Family still wants to know why soldier died (BIO weapons found in IRAQ?)

An hourlong phone call Monday afternoon with the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office brought little closure to the parents of fallen soldier Spc. Joshua Neusche. Mark and Cynthia Neusche said they spoke with Col. Robert DeFraites, the office's senior preventive-medicine specialist. Throughout the conversation, the couple hoped to learn what exactly killed their oldest boy on July 12.

"We didn't find out as much as we'd like to," Mark Neusche said after the teleconference at Fort Leonard Wood. "We learned a lot of stuff is still pending."

Josh Neusche — a Missouri National Guardsman with the 203rd Engineer Battalion — died in a German hospital after falling into a coma about 12 days earlier. The casualty report his parents received in the mail Monday says the 20-year-old college freshman succumbed to complications due to respiratory failure.

The colonel told the Neusches tissue samples taken from their son's liver, kidneys and lungs were sent for testing to the pathology lab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Mark Neusche said DeFraites advised it would take several weeks to learn of the test results.

Spc. Neusche, of Montreal, Mo., was among 12 soldiers in the Middle East who suffered pneumonia so severe they were placed on respirators, DeFraites said. All but one were treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Neusche and another unnamed soldier died after contracting the illness.

DeFraites told the News-Leader last week that two epidemiology teams had been deployed — one to Landstuhl, the other to undisclosed areas of Iraq — to study the cause of the pneumonia outbreak, which has afflicted dozens of troops since March 1.

"I think it's really positive that they're sending the crews," Mark Neusche said. "I'd like to get results a lot faster than what he told us, but apparently that's not possible. With them being overseas, it takes time."

The Neusches said Josh, a heavy-equipment operator, fell ill on June 30 after returning to his camp in Baghdad. He had just completed a mission that began four days earlier.

Cynthia Neusche said she's learned through firsthand accounts that Josh was complaining of a sore throat and had trouble breathing after returning to Baghdad. She said Josh talked with some friends before going to his tent to write letters — one to his parents, the other to his girlfriend, Layne Clark.

That same night, Josh apparently left his tent and went to the camp's medical tent, where he fell into a coma, DeFraites told the Neusches.

The Neusches were told of their son's condition July 2. And after scrambling to acquire passports — an effort expedited by U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton's office — the couple flew to Landstuhl to be with Josh one day before he died.

"I don't see no reason for pneumonia to drop someone as healthy as Josh was," Mark Neusche said Monday, five days after burying his son.

Doctors in Landstuhl told the Neusches their son's organs had stopped functioning and he'd have to be transferred to a hospital in Hamburg, where he would be placed on dialysis. The soldier was dead by the time he arrived in Hamburg.

DeFraites said pneumonia can be brought on by bacteria and viruses, as well as fungus, parasites and noninfectious causes. Preliminary tests show the condition was not communicable, and investigators have ruled out severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

In an earlier interview, DeFraites said the epidemiologist team will look at the victims' personal histories for smoking and medical ailments.

Cynthia Neusche said DeFraites asked her and her husband about Josh's habits. "He didn't smoke," she said. "He never had a broken bone. He was always healthy."

While they'd like to know more, the Neusches said they're satisfied right now with the government's initiative.

Col. Robert DeFraites, the surgeon general's senior preventative-medicine physician, said officials have not yet been able to identify a specific bacterium or virus that could have caused such severe cases of pneumonia.
"It's not entirely unheard of for this to happen," said DeFraites. He said that in the past five years, 17 soldiers have died of acute respiratory distress syndrome.
However, he said it is uncommon for pneumonia to cause a breakdown in organs other than the lungs.
Neusche's parents said that's what happened to their son. Mark and Cynthia Neusche said they were told their son's kidneys, liver and muscles began to deteriorate after he contracted the illness.
"The doctor said (Josh) got into some type of toxin that began degenerating his muscles," Mark Neusche said Friday.

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Now this is where it goes further than pneumonia.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/97607D5151F33ECC86256D71001BC190?OpenDocument&Headline=Death+of+soldier+from+Missouri+will+be+investigated+amid+spike+in+pneumonia+cases

Hm.

http://www.lakesunleader.com/display/inn_news/news1.txt

7 more cases of mystery illness

Military trying to identify malady that killed lake area soldier

By Marsha Paxson

Lake Sun

LAKE OF THE OZARKS -- Seven more soldiers in Iraq have contracted the same puzzling illness that has killed two soldiers, including one from the lake area.

The latest cases bring the number of affected troops to 19. All have been evacuated to the same Landstuhl, Germany, hospital where Spec. Josh Neusche, 20, of Montreal was treated before he died July 12.

It is believed Neusche contracted the illness, first thought to be pneumonia, while conducting cleanup operations with the 203rd Engineer Battalion in Baghdad.

"The Army Surgeon General confirmed that three or four of the soldier's in Josh's unit are among those who got sick," Sen. Ike Skelton told the Lake Sun Tuesday. "I know Josh was stationed in Baghdad when he got sick but I still do not know what unit the second soldier (who died of the mysterious
illness) was in, what his job was or where he was working when he became ill."

Skelton said he had not yet been told which units the sick soldiers were attached to or where they might have been before they fell ill. U.S. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. James Peake has ordered teams of medical experts and epidemiology specialists to retrace the soldiers' steps from the second they set foot in the Middle East.

"They are investigating everything it could possibly be," Skelton said. "I'm confident that with medical science and the technological advances we've made, we will get some positive answers."

Skelton, who serves as the ranking Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee, contacted top officials with the Department of the Army when he first learned of Neusche's case in late June.

Neusche's family could not afford to make the trip to Germany and was told he was in a coma, dying of a flu-like ailment.

Fellow soldiers chipped in for airfare and Skelton expedited their passports and paperwork to get them to Germany in time.

When Neusche's parents arrived in Germany on July 9, the illness had already begun ravaging his muscles, liver and kidneys. Neusche died in an ambulance on the way to another hospital for dialysis.

Cindi and Mark Neusche said that as they watched their son's health get worse, they noticed other soldiers were beginning to fill nearby hospital rooms.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome, which mimics some of the symptoms exhibited by the ailing soldiers usually targets the lungs and is not known to break down other organs.

Skelton said the surgeon general has completely ruled out severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, also known as SARS, as the cause.

"For some reason doctors have been able to eliminate SARS as a possible explanation for the soldier's deaths and sickness."

A month long study by doctors and scientists is expected to include a review of the soldiers' medical records and testing on blood and tissue samples in Germany. A separate team will conduct soil, water and air tests in Iraq and Kuwait to determine if a common denominator exists between the suspect cases.

Skelton says he's hanging on to hope for definitive answers -- and soon.

"The deaths of our American soldiers is a tragedy to start with," Skelton said. "They were just doing their duty to their country and to die of a unknown cause just makes it worse.

"It's heart-wrenching that two families have already buried their loved ones, not knowing what killed them. Closure is something we cannot give them until we get answers."

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