Troops unable to be treated for skin disease in Iraq ...

[lebkuchen]

will be seen by doctors in U.S.

U.S.-based military doctors are bracing for a wave of servicemembers returning from Iraq this spring whose treatment for a skin disease has been delayed by the dangerous security situation there.

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“We’ve heard rumors of a couple hundred cases in the Stryker Brigade,” McGill said Friday.

But travel in Iraq is so perilous for U.S. troops that health care staff there are choosing to let suspected cases of the disease go, rather than risk a trip to the large medical facilities for diagnosis, said McGill, the U.S. military’s leading leishmaniasis expert.

“Doctors in the field are making some hard choices, because any movement in Iraq places your life in jeopardy,” he said.

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“The security situation may have prevented a timely evaluation by stateside standards, but as soon as these guys get home, we are going to take care of them,” McGill said.

Leishmaniasis takes hold when infected sand flies bite humans who sleep on the ground or work in very dirty, sandy environments

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But sores from cutaneous leishmaniasis “heal on their own, this can take months or even years … and leave ugly scars,” according to CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant.


http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=26925

[DemoTex]

1. Baghdad Boil prophylaxis: Another failure in planning in the rush to war.

Troops can prevent themselves from being bitten, but for many, their deployment was done in such a hurry that Leishmaniasis prophylaxis was not high on the agenda. That decision is coming back to bite (so to speak) allied servicemen. Given that our troops risk their lives everyday from terrorist attacks, more should be done to combat entirely preventable diseases. Being slack about prevention is also a false economy because each case leads to hospitalization, which may in the future cost more than the preventative measures required for all troops.

The main methods of prevention are bug spray and thinly meshed bed nets, as well as staying in tents through the night — when the flies are most active. Uniforms can also be sprayed with the insecticide permethrin, but re-spraying has to be done every four to five washes and that's not routine in most hostile environments.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate200403030923.asp

[lebkuchen]

2. Treatment is delayed due to lack of security/danger in travel

Some "accomplished" mission~.

For those troops returning home who were bitten by sandflies and who develop fevers, being tested for Leishmaniasis will not be that easy. Few U.S. Army doctors (and probably no civilian doctors) will have ever seen a case, and if it is of the visceral variety, then long-term organ damage can result if the disease remains untreated. Those men most at risk will probably be servicemen who quit the army after returning home since they will not have regular medical checkups as a result.

[evolvenow]

3. DU? Certainly could make every condition worse. Awful.

[Bozita]

4. Do Strykers have weaponry that uses shells containing DU?

[evolvenow]

5. "are a lot of concerns about depleted uranium from the munitions"

The Seattle Times: Inside Iraq

... But not all the brigade travels in the Strykers. ... As your question suggests, there
are a lot of concerns about depleted uranium from the munitions used by the ...
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ news/nation-world/insideiraq/qa.html

[cornermouse]

6. I wonder what effect all this stuff is going to have on future

babies who will be born after their parents (both male and female this time) after deployment in Iraq?

[thecai]

8. Birth Defects and Cancer from Depleted Uranium

http://www.ericblumrich.com/pl_lo.html

[Supersedeas]

7. letting disease go b/c risk of travel is too great-nothing to see here MSM

Everything is wine, roses and purple fingers in Iraq...the President said so in his SOTU address.

[bush_is_wacko]

9. This can lead to organ failure if left untreated. I did some research

on this when Arafat fell ill. I ran across this in my research. I think I just googled it. Anyway leishmaniasis can cause liver and kidney failure if left untreated.

[LynnTheDem]

10. Yep. But then, our troops are fungible.

And they'll probably die from lack of body armor first, anyways.

[NYC]

11. That is correct. Not all Leishmaniasis is cutaneous.

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of some species of sand flies. It is an obligate intracellular protozoan. The disease most commonly manifests either in a cutaneous (skin) form or in a visceral (internal organ) form.

http://www.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/leishmaniasis.htm