Before her last deployment, 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Danielle Nienajadlo passed her Army physical with flying colors. So when she started having health problems several weeks after arriving at Balad Air Base in Iraq, no one knew what to make of her symptoms: headaches that kept her awake; unexplained bruises all over her body; an open sore on her back that wouldn’t heal; vomiting and weight loss. In July 2008, after three miserable months, Nienajadlo checked into the base emergency room with a 104-degree fever.
She was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and learned she had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-progressing form of the disease. She told her doctors and her family she had felt fine until she started inhaling the oily black smoke that spewed out of the base’s open-air trash-burning facility day and night. At times, the plume contained dioxins, some of which can cause the kind of cancer Nienajadlo had.
“She breathed in this gunk,” says her mother, Lindsay Weidman. “She’d go back to the hooch at night to go to bed and cough up these black chunks.”
In the past 17 months, more than 500 veterans have contacted Disabled American Veterans (DAV), a national nonprofit serving vets, to report illnesses they blame on the burn pits. Throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors—many of the burn pits are operated by companies like former Halliburton subsidiary KBR—have dumped hundreds of tons of refuse into giant open-air trenches, doused the piles with fuel, and left them to burn. The trash includes plastic, metal, asbestos, batteries, tires, unexploded ordnance, medical waste, even entire trucks. (The military now operates several actual incinerators and has made efforts to create recycling programs, but the majority of war-zone trash is still burned in pits.)
On Burn Pits Action Center, a website operated by the staff of Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.)—who learned of the problem via the reporting of Army Times writer Kelly Kennedy in 2008—GIs describe dumping rat poison, hydraulic fluid, and pressure-treated wood into the pits. “When the question was raised about what we were off-loading for burning, the answer was along the lines of ‘Don’t worry about it as the heat will burn up the bad stuff so it isn’t a threat,'” reported Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class John Wingfield, who served near Balad in 2004 and 2005.
Veterans’ groups worry that the smoke floods bases with a stew of carcinogens, toxins, and lung-clogging fine particles. An Army study released in early 2009 found that particulate matter at 15 sites exceeded both EPA and US military standards. Even short-term exposure could sicken—or kill—service members, the report warns. As early as 2006, an Air Force engineer stationed at Balad warned superiors in a memo that smoke from the burn pits presented “an acute health hazard” for service members. “It is amazing that the burn pit has been able to operate without restrictions over the past several years,” the engineer, Lt. Colonel Darrin Curtis, wrote. Military statistics also show a steep increase in respiratory problems in troops since the start of the Iraq War.
In a written statement, KBR told Mother Jones that it operates burn pits “pursuant to Army guidelines and regulations.” The military’s own air sampling has turned up dioxins, volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and other potential hazards in the air at Balad. The Pentagon has insisted they were at levels that posed no significant threat—though last December, a top military health official acknowledged to the Salt Lake Tribune that smoke from the pits may cause long-term health problems. (Neither Pentagon officials nor the White House responded to requests for comment on this story.)
The government’s reluctance to acknowledge the potential hazard has frustrated veterans’ advocates, who remember how long it took for the Pentagon to recognize Gulf War Syndrome in the 1990s, and to acknowledge the health problems caused by aerial spraying during the Vietnam War. “We don’t want another Agent Orange,” says John L. Wilson, DAV’s assistant national legislative director. “Silence does not do any good.”
If the pits are harming troops and Iraqis, there’s no telling how many. Many cancers won’t reveal themselves for a decade or more, and many respiratory symptoms tend to be misdiagnosed as asthma. Like Nienajadlo, Air Force Reserve Lt. Colonel Michelle Franco, 48, had a clean bill of health when she shipped out to Balad three years ago. The 18-foot walls surrounding her quarters kept out mortar fire, but not the smoke: “You could smell it; you could taste it.” As a nurse, Franco suspected the “plume crud” was hazardous. She knew that in addition to amputated limbs from her medical facility, the base’s waste included hundreds of thousands of water bottles every week—and she knew burning plastic releases cancer-causing dioxins. After just five months at the base, Franco sustained permanent lung damage. She’s lucky, she says, that she kept asking questions when harried doctors handed her an inhaler. She expects her diagnosis—untreatable reactive airway dysfunction syndrome—to ultimately push her into retirement.
Many vets won’t realize that their illness might be service related, notes Franco. But official recognition is key to get them proper screening and benefits. Last fall, Rep. Bishop managed to pass legislation limiting the military’s freedom to burn waste and directing the Pentagon to do a study on the pits’ health effects. Given that this may take years, Bishop is also calling for an Agent Orange-like registry of those at risk.
