Camp Victory dust stuff
Ex-344MP sends us this link about a study that came out a few months ago, but for some reason, USTODAY just noticed it. I guess Ex-344MP is especially interested in the study because he was at Camp Victory in Iraq;
“We biopsied several patients and found titanium in every single one of them,” said Anthony Szema, an assistant professor at Stony Brook School of Medicine who specializes in pulmonology and allergies. “It matched dust that we have collected from Camp Victory” in Iraq.
The dust is different from dust found elsewhere in that human lungs are unable to dispel it through natural immune-system processes. The Iraq dust comes attached to iron and copper, and it forms polarizable crystals in the lungs, Szema said. The particles — each bit 1/30th the size of a human hair — have sharp edges.
“They’ve inhaled metal,” Szema said. “It’s not a little; it’s a lot.”
The patients that Doc saw were all suffering from “constrictive bronchiolitis” – a narrowing of breathing passages.
Titanium and iron are both associated with pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension in humans, Szema said.
Last month, the Defense Department released its annual relative morbidity report. A USA TODAY analysis of reports dating from 2001 to 2013, as well as Defense Manpower Data, shows that the number of people reporting respiratory and chest symptoms increased from a rate of 406 per 10,000 in 2001 to 744 per 10,000 in 2013.
Category: Veteran Health Care
As word gets out, folks will suspect that what they thought was this or that is neither. The VA ought to be issuing alert notices with symptoms of the poisoning listed and encoraging folks to get tested. Of copurse, they may not be sceduled until 2020 or so but, at least, the VA ought to be alerting people.
But will they actually test us, or will they just put us on a perpetually shuffling waiting list?
My old Doc was the one who broke this to our guys because we all stay in contact still.
He says that he will be releasing more information based on his and other people from our Unit.
I sent Jonn a scan of the letter we got just a few minutes ago, I had to edit out PERSEC info first, lol.
Jonn added: The letter is at the link in this comment.
Did I ever tell you Jonn that your the best?
Thank you again for helping get this info out there to the masses.
Ex-344MP…Question sir. Since it is a metal, can it be seen on a simple x-ray of the lungs? Or is it too small to show up? I am wondering how they diagnose it.
No x-rays will not see it.
They have to do biopsies and look through microscopes to find it.
You need to understand that these particles are smaller than the width of a human hair and are surrounded by the dust that is carrying the pieces.
As I continue to aquire more data, I will submit it. Alternatively, I can also email the info to people who want it. I am currently compiling an email list now.
My old Medic, Chris Shelton, is doing a lot of the research into this. Thankfully, he is disenminating the information for all of us.
Ex-344MP…Thank you for the answer. So it is much like asbestos which has to be found on biopsy. If you were exposed, I pray you will not have any symptoms of this. If you already do, I still pray for the best outcome for you. Thank you for serving there.
Yes I have symptoms, it won’t kill me today or tommorow, but hopefully by getting this info out soonest, we can force the VA to take notice… I never understood the idea of burn pits, I mean really? Who thinks incineration of stuff outside a controlled environment is a good thing.
Don’t pray for me, I’m old (in my 40s), pray for the kids who were there and exposed who have their whole lives ahead of them.
Ex-344MP…With your permission sir, I will keep you ALL in my prayers. Young and old. I hope you get the help you need from the VA about this. I hope they accept this condition as real and it doesn’t have to go through the long reviews for validity like some past things such as Agent Orange.
Thanks Sparks. You people here on this blog reminds me of how fortunate we are as a group.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother”
Best quote ever.
I’ll be doing a little of that praying stuff also. And please don’t tell me 40 is old! Ack!
Ok, yesterday caught a bit of this story on WTOP radio here in Wash DC. Had to google to get the rest of the story.
I was stationed at Camp Victory in 2003-2004. Please add me to any email updates on news and research.
James Hastings
LR1066@yahoo.com
If you don’t mind my asking, do you have other symptoms? I ask because I have a cluster of symptoms that the doctors can’t explain. I think it may be a case of the left hand not communicating with the right hand, so no one is putting it all together. I read the USA Today article yesterday (my daughter sent it to me) with great interest. A few months back I had to have a minor surgical procedure. The anesthesiologist said my bronchial tube was more constricted than normal so he had problems intubating me. I’m wondering now if it could be the same thing those young men have. I was at Taji for OIF II.
One of my symptoms is the shortness of breath and the dull aching pain in my lung area.
