The Guardian: unreported cost of war

OTOH, approximately 100 incidents occurring in some 160,000 troops hardly makes
an epidemic. That these occurrences are unusual is undeniable; however, their
causation is more likely environmentally based than weapon inflicted, as some
people are suggesting. The widely separated and random nature of where and when
the illnesses struck does not support the weapon theory.

George Z.

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
news
On 4 Aug 2003 18:23:05 -0700, (blackfire)
wrote:

Three deaths have been categorised as "possible suicides", three have
died from illness, and three from drowning. The rest are unexplained.

You take plenty of young guys, reved them up, put them in powerful
vehicles and get them to drive on unsafe roads with low lights and
little traffic control and imagine what will happen. It is a miracle
that more do not get killed.

I'll tell you a weird one, though. About one hundred soldiers in
theater have had pneumonia and at least two have died. Fifteen cases
were severe enough to require ventilation; of these cases, two died,
ten recovered, and three are still hospitalized. All different units,
all different locations, spread over time. No evidence of exposure to
chemical or biological weapons, environmental toxins, or SARS.

Healthy, fit, young people don't get pneumonia. They just don't.
When they do, rare though it is, they don't die from it.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Gooneybird" wrote in message
...
OTOH, approximately 100 incidents occurring in some 160,000 troops hardly
makes
an epidemic. That these occurrences are unusual is undeniable; however,
their
causation is more likely environmentally based than weapon inflicted, as
some
people are suggesting. The widely separated and random nature of where
and when
the illnesses struck does not support the weapon theory.

George Z.

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
news
On 4 Aug 2003 18:23:05 -0700, (blackfire)
wrote:

Three deaths have been categorised as "possible suicides", three
have
died from illness, and three from drowning. The rest are
unexplained.

You take plenty of young guys, reved them up, put them in powerful
vehicles and get them to drive on unsafe roads with low lights and
little traffic control and imagine what will happen. It is a miracle
that more do not get killed.

I'll tell you a weird one, though. About one hundred soldiers in
theater have had pneumonia and at least two have died. Fifteen cases
were severe enough to require ventilation; of these cases, two died,
ten recovered, and three are still hospitalized. All different units,
all different locations, spread over time. No evidence of exposure to
chemical or biological weapons, environmental toxins, or SARS.

Healthy, fit, young people don't get pneumonia. They just don't.
When they do, rare though it is, they don't die from it.

On the contary pneumonia is MUCH more common an illness than
people believe affecting around 1% of the general population
every year.

100 cases in a population of 160,000 is not a very high
figure and a 2% mortality rate is well within the normal
range. A study in NYC in 1981 put the mortality rate
for adults between 25 and 44 years of age at 4.2 per
100,000 population.

The US army carried out a study on pneumonia in its
active duty soldiers between 1990 and 1996 , the crude
incidence rate was 231 per 100,000 soldiers per year.

http://amsa.army.mil/1Msmr/1997/v03_n02_Article1.htm

The figures from Iraq seem seem to be pretty much as one
would expect from that size a deployment based on previous
demographic data.

Keith

"Gooneybird" wrote in message
...
OTOH, approximately 100 incidents occurring in some 160,000 troops hardly
makes
an epidemic. That these occurrences are unusual is undeniable; however,
their
causation is more likely environmentally based than weapon inflicted, as
some
people are suggesting. The widely separated and random nature of where
and when
the illnesses struck does not support the weapon theory.

That and the fact that pneumonia is a symptom and not a disease.

jpt