Meanwhile a DC-based law firm, Burke LLC (which has also pursued claims for Abu Ghraib torture victims and Iraqi civilians killed by Blackwater guards), has filed suit against Halliburton and KBR on behalf of about 300 injured veterans and their survivors; the firm estimates that some 100,000 people have been exposed. “These troops were more injured by the smoke and the toxins than by combat,” says attorney Elizabeth Burke.
Staff Sergeant Nienajadlo died March 20, 2009, exactly 13 years from the day she enlisted. She left behind three children, ages 3, 8, and 10, and a husband who is also in the service. Before she fell ill, Nienajadlo confided to her mother that she was scared of serving in Iraq. But she worried about mortar attacks and roadside bombs—not the Army’s own trash.
French Finally Prove Gulf War Syndrome Caused by “Cocktail” Inoculations
by Joe Vialls
January 6th 1996
Edited January 12th 2003,Updated January 25th 003 by Jeff Schogol
Rather than help the media in its never-ending quest to lay misleading smoke screens around the true origins of Gulf War Syndrome, General Roquejoffre appears to have used his statement to finally isolate and expose the real villain behind the debilitating and sometimes lethal disease.
Many years ago before gaining access to the Internet, I wrote a report about the most likely causes of Gulf War Syndrome. The report slowly moved around the world by snail mail, and was eventually published in four small magazines. Then I forgot all about the report for a few years, because the nightmare symptoms being suffered by Gulf War veterans in America and Britain, seemed light years away from my sleepy little backwater in Western Australia. That was before George W. Bush decided to do the whole thing all over again, in his increasingly frantic and very public attempts to pillage Middle East oil for Wall Street. Though I am obviously powerless to prevent Bush from ruthlessly sacrificing American lives in the Iraqi desert, I can at least sound a warning designed to minimize the physical and psychological impact on servicemen before they leave for the Gulf, and after they hopefully return.
There is no doubt that the panic generated by the false “War on Terror” is already being used to coerce people into accepting “preventative medical treatment“, that in a more sane world they would instantly refuse. Most profitable by far for the pharmaceutical multinationals backing the Bush Dynasty, are inoculations forced onto service men and women by legislation. Taking the dreaded “Anthrax Shots” as an example, the manufacturer makes a net profit of $18.00 out of every single individual, a figure that has to be multiplied by 2.4 million to get a true feel for multinational profit margins. It is a harsh fact that the Anthrax vaccine being forcibly administered to service men and women today, is the same as that included in the deadly Gulf War “cocktail” inoculations of 1990-1991. This has no meaning whatever for politicians who habitually bend forward over a desk when their masters approach from behind, but it might have some meaning for you. In the event that the multinationals manage to spark a “civil emergency” somewhere near your own home, be advised that you too will be forced to accept exactly the same untested but hugely profitable vaccine as military personnel bound for the Persian Gulf.
The direct relationship between the Anthrax shots of today and the “cocktail” of yesterday is deeply troubling, and is the prime reason for reviving, editing, and adding to this 1995 report. You might find part of the text disturbing, which is probably a very good thing. It is difficult to protect your family from government-induced harm if you are not completely alert. “During late 1995, devastating new evidence on Gulf War Syndrome was released, providing undeniable hard scientific proof for those who have long suspected that Gulf veterans are suffering short and long-term effects of unproven anti-bacteriological warfare inoculations and anti-nerve gas tablets, forcibly administered by U.S. Army doctors in Saudi Arabia.
With thousands of U.S. veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, it came as no surprise to learn in October 1995 that several hundred British veterans were suffering in the same way, with three to five new cases being reported every week. Like their U.S. counterparts, most were puzzled by the origins of the disease, which they initially attributed to oil-laden smoke in Kuwait, toxic dust from depleted uranium rounds fired by U.S. weapons, and possible contamination from expended Iraqi chemical shells in the area, fired before the Gulf War commenced.
In a startling break with tradition, one British military doctor stated that in her view, 99% of the problems could be sourced back to the anti-bacteriological warfare “Cocktail Inoculations“, and anti-nerve gas tablets forcibly administered to military personnel in the Gulf region at that time. In an October 1995 broadcast of the ITN TV World News from London, she further explained that all British military personnel had been provided with the same untested and unproven drugs as the Americans, from U.S. medical sources. To reinforce the point, the doctor explained that the number of British personnel suffering symptoms correlated exactly on a per capita basis with U.S. personnel. It was a controversial claim, but apparently lacking in substance.
