last up 
to 18 months and leave permanent, burn-like scars. Since the flies bite 
exposed areas, many soldiers have sores on their necks, faces and arms. 
Doctors at Walter Reed have seen 653 cases of leishmaniasis, and the 
hospital's infectious disease wards until recently overflowed with soldiers undergoing 
a 20-day treatment regimen. 
"We see a few cases every year, but not the numbers we saw come out of Iraq," 
said Col. Dallas Hack, chief of preventive medicine at Walter Reed. 
The military has made a big effort to treat leishmaniasis, even pulling 
soldiers out of the field who have confirmed cases and flying them back to 
Washington for medical care. 
But Walter Reed doctors say it was almost inevitable that they would see a 
high number of cases this year. 
Leishmaniasis occurs in hot and tropical countries where sand flies dwell, 
Hack said. Still, only about 20 soldiers got leishmaniasis during the first Gulf 
War (news - web sites), and a handful more contracted it in Afghanistan (news 
- web sites). 
This time, though, American forces arrived in Iraq during the peak season for 
sand flies and were in the field much longer. Many slept outside at night, 
exposing themselves at the sand fly's favorite feeding time. 
Iraqis have also done little to control the problem, such as using 
insecticide to kill off the flies, Hack said. Local residents have come to accept the 
disease, he said, exposing young children to sand flies in hopes of building 
immunity. 
Doctors have told soldiers in Iraq what to look for and implored them to wear 
bug spray. Medical teams with front-line combat troops have tested sand flies 
for the parasite. 
But with enemy bullets flying, the first concern of most soldiers was not 
slathering on bug spray every morning. 
"You didn't think about leishmaniasis too much," said Maj. Eric Moore, who 
contracted the parasite on the Iran-Iraq border with the 4th Infantry Division. 
The lesions will eventually go away on their own and would not affect a 
soldier's ability to serve. Even so, the military thought it was important that 
soldiers with bad cases be flown out of Iraq for treatment so they wouldn't be 
disfigured. 
In Moore's unit of about 750 men, more than 200 came down with leishmaniasis 
during a 10-month tour that ended in March. He was relatively lucky — he has 
only one quarter-sized sore on his left arm. Others had lesions all over their 
bodies, he said. 
Moore isn't too worried about scarring. He predicts it will delight his 
children, especially his 3-year-old, who has a fascination with Band-Aids. 
"They will probably think it's cool," he said while getting his daily dose of 
a drug called Pentostam. "They'll probably say, 'Daddy has an ouchie.'" 
"For most soldiers, it isn't a war stopper," said Lt. Col. Glenn Wortmann, an 
infectious disease physician at Walter Reed. "But most patients want 
treatment so the thing will go away." 
Walter Reed is one of only two hospitals where patients are sent because the 
treatment can only be done in a clinical trial setting. With domestic cases a 
rarity, Pentostam is not licensed in the United States. However, the Army is 
developing a treatment that can be used in the field. 
Many soldiers didn't realize they had the boils until weeks after exposure. 
DiVona remembers being bitten constantly by flies, but he and other members of 
his unit didn't see any sores until after they got home in November to Fort 
Campbell, Ky. 
___ 
 
___ 
On the Net: 
Walter Reed Army Medical Center: http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil