High Rate Respiratory Problems Plague Veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq

High Rate Respiratory Problems Plague Veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq
By Alicia Acuna
Published May 31, 2011
FoxNews.com


Army veteran Scott Weakley has lived his life following many of the rules about health.

A former marathon runner, Weakley, 46, avoided smoking and drinking. So in 2005, after returning from serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kuwait the former Army major was baffled why he was not able to do simple things.

"When I got back I could barely run a quarter of a mile," Weakley says. "I could barely go up two or three flights of stairs, I could barely play with my son in the front yard, baseball, maybe 10, 15 minutes."

CT scans showed nothing, so he feared it was all in his mind. "Outwardly, I looked very healthy, so I was like, 'Is this psychological, or am I just making this up?'"

A lung biopsy found Weakley had a rare disease known as constrictive bronchiolitis, a condition he says he did not have before deployment.What's more, Weakley learned he was just one of a growing number of U.S. veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan that had received the same diagnosis --or had asthma or some other respiratory illness.


Read more: High Rate Respiratory Problems