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US MEDIA COVER-UP - IRAQ PNEUMONIA OUTBREAK
Sun Aug 3 13:35:22 2003
64.140.158.71

US investigates pneumonia in troops - CNN International
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/08/02/sprj.irq.troops.pneumonia.reut/

Saturday, August 2, 2003 Posted: 2358 GMT ( 7:58 AM HKT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among U.S. troops, with two dead and more than 100 sickened, officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. James Peake, the Army's surgeon general, has sent two doctors and four other experts to Iraq and two more doctors to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq, officials said.

"It is pneumonia. The question is what is the cause," said Lyn Kukral, spokeswoman for Peake and the Army Medical Command.

"The epidemiological teams will look and follow the facts wherever they lead," Kukral added. "You've got a healthy population and a young population (U.S. troops), and you have two soldiers who have died, and that's a concern."

Kukral said there have been more than 100 cases among U.S. troops in the Iraq region since the beginning of March, including 15 serious enough to warrant medical evacuation to get the patients ventilators to assist their breathing.

Of these 15, two Army soldiers died, 10 troops recovered and three remain hospitalized, Kukral said. Most of these 15 cases have involved Army soldiers, but at least one U.S. Marine was sickened, she added.
Seeking common thread

The teams being sent to Iraq and Germany are hunting for a possible common thread. The troops who have come down with pneumonia were geographically dispersed and came from different military units, officials said. The cases also occurred periodically over five months rather than all at once.

Kukral said no infectious agent such as a bacterium or virus has been discovered to be common to all the cases.

"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved," she said, adding that experts also have ruled out Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, as a possibility.

The six-person team heading to Iraq will include two physicians -- an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist -- as well as two microbiologists, a laboratory technician and a preventive medicine technician, Kukral said.

The Germany team is made up of an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist.

The teams will review medical records and question patients and medical workers. The Iraq team also will sample soil, water and air to gauge whether these factors might be playing a role, Kukral said.

Pneumonia is a sometimes fatal infection or inflammation of the lungs in which air sacs fill with pus and other liquid, interfering with oxygen reaching the blood stream. There are more than 30 known causes of pneumonia.

Kukral said the actual number of cases is not unexpected given the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and the region, adding that it may turn out that the cases are unrelated to one another. She said a desert environment can exacerbate respiratory problems.

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Iraq pneumonia deaths investigated
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3118537.stm

The US army has sent a team of experts to Iraq to investigate a pneumonia outbreak among its troops, which has so far left two dead.

"You've got a healthy population and a young population (US troops) and you have two soldiers who have died, and that's a concern," said army spokeswoman Lyn Kukral.

She said there have been more than 100 cases among US troops in the Iraq region since the beginning of March, including 15 serious enough to warrant medical evacuation to get the patients ventilators to assist their breathing.

We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved
Lyn Kukral, army spokeswoman

Of these 15, two soldiers died, 10 troops recovered and three remain hospitalised.

Experts are also being sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq.

They will be hunting for a possible common thread.

The troops who have come down with pneumonia were geographically dispersed and came from different military units, officials said.

The cases also occurred periodically over five months, rather than all at once.

Soil samples

Ms Kukral said no infectious agent such as a bacterium or virus has been discovered to be common to all the cases.

"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved."

The Iraq team will sample soil, water and air to gauge whether these factors might be playing a role.

Pneumonia is a sometimes fatal infection or inflammation of the lungs in which air sacs fill with pus and other liquid, interfering with oxygen reaching the blood stream.

A desert environment can exacerbate respiratory problems.
============================================================

"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved"
Lyn Kukral, army spokeswoman

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Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Area Guardsman dies en route from Iraq to Germany
http://www.newstribune.com/stories/071503/loc_0715030907.asp

By CHRISTINA STUEVE
News Tribune

A 20-year-old National Guardsman from Mid-Missouri died Saturday of a pneumonia-like illness caught while he was stationed in Iraq.

Joe Neusche, 20, Montreal, was en route to a hospital in Germany when he died Saturday.

He had been stationed with the 203rd Engineer Battalion of the Missouri National Guard in Iraq.

"He volunteered to go overseas to help rebuild Baghdad," Missouri National Guard spokeswoman Spc. Katherine Collins said. Neusche had volunteered for service right before his unit was activated. He was originally stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood.

Before that he was a freshman mathematics major at Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield.

He graduated from Camdenton High School in 2002.

Neusche died from symptoms similar to pneumonia as the ambulance took him to a hospital in Hamburg, Germany, Collins said.

The details are sketchy at best, said Neusche's aunt, Candace Walden.

"They told us that on June 30 that he became sick, and it was very quick," Walden said. Neusche became ill in at a combat hospital in Baghdad. He arrived sick with respiratory failure in Germany on July 5.

"When they first called, they said it was respiratory failure, then pneumonia, then pneumonia and toxins. They were trying to determine what the toxins were and were trying to stabilize him and ship him to the hospital," Walden said.

When his kidneys failed, they took him to Hamburg when he died in the ambulance.

Neusche was involved in cross country in high school. He was in the spirit band and went to Army basic training between his junior and senior year of high school.

"He was a very good kid. Everybody loved him," Walden added.

First National Bank in Camdenton is taking donations for Neusche. The address is P.O. Box 138, Camdenton, Mo. 65020.
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• US baffled as troops in Iraq hit by killer virus — Will Dunham, Sun Aug 3 13:44