[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Has anyone heard any follow up on this?

[Humidston]

Verrry strange....

[auggy]

"I know the doctor over in Germany said he got into some type of toxin," Mark Neusche said. "Several soldiers were in similar conditions while we were there."

It couldn't be WMD's. Saddam doesn't have any.(sarcasm)

Wonder what it could be?

[jocon307]

You know, I had a cousin who was a young woman, she had just gotten married, she must've been about 32 yrs old, and she just got sick, and died. I think they said it was some unusual viral thing, I don't remember. She was only sick for a few days, and before that she had been perfectly healthy.

My poor aunt has had so much hardship in her life, this just seemed too much.

[VOA]

Mystery Illness Kills Missouri Soldier

"Mystery" just means the disease that killed this poor soldier
(and whatever afflicts some of the other deployed) is:

1. Something exotic our military doctors can't recognize
AND/OR
2. A disease course that the doctors haven't gotten a full story on, so it's
a challenge for them to solve
AND/OR
3. A combination of syndromes that makes diagnosis very challenging
AND/OR
4. Represents some sort of diagnostic "perfect storm" combined of 1-3 above,
M.D. ignorance/incompetence, or "the great unknown".

I'm not an M.D., but just say this having lived this long thanks to the help
of very competent (and I might add compassinate and concerned) M.D.s and
having suffered at the hands of a couple M.D.s who I suspect at least
lost their edge a year or two out of med school/residency.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

Yikes...

Seems to me that new diseases are just coming out of the woodwork...

[Petruchio]

Bio weapon?

[rface]

for later read.....

[JRandomFreeper]

I wonder if it was ethylene glycol poisoning. Might be worth asking his team-mates if he drank any native hooch. Of course, it doesn't take much to put some anti-freeze in the unit's gatorade bag, but lots more would be sick.

/john

[Free Vulcan]

bump

[Marianne]

DU?

[FairOpinion]

Ping.

Do you think people on your SARS ping list may be interested?

Sounds puzzling.

[CholeraJoe]

Doctors there told the family they believed Josh suffered from pneumonia due to fluid that had collected on his lungs. But then his liver, kidneys and muscles started to break down, his mother said.

The old infectious disease training is kicking in. There's one infectious disease that is endemic in third world countries that causes this constellation of symptoms. Leptospirosis. Serological tests can take several weeks to confirm.

[putupon]

They are also waiting for autopsy results

I wouldn't trust an autopsy conducted by the military.

My brother-in-law reported to Ft. Bragg for a new assignment. They gave him 17 shots in one day when they processed him in.

He came down w/ myocarditis right after that and survived approx. 2 months.

When he died in a civilian hospital, the Army grabbed the body and shipped it back to Bragg and did their own autopsy so quickly no one had time to think about it.

I don't know if they had found anything that embarassed them, but I suspect they were following SOP just in case.

[MissL]

I am sorry if someone else has posted this BUT ....I have horrible allergies to mold and I live in Missouri. But living here is my choice. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and did not have any allergies...NONE !!! When I lived in Seattle...I had allergies to trees, mold, and just about everything growing !!! It was deadly !!! In the mid-west you have the choice to avoid your problems....I don't go into basements...don't page through books that are full of mold. Here if you have half a brain and allergies you know you have a choice...and if you decide to dig for gold through that mold....there is a price to pay and don't whine !!!!

[Myrddin]

Ricin ingested via food or water is a possible candidate as well.

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Tuesdays update. Doesn't appear anything is new...

July 29, 2003

Family still wants to know why soldier died
Long talk with Army official falls short, Neusches say.


Neusche


By Eric Eckert
News-Leader

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.

That answer never came.

"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."

She did say, however, Josh was allergic to poison ivy. "That was about it."

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

"I don't see any other way to fight it," Mark Neusche said. "Right at the moment, I don't think they know anything."

Added his wife: "I know it all takes time. As long as they keep at it, I'll be satisfied."

[eyespysomething]

Check this out:
http://www.expatica.com/index.asp?HRSite=

Virus spreads through Dutch troops

29 July 2003
AMSTERDAM — Dozens of peacekeeping Dutch soldiers stationed in the south of Iraq have caught a virus and the Defence Ministry is concerned that the number could increase to about a hundred.

There are 700 Dutch soldiers stationed in the war-torn Islamic country as part of the British-led stabilisation force. The troops are patrolling the thinly populated, hot and sandy desert province of al-Muthanna that borders Saudi Arabia.

A spokesman for the Marines said the troops were infected with the virus. He confirmed that military staff had anticipated the soldiers might catch a virus.

"Coalition allies in Iraq have also had to contend with similar health problems," news service Nu.nl quoted him saying on Tuesday.

The vulnerability of soldiers to viruses in the Middle Eastern country is due in part to the extreme heat, the different life style encountered, new foods and a higher concentration of viruses in the air. The virus causes vomiting and diarrhoea.

The Dutch Cabinet decided in June to dispatch 1,100 troops to the SFIR stabilisation force in Iraq to help secure law and order in the region. The heart of the Dutch contingent will be made up of a battalion of 650 marines, supported by a company of the engineering corps, a field hospital, military police and three Chinook transport helicopters and armoured transports.

A military advisor warned the Parliament before it backed the cabinet's decision in June that troops should remain vigilant against renegade Iraqis regrouping in the province after carrying out attacks against Western soldiers.

The troops are expected to remain in Iraq for six months and should any hostilities occur, the sufficiently armed and larger British force has guaranteed to offer the Dutch military support.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/955712/posts

Follow up 7-29.

[sadvet]

Local news (KY3-Springfield) reported the Army is sending a team to investigate in both Germany and Baghdad. 3 soldiers have died and others were infected but recovering. The soldiers all had different jobs but all worked with the ground.