The other symptom I think is related is my white cell count which is miles above “normal”, so much so that I have had an Infectious disease team at the VA working on it, but they came up with nothing. My white cell count to this day is through the roof. It’s as if my body is fighting something which wasn’t detectable, I believe that this and my cell count are related, it makes sense.
I have much the same! The docs can’t explain my elevated white cell count. I’m on several meds now for the shortness of breath and have been rushed to the hospital far too many times due to it along with chest pain. Has it effected your heart any? I ask because I had surgery for Atrial Fibrillation back in 08.
Not that I am aware of, again, I am learning this as I go much as you all are.
Going to quote the article here:
“Dozens have been diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis, a narrowing of the lung’s smallest passageways that occurs only after exposure to an environmental toxin or in lung-transplant patients.”
“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease a disease typically associated with smoking that usually strikes in people older than 40”
Sound Similar ArmyATC? I’m no Doc, but it does to me.
Yes, it does. Thanks, Brother. I appreciate the info. It gives me something to take to the docs. Hopefully they’ll listen and take things in a new direction.
Print out that research doc I posted ArmyATC, give the docs that to chew on.
I finally had time to go through and read that research document I posted earlier.
I am going to paste something here from it which is of particular importance and may answer alot of questions people may be having.
“Particulate matter air pollution induces vascular inflammation and is associated with premature death from cardiovascular and lung disease, including myocardial infarction and asthma exacerbations.17,18 In the case of particulate matter air pollution from an Iraq dust sample, we now know that dust size is respirable, with 2.5 μm sized particles present, and that these particles exhibit sharp edges. The physical properties are a concern, akin to asbestos fibers, as the histologic slides show incomplete phagocytosis by pulmonary alveolar macrophages. A plausible theory as to shape is that heavy trucks and tanks may have crushed surface dust to alter its rheology. These are solid particles. We did not see hollow particles discussed by Captain Mark Lyles at the First Scientific Symposium on “Lung Health After Deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Stony Brook University, March 2011(personal communication, Captain Mark Lyles, US Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island). So, these particles cannot transport substances as containers or “nano-carrier vehicles.” Concentrations of trace metals and minerals in the dust are concerning, because some forms of titanium may be profibrotic 19 and are not digestible, and calcium is an airway irritant.”
What I got from this is that it is unavoidable. Like asbestos, if its in the air and you breathe it unfiltered, you have this issue.
I’m not trying to scare anyone, but my guess is that anyone deployed to Iraq has a risk of having these issues. We all experienced dust storms over there, now imagine a dust storm filled with asbestos and you understand what this means.
I’m continuing to gather info. Thank 6 of all for asking questions, it helps me to focus when doing the research. I have the whole TBI thing with memory loss, lol.
I have calcium deposits in my lungs, and something called White Foci? The latter is in my chest and my brain. All Id’d from chest x-rays, CT’s and MRI’s. Army and VA said these are normal for a man my age (51).
I may not be the brightest light in the chandelier but when you flip the switch my bulb still burns!
I was really lucky when I got my VA rating in ’09. I got them to approve chronic bronchitis as service related.
We all got letters stating this when we came home, now that there are people starting to get sick, the VA is still denying correlation/causation. I guess they’ll wait until there are a few thousand cases of cancer or whatnot.
There were alot of troops over there and the more informed we all are, the better.
Maybe if we veterans gather enough information, we can force the issue and hopefully avert another Agent Orange style coverup.
Did they say what the suspected cause was or when it might have occured? I was at Victory from 2004-2005 and nobody has discussed this with me.
It’s in the dust man, microscopic particles that never leave the lung.
Pick something. IED explosions, Weapons fire into the ground, burn pits, old munitions used from Desert Storm that exploded in the area, you get the idea?
I know they didn’t acknowledge it until halfway through our deployment and gave us letters.
At Taji, we were told there was nothing in the soil to worry about. They told us the burn pits were far enough away that they wouldn’t pose a problem. Remember, Taji was one of Hussein’s old rocket and chemical weapons facilities. One the few occasions it would rain, there’d be a green oily film on top of the water puddles. Our eyes, throats and lungs would burn, making it hard to breathe. When I started getting weak and short of breath, the flight surgeon told me not to worry about it, everyone was that way. I know we had a lot of people sick. A few had to be evacuated.
So this will pair nicely with my Gulf War Syndrome from my first trip over to that garden spot. But I’m not worried; the VA is on the job and will take care of it. \sarc/
And now I’m laughing so hard at what I wrote that I can’t breathe….
