Epidemiology Survey and Uranium in hair. Studies of population in Fallujah, Iraq

||.||.|| · 12-19-2011, 10:02 PM

SMP reader,

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009 an epidemiological statistical survey.

Quote:

Abstract: There have been anecdotal reports of increases in birth defects and cancer in Fallujah, Iraq blamed on the use of novel weapons (possibly including depleted uranium) in heavy fighting which occurred in that town between US led forces and local elements in 2004. In Jan/Feb 2010 the authors organised a team of researchers who visited 711 houses in Fallujah, Iraq and obtained responses to a questionnaire in Arabic on cancer, birth defects and infant mortality. The total population in the resulting sample was 4,843 persons with and overall response rate was better than 60%. Relative Risks for cancer were age-standardised and compared to rates in the Middle East Cancer Registry (MECC, Garbiah Egypt) for 1999 and rates in Jordan 1996–2001. Between Jan 2005 and the survey end date there were 62 cases of cancer malignancy reported (RR = 4.22; CI: 2.8, 6.6; p < 0.00000001) including 16 cases of childhood cancer 0-14 (RR = 12.6; CI: 4.9, 32; p < 0.00000001). Highest risks were found in all-leukaemia in the age groups 0-34 (20 cases RR = 38.5; CI: 19.2, 77; p < 0.00000001), all lymphoma 0–34 (8 cases, RR = 9.24;CI: 4.12, 20.8; p < 0.00000001), female breast cancer 0–44 (12 cases RR = 9.7;CI: 3.6, 25.6; p < 0.00000001) and brain tumours all ages (4 cases, RR = 7.4;CI: 2.4, 23.1; P < 0.004). Infant mortality was based on the mean birth rate over the 4 year period 2006–2009 with 1/6th added for cases reported in January and February 2010. There were 34 deaths in the age group 0–1 in this period giving a rate of 80 deaths per 1,000 births. This may be compared with a rate of 19.8 in Egypt (RR = 4.2 p < 0.00001) 17 in Jordan in 2008 and 9.7 in Kuwait in 2008. The mean birth sex-ratio in the recent 5-year cohort was anomalous. Normally the sex ratio in human populations is a constant with 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls. This is disturbed if there is a genetic damage stress. The ratio of boys to 1,000 girls in the 0–4, 5–9, 10–14 and 15–19 age cohorts in the Fallujah sample were 860, 1,182, 1,108 and 1,010 respectively suggesting genetic damage to the 0–4 group (p < 0.01). Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively.

How relatively small is the sample size of this survey?
What is the probability of 'the anomalous recent 5-year mean birth sex-ratio' happening by chance given this sample size?
I wondered how probable 'the anomalous recent 5-year mean birth sex-ratio' would be in other populations.

I found the following direct criticism on the study: Chris Busby and the Fallujah sex ratio – Part 1 (dishonesty) and Chris Busby and the Fallujah sex ratio – Part 2 (incompetence)

Mattias Lantz, member of the independent network Nuclear Power Yes Please, links to Busby’s presentation about his study in Stockholm in August 2010 available on Youtube and points out that it is discovered "After some confusion it turned out to be that the sex ratio was not derived from the number of born children, but from the number of children available at the time of the survey."

Lantz criticizes:

Quote:

Busby in writing is very careful with stating too clearly that there is a clear connection between the deviating sex ratio and some sort of uranium based weapons. In talks and interviews however, he clearly gives a different message. And he consistently ignores all other possible explanations, just as if they wouldn’t even exist.