Shattering confirmation came eleven hours later, when Australian Channel 10 television carried exactly the same story at 5 p.m., but with an extra piece tagged onto the end. The extra piece claimed that French military personnel in the Gulf region, numbering the same as the British contingent, had been prevented from taking the “cocktails” and tablets on the direct orders of the French Commander-in-Chief. The story claimed that since the end of the Gulf War, not a single member of the French military has suffered from Gulf War Syndrome, or reported any of its symptoms. One hour later at 6 p.m. when the other Australian television networks ran their news broadcasts, the awesome story with its stunning proof had vanished from sight. Nor was it reported in the Australian newspapers.
For any scientist or veteran, the fact that the French should be completely clear of Gulf War Syndrome while the Americans and British suffered huge numbers of cases verified on a direct per capita basis, has huge and horrifying implications. After all, the French ate the same food, drank the same water, breathed the same air and trudged through hundreds of miles of the same desert. They also fired similar weapons at similar targets. So what were the additional factors that made the French unique in their ability to completely withstand the deadly Gulf War Syndrome? The truth is there were none at all, save for the experimental American “cocktail” inoculations and nerve gas tablets. What the French had done, almost by accident, was provide hard scientific proof of the direct cause of Gulf War Syndrome. This proof took the form of its large 25,000-strong contingent of French servicemen participating n the Gulf War, who in all respects constituted a valid medical “control group”.
For the uninitiated, here is an example of how a “control group” might be used in medical trials: Let us say that the manufacturer of a new “chest hair” drug wants to run a clinical trial to check its efficiency, using 500,000 men. Out of this total, 475,000 [Americans and Brits] are given the real “chest hair” pill, while the remaining 25,000 [French] are used as a control group and given only a placebo, i.e. an identical looking sugar-coated pill with no active ingredients. If at the end of the trial all men with enhanced chest hair were found in the main group, with not a single case in the control group, the new “chest hair” drug would immediately be approved by medical authorities. It really is that simple. Applying the same process in reverse, proves in definitive medical terms that untested Anthrax and botulism potions kill far more servicemen than enemy gunfire.
In an attempt to confirm this vital though very short-lived Gulf War Syndrome data, the author contacted the French Military Attaché in Australia and inquired if it was correct that the French Commander-in-Chief forbade his own personnel the untested substances. The Military Attaché was happy to confirm this, and also confirmed that not one French soldier or airman has suffered since the end of the Gulf War. It seemed to be a subject of which he was very proud, and rightly so. Perhaps it is time for U.S. and British veterans to confirm the same points with their local French consulates, before taking a very hefty legal swing at their own governments.”
On 3rd October 1996, nine months after this report was first published in two small American magazines, and then brought to the attention of the White House, the prestigious New York Times suddenly added a new dimension [and thus a possible new cause for Gulf War Syndrome]. According to the newspaper, an Iraqi chemical weapons dump at Kamisiyah was bombed extensively by U.S. jets before the ground campaign, meaning soldiers could have been exposed before their assault. The New York Times did not attempt to explain why this news was being reported five years after the event, nor why it was suddenly so important to bring the matter to the attention of the American public.
Once again, affected veterans and the public settled down into a confused silence, their suspicions blunted by media-induced patriotic guilt. How dare they even imagine that caring American pharmaceutical multinationals would hurt them or their families, when all along the real culprit was obviously Saddam Hussein and his evil “weapons of mass destruction”? The Kamisiyah “link” to Gulf War Syndrome was ruthlessly exploited, with official Pentagon confirmation that the dump itself was finally destroyed on 4 March 1991 by the 37th Engineering Battalion, who “did not know” that nerve gas was stored there when they triggered the demolition charges. So, victims and public alike were coaxed into believing that American and other troops located downwind of the demolition, had been affected solely by “Iraqi” toxins.
It was truly brilliant media propaganda, but failed to take into account those incredibly annoying Frenchmen, who seemed to be everywhere in southern Iraq at the same time as the Americans and British. Proportionately speaking, the same number of “French Control Group” troops were present when Kamisiyah was bombed and finally demolished, but not one of them suffered or even reported any of the effects of “Gulf War Syndrome”. And before you ask, yes, the French did indeed trudge wearily through the same areas of southern Iraq littered with depleted uranium 238 as the Americans and British. But still there is absolutely no trace of Gulf War Syndrome in any French soldier.
It does not take a rocket scientist to work out where this report is heading. Just look at the hard facts and ignore the pathetic lobby, media, and academic hype. As already discussed, all coalition troops regardless of nationality shared the same air and water, they all walked or drove over the same terrain, and they all used similar weapons against similar targets. But what about external body protection? Did the French have vastly superior bio-warfare suits that somehow magically gave them “the edge” over American and British personnel? No, they did not. The bio-warfare suits worn by the French, came from exactly the same stock as those worn by the Americans and British. The only variables left at this point in the report, are the un-trialed “cocktail” inoculations and the nerve gas tablets.