Was thinking something similar, except that I don’t have it myself. But several good friends did suffer, and die, from the lack of treatment and the assorted misdiagnoses. While some of that is understandable among the first to present with symptoms, that excuse only applies for a short while.
About a year after I got back, I noticed lumps forming all over my torso and arms. Subsequent investigation showed them to be sarcoidosis, probably caused by breathing the dust/chemical combination at the port. It’s in remission but I’ll always have the scars from the lesions; I even have a few in my lungs. Nothing from the VA of course. I took care of this through my employer’s medical insurance. Note that the closest I got to Iraq was Camp Udari (now called Buhring or something like that). I spent my whole tour doing FP/AT in Kuwait.
Is this going to be one of those plausible deniability things, like Agent Orange was for Vietnam vets? Or black lung for coal miners? Or asbestosis for shipyard workers?
I guess if it isn’t in plain sight when it happens, the side effects don’t count unless the numbers really add up.
Have to wonder – since I turned 50 I tend to get bronchitis and deep chest colds more. While I was in Germany the second time, the building I worked in for 2.5 years was getting its old asbestos insulation stripped (of course under the safest possible conditions!)
Ironically, the wife works for a law firm that specializes in (currently) mezothelioma). Wouldn’t THAT be ironic!
Ex-PH2: You nailed it. There’s significant evidence that GWS was caused by exposure to subclinical levels of either biological or chemical (probably chemical) agents. When I was in my undergrad, my buddy was married to a Gulf War vet. She cut hair or something innocuous. The story she told over and over again was when they were put on a detail where they were told to ‘Put on all your chemical gear and load these boxes into this truck, and don’t ask questions’. She has all the classic s/s of GWS, as another friend of mine, an old GP doctor, who was several miles from the same area, with the same symptoms. Yet: The DoD denied it existed for a long time. This might be the same thing. And the coal lungs, and metal exposures is real stuff: One needs only go to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and take a peek at one of their pulmonary hospitals. That wasn’t the feds denying it was real, it was the mining and steel plants co.’s not wanting to pay for their healthcare.
Tl;DR: You bet your ass it’s real. Watch for formal recognition in about 5-10, payment and standardized treatment in about 15.
Gulf War Syndrome could be caused by a combination of such things as:
Nerve Agent Preventative Pills (NAPP) progestimine bromide (or some such chemical name)
spraying down the base camp areas with insecticides
botulism shots (“the FDA hasn’t authorized clinical testing, but they’re 90% sure it’s safe”)
chemicals from the oil fires in Kuwait (I have 2 pages in my medical records listing the chemicals found in an air quality sample)
but hey, move along, nothing to see here. And NOW it turns out that I was inhaling iron, copper and titanium?
combined with 2 years on a ship with active asbestos removal program (all while underway) it’s a f*$#king miracle I can even breathe!
but now that Eric “Black Beret” Shinseki is gone from the VA, I should be able to get top notch care.
Or at least my widow will get a nice check. Maybe
Much too late for me. I’ll most likely be dead by then. I’m sure I won’t be the only one.
Well, that’s not good. I didn’t hear about this either and I was on Victory 05-06.
I don’t feel any issues, but I guess I’ll have to ask the next time I go to the VA.
Shit. I was there twice, plus I was a BT in the US Navy, plus I sandblasted/spraypainted offshore oil production platforms for five years, plus I smoked for ten years, plus I am a PPD converter. My lungs should have crawled out, and drug up years ago. I know I would have.
My first reaction was: Titanium? Was somebody grinding up jet engines over there? Then: Oh, sand + jet turbine = titanium dust (the surface of which oxidizes in less than a second on exposure to air; don’t know if the oxide is transparent to x-rays or not, but it’s different from the metal, I”m sure).
Has anyone compared this to Iraqi civilians?
I would imagine that it will come out over there as well in the civilian population, after all, if our “limited” exposure us enough to have issues, think about living there on a constant basis.
Don’t even get me started about the innocent children living there, I feel really awful for them.
We noticed that everybody around Baghdad middle-aged or more sounded like they had black lung disease.
Who here remembers the Saddam Flu. I think everybody got it in country. First week was awful. But remember that is not really sand that you are breathing in, it is actually thousands of years of Camel Shit. There now don’t you feel better.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/2011-05-11-Iraq-Afghanistan-dust-soldiers-illnesses-elements_n.htm
Thanks CB 🙂 You know how to bring morale down to the lowest level possible. /sarcasm
LoL.
Now we only have one way to go, UP!
It is all about winning hearts and minds.
Lol, your killing me here, but you are absolutely correct.
