Rhode Island Environmental News

Reconstructing the Environment in Iraq

By Valerie J. Brown
Source: Environmental Health Perspectives

Three wars and a 12-year embargo have cumulatively damaged Iraq's land, air, water, and health infrastructure. Now, as part of efforts to reverse this pattern of damage, the U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded the Stony Brook University Department of Preventive Medicine a one-year grant of $2.06 million to train faculty and build laboratories and libraries in Iraq.

Three Environmental Health Education and Resource Centers are being established at the university medical schools in Baghdad/Al Mustansiriyah, Mosul, and Basra. Stony Brook researchers will help build infrastructure within the regional centers and provide analytical and technical tools and expertise. The centers will develop and conduct environmental health research, train professionals, and implement preventive intervention programs. The program will also help restore Iraq's higher education institutions.

Even before the recent wars, Iraq's environment was not pristine. Program director Wajdy Hailoo, who is division head of occupational and environmental medicine at Stony Brook, is an Iraqi native. He says Iraq underwent a "mini Industrial Revolution" between the 1970s and 1980s, one that included no attention to environmental controls. Burgeoning cement and fertilizer plants, petrochemical factories, and heavy industries released tons of pollutants. Mercury, arsenic, and lead have been detected in water, especially in the central and southern regions, where general and military manufacturing was concentrated, according to Hailoo. Organophosphates were used heavily to protect crops and eradicate vectorborne diseases, especially in the south. Chlorinated compounds such as DDT were constantly sprayed to kill malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.

War damage to Iraq's health status and public health infrastructure began with the eight-year conflict with Iran in the 1980s. Toxicants from chemical weapons used in the 1980s still contaminate soils in some northern areas. The 1991 Gulf War further stressed the country, as did the United Nations embargo. And the latest war in 2003 added to the environmental contamination. As a further consequence of wars and embargo, Iraqi academics became isolated and fell behind their peers elsewhere.

The most immediate effects of war on environmental health stem from air pollution: burning oil wells, factories, and vehicles pour black smoke containing mercury, sulfur, dioxins, and furans into the skies. Hailoo says oil fires have burned in Iraq since the Gulf War; one Iraqi public health worker told him that "at times you walk in the street in the morning, and by the time you go home your white shirt is black from all the particles in the air."

Poor water quality is another serious problem. Sewage treatment plants all around the country are not working as the result of war damage, looting, and loss of fuel supply. A million cubic meters of untreated sewage enter the Tigris River in Baghdad every day, according to the World Health Organization Iraq Humanitarian Assistance Report of 5 April 2004.

Exposure to radioactive materials is also a concern. Residents of Al-Tuwaytha, south of Baghdad, attribute their recent hair loss and skin color changes to exposure to radioactive barrels looted from the town's nuclear plant, according to a 31 March 2004 Terra Wire news report. There is also depleted uranium from U.S. military armaments in Iraq, according to Mike Rabbe, a U.S. Army environmental specialist. Rabbe says garbage dumps in Iraq contain hazardous waste whose disposal is completely unregulated and much of which is burned.

One thing is certain: children's health is of major concern, given that more than 40% of Iraqis are under age 14. According to UNICEF, the infant mortality rate has doubled since 1989, and the mortality rate for children under age 5 is two and a half times its 1989 level. UNICEF also reports that children suffer an average of nearly 15 episodes of diarrhea per year, up from 3.8 in 1990, and typhoid cases have spiked from 2,240 to 27,000 in the same period.

To begin making sense of Iraq's environmental health issues, the centers will focus on establishing a baseline database through sampling, testing, and analysis at various regions, especially those that are known to be highly contaminated. Specialized libraries within the centers will provide access to environmental health books, journals, and databases.

All the centers will be networked with U.S. universities with specialties appropriate to local Iraqi environmental health issues. The Iraqi center directors and senior faculty visited Stony Brook 5-14 May 2004 to discuss how the program will be implemented, and to observe programs and projects at the university. The centers should be operational by February 2005.

The idea, Hailoo says, is to get Iraqi academics out of isolation and bring them up to speed on health issues related to the environment. "Iraqi medicine had been one of the best in that region," he says, "and this program will help move it back in that direction."

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	Did You Know?
	Pathogens are microorganisms that can cause disease They may be bacteria, viruses, or parasites and are found in sewage, in runoff from animal farms or rural areas populated with domestic and/or wild animals, and in water used for swimming. Fish and shellfish contaminated by pathogens, or the contaminated water itself, can cause serious illnesses.