In Part 2 Lantz offers data of the sex ratio for Sweden and different cities and presents several conclusions:

Quote:

All these cities have drastic variations in the sex ratio, even for the 5-year averages, and reach values lower than 860 boys to 1000 girls.
For several of the cities the 5-year averages varies dramatically, similar to in Fallujah.
The cities are distributed in different parts of Sweden with different geographical/environmental conditions.
The periods of low sex ratio for the 8 cities occur at different times, no common cause can be seen.
None of the 8 cities have suffered from war during the last 200 years, and during the last 40 years Sweden has been among the top ranked countries in the world when it comes to health status of the population.
The variations are as large, or larger, than in Fallujah, based on much more reliable data, and equal or better statistics.
Chris Busby should give up all attempts of epidemiology. This is not the first time he fails in this discipline, he just can’t do it right.
We do not learn anything about the causes of the health effects in Fallujah by listening to self-proclaimed experts like Chris Busby.

Conflict and Health published Uranium and other contaminants in hair from the parents of children with congenital anomalies in Fallujah, Iraq by Samira Alaani, Muhammed Tafash, Christopher Busby, Malak Hamdan and Eleonore Blaurock-Busch.

Quote:

Abstract
Background
Recent reports have drawn attention to increases in congenital birth anomalies and cancer in Fallujah Iraq blamed on teratogenic, genetic and genomic stress thought to result from depleted Uranium contamination following the battles in the town in 2004. Contamination of the parents of the children and of the environment by Uranium and other elements was investigated using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. Hair samples from 25 fathers and mothers of children diagnosed with congenital anomalies were analysed for Uranium and 51 other elements. Mean ages of the parents was: fathers 29.6 (SD 6.2); mothers: 27.3 (SD 6.8). For a sub-group of 6 women, long locks of hair were analysed for Uranium along the length of the hair to obtain information about historic exposures. Samples of soil and water were also analysed and Uranium isotope ratios determined.

Results
Levels of Ca, Mg, Co, Fe, Mn, V, Zn, Sr, Al, Ba, Bi, Ga, Pb, Hg, Pd and U (for mothers only) were significantly higher than published mean levels in an uncontaminated population in Sweden. In high excess were Ca, Mg, Sr, Al, Bi and Hg. Of these only Hg can be considered as a possible cause of congenital anomaly. Mean levels for Uranium were 0.16 ppm (SD: 0.11) range 0.02 to 0.4, higher in mothers (0.18 ppm SD 0.09) than fathers (0.11 ppm; SD 0.13). The highly unusual non-normal Fallujah distribution mean was significantly higher than literature results for a control population Southern Israel (0.062 ppm) and a non-parametric test (Mann Whitney-Wilcoxon) gave p = 0.016 for this comparison of the distribution. Mean levels in Fallujah were also much higher than the mean of measurements reported from Japan, Brazil, Sweden and Slovenia (0.04 ppm SD 0.02). Soil samples show low concentrations with a mean of 0.76 ppm (SD 0.42) and range 0.1-1.5 ppm; (N = 18). However it may be consistent with levels in drinking water (2.28 μgL-1) which had similar levels to water from wells (2.72 μgL-1) and the river Euphrates (2.24 μgL-1). In a separate study of a sub group of mothers with long hair to investigate historic Uranium excretion the results suggested that levels were much higher in the past. Uranium traces detected in the soil samples and the hair showed slightly enriched isotopic signatures for hair U238/U235 = (135.16 SD 1.45) compared with the natural ratio of 137.88. Soil sample Uranium isotope ratios were determined after extraction and concentration of the Uranium by ion exchange. Results showed statistically significant presence of enriched Uranium with a mean of 129 with SD5.9 (for this determination, the natural Uranium 95% CI was 132.1 < Ratio < 144.1).

Conclusions
Whilst caution must be exercised about ruling out other possibilities, because none of the elements found in excess are reported to cause congenital diseases and cancer except Uranium, these findings suggest the enriched Uranium exposure is either a primary cause or related to the cause of the congenital anomaly and cancer increases. Questions are thus raised about the characteristics and composition of weapons now being deployed in modern battlefields.

I have not read the Uranium study. I skimmed through the 15 pages and I concluded the material is above my head for me to be able to fully understand it let alone analytically judge the study.

I am wondering if the methods in the study are scientifically sound. Is the study reliable? To what degree do the results support the conclusions?