Any word about other FOBs? I was at KAF and Leatherneck in Afghanistan, and I remember the smoke from the KAF burn pits hanging over the base for hours at night. After I went to KAF I magically developed eczema.
Not that I am aware of. That does not mean there wasnt, only that I am familiar with Rustimiyah and BIAP.
I was at Rusty 05-06. Between the shit plant and the burn pit I definitely lost years off of my life. Are there certain places in Iraq that was worse than others? Rusty was by far the worst place I went as far as air quality goes.
I have to wonder who is actually looking into this? Anecdotal evidence is a good start but there ought to be a push on this. The more letters to those idiots in Congress (especially certain committee chairmen)and whoever the hell is in charge of VA, the better. Lack of official notice or inquiry is a bureaucrat’s and Congressional staffer’s idea of heaven. It allows them to say, “No one told us!”
I’m lucky, My unit got those letters which helps, but as far as official stuff goes, I know of nothing.
I got blindsided with this just like all of the rest of you, but I am working on it. At least I am trying to.
Ok, yesterday caught a bit of this story on WTOP radio here in Wash DC. Had to google to get the rest of the story.
I was stationed at Camp Victory in 2003-2004. Please add me to any email updates on news and research.
James Hastings
LR1066@yahoo.com
I was at Victory from Nov 07 until June 08 and I’m still active duty. What should I be doing or looking for? I have the “oil fumes” statement in my medical record from Desert Sheield/Storm, but that was put in my my unit. I was attached to an Army led MITT in Victory and am wondering where to go for info.
Thanks…
Shortness of breath and a dull aching pain in your lung area as far as I know are the major symptoms.
My understanding of it so far is that the symptoms mimic what long time smokers who have lung issues symptoms.
Lovely…another thing I have to keep track of…just fucking lovely…Camp Victory alumni 2006-2007…
Like everyone else…the alarm screams “OH HELL” here. Shared with one of my unit that was there before.
Camp Victory 2004 alumnus.
Ok, everyone. Time to step back a bit. We don’t have a lot of info, only the study that was published.
My advice to any and all of you who are concerned is to goto our wonderful VA and your primary care physician. Make them aware of this at the very least if you are concerned.
That and keeps tabs on it, as more information comes out, we all have to disseminate it to those who may not be aware. It is a very similar situation to what had to be done with Gulf War syndrome. The VA is currently in the “no correlation” mode because there isn’t a lot of info on it. However, remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. In other words, more complaining about it, the more the VA will have to investigate.
My only time in Iraq on active duty was at Balad AB (which has its own burn pit issues), but my time as a contractor (2009-2011) was spent on two different areas within VBC. I’ll definitely follow up with the VA if anything arises, but I wonder if I’ll have to jump through any hoops or barrels with the Defense Base Act on this.
Ok, doing more research, I have found a copy of the actual report in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. I’ve Posted the link here for you all.
In fact, I just finished printing it, which I would suggest doing as well.
http://journals.lww.com/joem/Fulltext/2014/03000/Iraq_Dust_Is_Respirable,_Sharp,_and_Metal_Laden.2.aspx
I, too, was at Balad (LSA Anaconda), 2004-5, and part of 2008 (Al-Kut for all of 2007 and some of 08). OIF II, my little 81st ICBT Delta Company had the NECP full time, downwind from the burn pit, and across the street from the cement plant.
Every hour, was a black or bloody grey snot rocket from hell. Not to mention the really evil black crap we would dig out of our eyes in the morning. Not to mention the thousands of trucks and cars we searched inside and out (you really can fit a Donkey in the back seat of a Toyota Corolla), breathing God knows what in those.
While we were told numerous times to report our location to the VA for burn pit studies, that info has gone nowhere. Nobody has contacted me…or anyone in the company, as far as I know…and nobody at the VA cares when I tell them where I served.
Make them annotate it your records Staff Sargent. That’s what I had to do, that way if anything comes up you have already CYA.
You can also have the records section of the VA give you a copy of your VA file to double check that they did indeed note it.
Hope this helps.
I’ll be looking forward to filing this claim with the VA in a few years. I’m assuming that they will be looking for something that proves that everyone was actually at Victory.
My wife will be VERY HAPPY to learn of ANOTHER Illness/Ailment, I brought back from my 18mo VACATION.
Looks like I am going to have to sell our Time share in SADR City!!!
I thought I was being rewarded by getting to hang out at a Burn Pit.
Thanks for the info.
OIF 05-06
This link is just some basic information about lung diseases caused by different types of dust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis