Sarin fall-out in Gulf
doubled cancer rate IAN
BRUCE, Defence Correspondent
A STUDY
for the Pentagon has admitted up to 100,000 soldiers exposed accidentally
to sarin nerve gas in the 1991 Gulf war could be twice as likely to die from
brain cancer as those who were not.
The US Institute of Medicine report found troops in an area contaminated
by sarin when army engineers blew up two large weapons caches at Khamisiya,
in southern Iraq, had double the number of brain tumours than comrades elsewhere.
The nerve gas attacks the central nervous system. Stocks held at the depot
were in missile warheads, which was not known by the soldiers sent to blow them
up.
The plume from the demolition carried traces as far as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
and settled over military camps housing almost 100,000 of the 350,000 American
troops.
The study found the death rate among those exposed was 25 per 100,000 compared
with 12 per 100,000 for those who escaped the fallout.
William Page, the study's director, said: "We found a doubling of risk. It's
a very small risk, but it is distinct . . . and worthy of further research.
It needs to be taken seriously."
The Pentagon had
no immediate comment on the findings. The Pentagon h
