U.S. Troops Face New Threat: Afghanistan?s Toxic Sand - Jun 2010
WIRED LINK
U.S. troops already face plenty of threats in Afghanistan: AK-47?wielding insurgents, improvised bombs, an intransigent and incompetent government. Now add a less familiar challenge to that list of woes:
Afghanistan?s toxic sand.
The pulverized turf, it turns out, contains high levels of manganese, silicon, iron, magnesium, aluminum, chromium and other metals that act as neurotoxic agents when ingested. Combine the country?s frequent sandstorms and the kicked-up dust that results from helicopter travel with troops? nostrils, mouths and pores, and you?ve got an unexpected example of how inhospitable the terrain is for the soon-to-be 98,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines fighting the war.
It looks like there?s a new, tragic and expensive unintended health consequence of the war. And if the Defense Department?s late start in combating traumatic brain injuries is instructive, it?s going to take a lot more than research and the glacial pace of the defense health bureaucracy to deal with neurotoxic sand.
There is no Gulf War Syndrome... the sand in Afghanistan is perfectly edible.... there is nothing wrong with our soldiers, it is all lies.
