Iraqi war vet battles rare disease

Poor fellow, after doing his duty now he gets this rare disease. Does anyone know why this affects mostly Caucasians. Apparently this disease is on the upswing. This is one we need to keep an eye on.
First symptom is a runny nose?!?

After surviving several months of insurgent attacks of mortars and small arms fire in Iraq, U.S. Marine Cpl. Michael "Richie" Amburn of Harrison is now doing battle with a rare and incurable disease.


www.zwire.com...

For more info on the disease:
www.niaid.nih.gov...

More links in google.

[edit on 7-6-2005 by valkeryie]

Valkeryie,

Any idea how many Vets are fighting symptoms of this type?

It makes me think about how the government first denied any effects from Agent Orange then later reversed itself. I doubt if the US Military is hiding or causing this like in the case of Agent Orange; however, they may be ignoring the amount of persons returning with these symptoms.

I wonder if it is just the exposure to heat and filth causing the natural occurence, or if it is another terroists activity of induced bio-chemicals?

I wonder if it is just the exposure to heat and filth causing the natural occurence, or if it is another terroists activity of induced bio-chemicals?

Maybe terrorists closer to home...

The good news is, they probably caught it on time:

With the appropriate treatment, the outlook is good for people with Wegener's granulomatosis. In a study of 158 patients who were treated with prednisone and cyclophosphamide at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 91 percent of them markedly improved. After 6 months to 24 years of follow-up, 80 percent of the patients survived.

The cause of this disease, as Val's second link states, is completely unknown. It is unlikely medical researchers working on this disease since 1970 weren't able to discover the cause but terrorists figured out a way to spread it.

my brother in law was in the first gulf war (UK Army) and was advised that if he had kids in the future there "may be complications" (he's since had kids and everything was OK)

He recently applied to join the police force and it took the UK Army more than a year to make his medical records available

In the UK there was a big deal around gulf war syndrome (following GWI) but i think the army disproved any link between innoculations and any medical complications for serving and ex-servicemen

Any ex-UK servicemen out there been through similar? We never really got to the bottom of what, if anything, might or might not affect my brother in law now or in the future as a result of stuff he was exposed to (or innoculated with) on active duty