Posted on 08/08/2003 3:02:51 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
THE Pentagon admitted yesterday that it could not explain a deadly spate of pneumonia among US troops serving in the Middle East.
About 100 US soldiers, mostly in Iraq, have contracted the illness. Two had died and another 15 became seriously ill, requiring the support of a ventilator.
The US Army dispatched two investigative medical teams last week to Iraq and Germany -- where many of the infected troops have been treated -- but tried yesterday to talk down the possibility of biological weapons or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome being involved.
``Based on all the information we have to date, there's been no positive findings of any anthrax or smallpox or any other biological weapon,'' said the Surgeon-General's spokesman, Colonel Robert DeFraites.
Colonel DeFraites also said there was no evidence of the infections being part of a local epidemic, since the pneumonia had affected soldiers deployed in various parts of Iraq and belonging to different units.
He said that while the incidence of pneumonia was about usual for the size of the population, the seriousness of the cases, and the two deaths, had prompted concern.
Over the past five years, 17 soldiers in the US Army had died of pneumonia, or an average of about three a year -- ``so two occurring in one area of the world in about a month was enough to cause us concern'', he said.
A common form of pneumonia caused by streptococcal bacterial infection had been ``positively identified'' as the source of the disease in at least two cases, Colonel DeFraites said, but not in the deaths.
Conscious of the potential for public criticism after the as-yet unexplained Gulf War Syndrome that afflicted thousands of veterans of the 1991 conflict, Colonel DeFraites said the teams were comparing the current outbreak with incidences of pneumonia during that conflict.
The parents of one of the victims, Josh Neusche, 20, say they believe he came into contact with a toxic chemical agent during a clean-up at one of ousted president Saddam Hussein's palaces last month.
They told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper that their son, who collapsed within an hour of writing them a letter describing the work he had been doing, was a ``strong boy (who) knew how to look after himself''.
Mark Neusche, the dead man's father, told the newspaper: ``This could not have been a natural thing. We have been told that his lungs and kidneys collapsed, and he had toxins eating at his muscle structure.''
In another blow to US rebuilding efforts in Iraq, an American civilian contractor was killed yesterday when his car hit an anti-tank mine on a road north of Baghdad.
It was believed to be the first death of a US civilian in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat there on May 1.
The blast came as the US warned that the cost of restoring Iraq's oil and gas industry would increase from the latest estimate of around $US1.14billion ($1.78 billion) amid sabotage and looting.
7 more cases of mystery illness Military trying to identify malady that killed lake area soldier
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