Abnormal biopsies showing up in Iraq-Afghan veterans with unexplained breathing problems

Breathing Problems Strike Soldiers Returning From Iraq
Exposure to some unknown toxin in the air could be the cause, experts say
Posted: July 20, 2011

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

All the biopsies were abnormal, and the researchers diagnosed 38 soldiers with constrictive bronchiolitis. Constrictive bronchiolitis is a rare non-reversible lung disease in which the small airways in the lungs are compressed and narrowed by scar tissue or inflammation.

WEDNESDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Some U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering unexplained breathing problems that may be related to exposure to unknown toxins, a new study indicates.

"Respiratory disorders are emerging as a major consequence of service in southwest Asia," said study author Dr. Matthew S. King, an assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.

"In addition to our study, there have been studies showing increases in asthma, obstructive lung disease, allergic rhinitis and a general increase in reports of respiratory symptoms," he added.

The report was published in the July 21 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Breathing Problems Strike Soldiers Returning From Iraq

Service members who are reporting respiratory problems

Debate Swirls Around Research Showing Lung Problems for Returned Troops
By JAMES DAO
Published: June 19, 2011


As a teenager in northern New York, Gary Durham ran cross-country and hiked the Adirondack’s high peaks. In Army basic training, he did two-mile runs in under 13 minutes. But after a yearlong deployment to Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division in 2003, he says he started gasping for air while just mowing the lawn.

An emerging body of research indicates that Mr. Durham is one of a significant number of American service members who are reporting respiratory problems like coughing, wheezing or chest pains that started during deployment and continued after they returned home.

In 2009, a major survey of military personnel, the Millennium Cohort Study, found that 14 percent of troops who had deployed reported new breathing problems, compared with 10 percent among those who had not deployed.

Though the percentage difference seems small, when extrapolated for the two million troops who have deployed since 2001, the survey suggested that at least 80,000 additional service members had developed post-deployment breathing problems.

But now, a fierce debate is under way over just how long-lasting and severe those problems really are.

On one side are scientists, many working for the government, who say that a large number of returning troops have serious and potentially lifelong ailments. They point to an array of respiratory hazards in Iraq and Afghanistan — including powerful dust storms, fine dust laced with toxins and “burn pits” used to incinerate garbage at military bases — as potential culprits.
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Debate Swirls Around Research Showing Lung Problems

Lung disease of soldier linked to burn pits

Lung disease of soldier linked to burn pits

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 30, 2009 17:09:31 EDT

Even as military health officials continue to say there are “no known long-term health effects” caused by open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, a team of Army doctors says a soldier’s cystic lung disease is “related to the burn pits in Iraq.”

A second set of doctors, trying to determine why 56 soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division came back from Iraq short of breath, found each had bronchiolitis that could be diagnosed only with a biopsy.

That disease normally comes with organ transplantation, infection, rheumatoid arthritis or toxic fume inhalation. Because there was no scarring on the soldiers’ lungs, doctors decided it must have been toxic inhalation and added a fifth cause of bronchiolitis to their list: “Iraq.”

Since Military Times began reporting in October about burn pits in the war zones, 400 troops have contacted Disabled American Veterans to say they have breathing problems or cancers they believe came after exposure to the burn pits.

Many say they have been diagnosed with “asthma-like” or “allergy-like” symptoms when they’ve complained of shortness of breath, but their doctors can’t come up with an exact diagnosis.
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Lung disease of soldier linked to burn pits