Mysterious illness affecting U.S. soldiers in Iraq?

[EAMcClure]

<http://www.lakesunleader.com/display/inn_news/news1.txt>

Can someone verify or corroborate this?

Is this going to be the proof of WMD?

Eric

[Syrinx]

1. I saw it somewhere, I think it was mainstream

Could it be DU, depleted uranium?

[KeepItReal]

2. Gulf War Syndrome rears its head again?

<EOM>

[EAMcClure]

3. Does Gulf War Syndrome involve bleeding out of the liver?

This doesn't seem like GWS to me. Plus, it appears infectious... if it was GWS, why are they being sent to a hospital in Germany? If it is GWS, why have two soldiers died? I thought GWS was crippling due to depleted uranium, but not fatal.

Eric

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. But the bleeding of the liver could be caused

by intense heat and dehydration on top of their other symptoms. Extreme athletes get similar symptoms from overexertion.

[EAMcClure]

5. I did not know that

That's terrible. In a way, your explanation makes what is happening all the more horrifying... soldiers dead from the Iraqi summer. Sad

Eric

[ianbruce]

7. I think you've nailed it... 125° days and 110° nights...

.. with full gear and Kevlar body armor -- all the while, expecting someone to take a shot at you -- and with no end in sight.

I could take about 2 days of that myself before you'd have to put me on a plane to Germany.

[KeepItReal]

6. Whatever it is, they may try to bury it like they did GWS

This sounds really bad. Who knows what these folks have been exposed to?

[JackSwift]

8. The m*****f*****s have got

to get these guys drinking liquids and into air conditioned vehicles.

[Lexingtonian]

9. not WMD

It does sound like either a neurotropic virus or parasitic infection or a problematic chemical exposure, like GWS did. A lot of GIs got sick early in deployment in both conflicts around the time they got exposed to that desert- its temperatures, winds, and dust.

I wouldn't be surprised if they finally discover that camel dung is a culprit. But my guess is that the worst stuff involves toxins from their equipment- gaseous or particulate stuff 'cooked' from their body armor or new tents or motor vehicle grease or something like that.

[NYC]

10. What about typhoid fever?

Other similar diseases from lack of clean water?

I think there are many possibilities.