Christopher Busby's wikipedia article contains criticisms about his research, controversial conspiracy theory and actions regarding Japan's radioactive contamination, and political ambitions with regard to his published papers.

How much should this criticism weigh on the mind of a layperson reading Busby's Uranium study?

Zeno has asked me to stress that this is a science topic and not political; and I trust smpers will keep it as that.

Thank you

VeeDDzz` · 12-20-2011, 12:21 AM

I'm sure that you can easily get the 'layperson' answers to these questions by contacting the reviewers at the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, who were responsible for reviewing this paper.

In addition, you can look for the Journal's Impact Factor, and if it's below 1, then you're justified in reconsidering the conclusions presented, but otherwise if it's a journal with a high impact factor or high ISI or ERA rankings, then you can safely assume that the reviewers have done a thorough job.

ebarnet · 12-22-2011, 02:07 PM

Seems like they got the results they were looking for without looking for other causes of the same results.

I think that publishing the study is premature, because they used Sweden as a control against Fallujah WRT infant mortality and the other findings. The data would certainly lead to interesting studies in the future, and it's good that they were thinking ahead. Also, it just seems likely that if bullets are made out of depleted uranium and they shoot lots of bullets, there will be uranium contamination. IDK if depleted uranium is something the gov't denies or admits using, but this report doesn't clarify either.

IMO it could be just as easy to contribute negative health affects on the fact they were living in a war zone. Seems that would indirectly affect the health of the people living there; I'm thinking bad diet, high stress. That's probably not a provable hypothesis in a double-blind study sort of way, but then again, this research was not going to find anything conclusive from the outset. There's no background data to compare against, and comparing to Sweden is bad science imo.

AKSpartan · 12-22-2011, 04:03 PM

Bad diet and high stress don't mutate your DNA.

Well I guess the bad diet part could, but not really.

Rhotel1 · 06-09-2012, 12:23 AM

Sorry to see that Ebarnet has been banned; his comments are quite accurate. For the record, Busby has a long love affair with blaming birth defects and childhood cancers on DU and he is very good at wooing cameras and reporters who do not bother to do any real research. Depleted Uranium never was used in Fallujah. There were no tank battles in or near there in 2003 and there were no enemy (Sunni insurgent, Al Quaeda, Foreign Fighters) tanks to battle in 2004. I have done a lot of research into Busby and especially into the Fallujah claims that he first got made in the same journal by Brussels Tribunal member Paola Manduca and her colleague Mozghan Savabiesafahani. They laid out all these birth defects and hypothesized that the only possible cause was depleted uranium. I sincerely doubt that they did this without a little nudge from Busby who already has his uranium in hair study waiting in the wings. If anyone wants to discuss this further, please, write to me DUstory dash owner at yahoo groups dot com.

masque de Z · 06-09-2012, 03:23 AM

Zeno has asked me to stress that this is a science topic and not political; and I trust smpers will keep it as that.

Thank you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

FoldnDark · 06-10-2012, 03:23 AM

I do soil and groundwater sampling for the EPA in areas where lead mining was/is prevalent and assist with clean up at residential properties. One thing I've noticed about children who have elevated blood lead is that hygiene is key. We've cleaned up residential properties built literally on top of old lead smelter sites where surface soil levels exceed 50,000 ppm (for reference, lead paint is typically 15 - 20K ppm, and can be fatal to a child if ingested). At these properties some kids have lead poisoning and others don't. Not surprisingly, some homes are kept cleaner than others, and some moms make sure their kids wash their hands before they eat.

The point I'm getting at is comparing metals found in hair between people living in Sweden and Iraq has as much to do with hygiene and living conditions as soil contamination levels. Also, there are likely fewer people drinking well water in Sweden than Iraq, and the dust levels are higher in the desert which would lead to more inhalation risk. Given that, if depleted uranium causes cancer and birth defects, I imagine Iraq may be the one of the worst places to spread it.