By Joe Byrne
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Doctors and officials in Fallujah are appealing to the international community for an investigation into the unnatural increase in birth defects, 5 years after two major battles between the U.S. military and Sunni militia groups took place there.
The war-ravaged population center has seen an increase of up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants since pre-war levels, according to a report by the UK’s Guardian. Documented statistics for birth defects in Fallujah have only emerged in recent months, but the rate of abormalities, including early-life cancers, is high enough to cause alarm at Fallujah’s General Hospital.
“We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies,” the hospital’s director, Dr Ayman Qais, told the Guardian. “Before 2003 I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically.”
“Most are in the head and spinal cord, but there are also many deficiencies in lower limbs,” he said. “There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of less than two years with brain tumors. This is now a focus area of multiple tumors.”
Fallujah was the site of the only two ‘set-piece’ battles to take place after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. Fighter jets bombed the city and heavy artillery was used in conjunction with the controversial incendiary white phosphorus.
Read more at Rawstory
What makes anyone believe that the Fallujah birth defects are related to fighting in that city five years ago?