WE NEED MANDATORY AUTOPSY LAW!
 | GULF WAR ILLNESS (GWI) DOES EXIST!!!!
Category: News and Politics A report delivered Nov. 17 by a congressionally mandated committee of scientists and veterans has determined that Gulf War illness is a very real disease caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug given to protect service members from nerve gas.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, which included Assistant National Legislative Director Adrian M. Atizado, says the disease has no effective treatments and has urged that Congress appropriate $60 million a year to study and develop new, effective medical care.
“Gulf War veterans have suffered for nearly two decades while their illnesses were studied and researched,” said Atizado. “Their health worsened, and their complaints were discounted or blamed on deployment stress despite the fact that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder than veterans of other wars.”
Gulf War illness is a combination of memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, and widespread pain. It may also include chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.
The report estimates that at least one in four of the 697,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from the illness, which it primarily attributes to the drug pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas and pesticides widely used during the Gulf War.
The committee also found associations between Gulf War illness and low-level exposures to nerve agents, smoke from oil well fires, large numbers of vaccines, and other toxins.
The Department of Defense says that about 100,000 servicemembers were potentially exposed to low-level nerve agents resulting from the demolitions of Iraqi munitions near Khamisiyah, Iraq, in 1991. A 2007 study found that low-level exposure to nerve gas could cause lasting brain deficits in Gulf War troops.
Gulf War veterans also have significantly higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than other veterans.
Servicemembers who were downwind from the Khamisiyah demolitions have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.
The committee’s report says research is now available to consistently indicate that “Gulf War illness is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployments and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time.”
It called for a renewed federal research commitment to find treatments to improve the health of Gulf War veterans and to prevent similar problems in future deployments.
“This should be an urgent national goal to restore as much as possible the health and well-being of Gulf War servicemembers,” said Atizado. “These veterans have suffered too long hoping for answers and assistance.”
The report and findings were presented to the Department of Veterans Affairs in hopes for an end to the declining federal funding for Gulf War research and treatment, and the creation of renewed federal research commitments to improve the health of affected Gulf War veterans.
“In addition, we would hope the VA would make Gulf War illness a presumptive disability for those who served in the Gulf War,” said Atizado. “The time has come for the VA and the nation to recognize that Gulf War illness is a fact, and should be considered in deciding the disability of our veterans.”
Veterans with questions about Gulf War illness should contact their local National Service Office for information.
NATIONAL SERVICE OFFICER - DAV LINK TO EACH STATE
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May 4, 2008 9:59 AM
Virus Sickens 3,000 Kids
BEIJING — China's Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert Saturday in a bid to control a virus that has caused the deaths of 22 children in one city and shows signs of spreading.
Health bureaus around the country must step up monitoring for hand, foot and mouth disease following a "relatively large" outbreak in the central city of Fuyang, the Health Ministry said in a notice on its Web site. The ministry warned that cases were more numerous this year than in recent years and that the peak for transmission would likely come in June and July.
The warning has been prompted by a jump in cases in the Fuyang outbreak of Enterovirus 71, or EV-71, a type of hand, foot and mouth disease.
Up to Thursday night, 3,321 cases of the virus were reported. Besides the 22 deaths, 978 people remain hospitalized, 58 of them in serious or critical condition, the ministry said in a separate statement.
Meanwhile, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that preliminary tests showed an 18-month-old boy who died Friday in southeastern Guangdong province was infected with EV-71, and a second suspected death is under investigation. Cases of hand, foot and mouth outbreaks, but not necessarily EV-71, have been reported in at least two other provinces.
"Health bureaus at all levels must recognize the importance and urgency of preventing the spread of infectious diseases and must put priority on preventing and controlling the spread of infectious diseases," the ministry said in its nationwide order.
Hand, foot and mouth disease are viruses that cause fever, mouth sores and rashes with blisters. Spread by contact with the mucus discharges or stools of infected people, the viruses mainly strike children 10 years and younger, and in some cases can cause fatal brain swelling.
The outbreak is another concern for the communist government as it gears up to welcome hundreds of thousands of foreigners for this summer's Beijing Olympics and deals with unrest in Tibetan areas of western China. It's also an uncomfortable reminder of the SARS pneumonia outbreak in 2003, which Beijing tried to cover up but then adopted drastic measures to control.
State media reported earlier this week that the government's response in Fuyang, a fast-growing city surrounded by farmland in Anhui province, had been slow, allowing rumors to spread about the outbreak.
The China Youth Daily reported earlier this week that some reports had suggested the virus was a "children's SARS," while others claimed it was a "type of bird flu that could infect people."
Since the SARS crisis, the government has increased spending on the detection and monitoring of communicable diseases.
In several announcements Friday and Saturday, the Health Ministry increased the monitoring network, ordering regular reports on outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth diseases. It also sent expert teams to Anhui province to lead treatment and prevention.
http://www. foxnews. com/story/0,2933,354045,00. html