Beating the Smallest Enemies

Jay Price of McClatchy Newspapers put up an interesting post yesterday afternoon that I happened to catch off of Memeorandum.com, which reminds us that traditionally, it isn't the dramatic wounds of battle that cause most military casualties, but disease and non-combat injuries, and that the supermajority of medical evacuations of military personnel from Iraq are not the result of enemy fire.

Disease, however, too is another native insurgency in which our military seems to have gained the upper hand:


An example of that success is the U.S. fight against leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sandflies that causes festering wounds and can attack the organs.

When the British army came to Iraq in the 1930s, leishmaniasis incapacitated up to 30 percent of the troops, said Lt. Col. Ray Dunton , a trained entomologist who's in Iraq serving as chief of preventive medicine for the 62nd Medical Brigade.

In 2004, hundreds of U.S. soldiers also were infected. Preventive medicine teams went into action, spraying insecticide and urging troops to use insect repellant. Infestations dropped from an average of 140 a month to nearly zero. Only 10 people have been diagnosed with leishmaniasis this year.

Informed of the situation, Harry Reid's staff is scrambling to issue a statement declaring the war against battlefield illnesses "lost."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:30 AM

Comments

1 Yeah that is some nasty stuff. I knew a guy that got leishmaniasis in his elbow. He had black goop coming out of a hole in his arm. It was a pretty gruesome story.

Posted by: Jason at October 31, 2007 10:05 AM (B9+zH)

2 "leishmaniasis"

I'd like to see Bush try and pronouce that!

Posted by: oh yeah son! at October 31, 2007 10:24 AM (MyDKI)

3 Pronounce it? He invented it!

Posted by: Jason at October 31, 2007 10:53 AM (B9+zH)

4 More from Reid:

What right do Americans have to go into another country and change the lives of the local sand-fly population?

Until we are sure that only radical sand-flies armed with biological weapons are being targeted by the insectisides, we should only spray a bug that has shown it is infected and wants to do harm to our soldiers.

Posted by: Gunstar1 at October 31, 2007 03:05 PM (zh8i1)

5 "leishmaniasis"

I'd like to see Bush try and pronouce that!

Posted by: oh yeah son! at October 31, 2007 10:24 AM

Pronounce it? He invented it!

Posted by: Jason at October 31, 2007 10:53 AM

I knew it wouldn't be long before the BDS sufferers invaded this thread.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 31, 2007 06:51 PM (ysloH)

6 Who's a BDS sufferer? I was being sarcastic.

Posted by: Jason at November 01, 2007 08:09 AM (B9+zH)

7 Perhaps I was, too, Jason. The old "I was being sarcastic" response works both ways.

Posted by: C-C-G at November 01, 2007 08:28 AM (ysloH)

8 Nice cover. Instead of admitting that you jumped the gun you'd rather obfuscate. You know nothing about me nor my politics. Take a deep breath.

Posted by: Jason at November 01, 2007 09:13 AM (B9+zH)

9 Sorry, I was just being sarcastic.

Posted by: C-C-G at November 01, 2007 07:18 PM (PGjzz)

10 Yeah, I was too.

Posted by: Jason at November 01, 2007 10:13 PM (yIEot)

11 nice to see Harry's bonding to another parasitical insect

/yes I know it was sarcasm

Posted by: Frank G at November 03, 2007 04:36 PM (Ydps9)






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