Under heavy media pressure in late October 2000, the retired commander of French forces in the Gulf, General Michel Roquejoffre, admitted that his men were in fact ordered to take nerve gas tablets [pyridostigmine bromide] during the Gulf War, but only for four days when mistakenly believed to be under direct chemical attack. The General pointed out that this four days of intermittent French exposure to nerve gas tablets, contrasts sharply with their continuous use for months on end by American and British servicemen. However, General Roquejoffre emphasized that at no time did he allow any French serviceman to receive the highly controversial un-trialed American “cocktail” inoculation.
Rather than help the media in its never-ending quest to lay misleading smoke screens around the true origins of Gulf War Syndrome, General Roquejoffre appears to have used his statement to finally isolate and expose the real villain behind the debilitating and sometimes lethal disease. Having “admitted” that some of his troops took the nerve gas tablets during the Gulf War, General Roquejoffre has wittingly or unwittingly removed the nerve gas tablet variable, leaving only the lethal American “cocktail” inoculation, which included the untested Anthrax vaccine being irresponsibly peddled today by assorted western politicians, as the sole and scientifically proven cause of Gulf War Syndrome.
British Servicemen Throw Deadly Anthrax Vaccine Overboard!
January 25th 2003 Up-Date
On January 4th 2003 a confidential copy of my updated report on the single cause of Gulf War Syndrome was sent directly to a number of military computer servers in America, Britain and Australia. With servicemen already being ordered to submit to a debilitating or lethal dose of un-trialed and unproven Anthrax “vaccine” directly linked to GWS, it seemed wise to ensure that they saw the work before it was officially posted on the Internet. Web sites can be attacked all too easily, and a number of mine have been totally destroyed in the last six months.
Not long after Prime Minister Tony Blair arrogantly waved goodbye to 30,000 British servicemen departing England for the Persian Gulf aboard a fleet of Navy vessels, locals in Dorset and Devon started reporting a very strange phenomenon. Thousands of [unused] vials of Anthrax Vaccine started washing up on their beaches. Some locals started panicking, thinking that perhaps they were being attacked by a country or countries known to have vast stockpiles of this ruthless killer – most notably America and Israel. But their heart rates came down again when Health Department officials visited the areas and explained the thousands of vials on the beaches were in fact “cures in bottles”. Jim Moore, a spokesman for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA), said his organization has no conclusive proof that the vaccine vials that washed up in Dorset, southern England, were thrown overboard. But Moore noted that the circumstances surrounding the vaccine find are suspicious.
“For anything to be accidentally washed overboard on an aircraft carrier is highly unusual,” he said. “This gives us cause for concern and there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.” The organization said it has heard anecdotal evidence of mistiming of vaccines from current service personnel. The NGVFA believes that improperly administered vaccines might be one of the causes behind “Gulf War Syndrome“, a mysterious collection of symptoms that is thought to afflict tens of thousands of veterans in Britain and the United States. “People say you accept the risks when you sign up to join the forces,” Moore said. “That’s true, but the risk you accept is one of an enemy bullet or a landmine. You don’t accept the risk of being a guinea pig for a vaccine, all the mistakes made in the Gulf War are being made again.”
A Ministry of Defense spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an internal investigation into the vaccine find was underway. “We wouldn’t like to speculate on where the vaccine might have come from at this stage,” she said. “There has been a large amount of speculation in the press and this isn’t helpful. The investigation will uncover the source of the vaccine.” Peering judiciously behind the official veil, of course reveals that the only sources for the thousands of “shipwrecked” Anthrax vaccine vials were the various naval vessels that had earlier sailed reluctantly for the Persian Gulf on direct political orders. So the British servicemen have found a way to neutralize the second most deadly danger to their lives. Now all they have to do, is to figure out a way to neutralize the most clear and present danger ever to threaten their families and themselves: Prime Minister Tony Blair
SKILLSAW: A portable cutting tool used to make boards too short.
BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, ‘Oh shit’. Will easily wind a tee shirt off your back.
DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
CHANNEL LOCKS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
HACK SAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for igniting various flammable objects in your shop and creating a fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. Very effective for digit removal!!
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.
BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut large pieces into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge. Also excels at amputations.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of all the crap you forgot to disconnect.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
PVC PIPE CUTTER: A tool used to make plastic pipe too short.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit. Also very effective at fingernail removal.
UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door. Works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use. These can also be used to initiate a trip to the emergency room so a doctor can sew up the damage.
SON OF A BITCH TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling ‘Son of a bitch’ at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
