Not even dinner is safe in Iraq. Reports seem to agree on is that there was a mass food poisoning of Iraqi policemen on Sunday, although whether 11 died and hundreds fell ill or 7 died and hundreds fell ill or no one died but over a thousand became ill is still unclear.
Authorities are saying it could have been from "spoiled food," but this is highly unlikely. The victims reportedly became ill immediately upon finishing their meals:
Some collapsed as soon as they stood up from the meal, others fell "one after the other" as they headed out to the yard in the base to line up in formation, Mr al-Atwan said.Iraqi ambulances and helicopters sent by the US military rushed victims to hospitals in Numaniyah and nearby Kut.
"Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned after taking food and water," Wasit governor Hamad al-Latif said.
"Investigations are under way to determine the cause." (Herald Sun [Australia])
This scenario is almost certainly chemical poisoning, either accidental or deliberate. The only "natural" foodborne outbreaks that happen this fast I can think of are scombroid, from fish like mackeral or tuna. It would be relatively easy to diagnose in a setting like this. Accidental poisonings can happen when toxic materials, like cleaners, get put in unlabeled jugs which then get mixed in with food supplies like frying oils. One of the things a food inspector looks for is whether the poisonous materials common in kitchens are well separated from the food stuffs.
And of course intentional poisoning must also be considered:
An Australian contractor working in the region said food poisoning was a long-held fear because price constraints meant food and water needed to be bought locally.
"The reality is that these local contracts require you to purchase mostly all your food and water locally. You could buy from Dubai, but you would never be competitive," the contractor told the Herald Sun.
"There was always a chance that this would happen. I am not surprised at all, if indeed it was intentional food poisoning."
The poisoning took place near Numaniyah, in Wasit province, at an Iraqi base in southern Iraq on Sunday.
But if this is intentional, it would be the first time rebels fighting the national government have used poison. The policemen were in Numaniyah, 60 miles from Baghdad, for retraining. They are from the 4th Division of the National Police, whose command is largely Shiite. But they normally operate in an area near Baghdad that is the scene of intense Shiite-Sunni fighting (San Francisco Chronicle).
The other thing we know is that Iraqi authorities have already nabbed a scapegoat, the commander of the mess where the policemen were eating a meal breaking the Ramadan fast (Reuters). Several others have been detained.
With the use of US sanctioned advanced interrogation techniques we should have confessions shortly and the epidemiological puzzle will be solved.
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I think what the President said was "alternative" interrogation techniques (not advanced). In any event your point is taken and the victim will no doubt name every neighbor and and grocery store clerk he every met as co-conspirators.
Yeah well, this used to happen in my college cafeteria all the time . . . Usually it was the sewer trout that got us, but the SOS wasn't safe either.
I heard on the Rachel Maddow show that many of the victims started bleeding from their ears after eating the tainted food. What kind of poisoning could cause that?
Lindsay: This is also reported in the press reports. I didn't mention it because the reports are so fragmentary and contradictory. Today some say that they took ill while exercising after the meal, so even the rapid temporal sequence now is a bit unclear. Still, bleeding suggests rat poison, which could be either accidental (it is found in many food service establishments and in unlabeled bottles is a common cause of accidental poisoning) or intentional (ready to hand). Many rat poisons are anticoagulants. At this point, I think we'll have to wait for the Iraqi investigational tests (aka, torture) to get the absolutely true, uncontestable information in the words of the perpetrator.
Warfarin Lindsay. Rat poison by any other name. It would take a lot to kill a human but it will flat screw you up...Coumadin by any other name as well. Anti clot medicine. So was it the Rats be Gone or someone that hit it with a load of grannies anti clot medicine? Dont know. Had to expect it though.
Carl-Depending on who got him under arrest he will have access to the military courts or Iraqi law. The penalty under Iraqi law now for such an act is death. It is also a death penalty crime under the Geneva Convention. There isnt any torture allowed with the system that was in place or that is now. You get caught and you get prosecuted then and now. And I aint talking about Abu Gharib either. Stacking Muslims up for a Lyndie England to take a picture with is like the local whore posing with the guys from a deer camp. You want torture I suggest you visit Nicaragua. Those guys are professionals.
I'm not sure that anti-coagulants could work quite that fast.
Tom: LOL. Pretty good point.
Randolph - I understand your theoretical point with respect to Iraqi jurisdiction. My words were intended more as a comment on the kangaroo courts we are in the process of setting up with respect to the unlawful combatant types. As described in the press they are not remotely close to Anglo-American standards for jurisprudence. That is what happens when you try to treat POW's as if they were a law enforcement problem. They will, no doubt, find nearly everyone guilty (maybe cut a couple loose to create the pretense of a real court). I don't know of anyone outside the administration (or former republican officeholders) who even attempt to argue their legitimacy. Respecting torture I think I would place the Syrians ahead of the Nicaraguans, they have been at it for a long time.
Yep, trying to use law techniques in a battlefield scenario is like well, you know. We also are trying to apply the Geneva Convention to people who cant even spell it. We seem to keep trying to fetter ourselves and others, and above all to always say that the US is doing wrong no matter what.
Its all about what you are willing to do to preserve your way of living. People who know me well would tell you that there isnt much I wouldnt do. Sleep deprivation, having them stand in uncomfortable positions? Yeah thats torture, uh-huh.
The problem with war are the innocents. They keep their little nasty thoughts in their heads and do nothing-Non Combatant status. Then someone comes in and drops poison into the soup bowl. You know he came from a hot pocket of resistance, you know you can bomb them out of existence in about an hour but we are worried about those innocents.
Never have liked fence sitters. Revere aint one of them boys and girls. He would be against automatically the bombing of the innocents to get at the bad actors. I would call it acceptable losses. Difference of opinion but I would say at least half of them are not so innocent. So what do we do? We remain politically correct as always. Status quo. Same thing that got us into Iraq 1 and 2, WTC's down on the ground. No accountability in the world on either side of the fence. Ultimately and in my lifetime I think we will see the second and many thereafter uses of nuclear weapons. The food in Iraq may be dangerous, perhaps we should feed it to the populace as its getting more and more dangerous not to take them on.
Randy: You might call it "politically correct." I just call it "correct." Some things you do because they are the right things to do, period.
There are some other fast acting toxins that can be foodborne, either accidentally or intentionally. Staph toxin is both quick and heat stable, although no bleeding from the ears, if indeed, that happened. (What happened to all of Saddam's SEB?)
Likewise for Bacillus cereus toxin, although it doesn't like heat. Heavy metals (acidic foods stored in metal containers) and mushroom toxins are also fast. Without good symptomology and timelines, it is impossible to do more than speculate, but scombroid isn't the only possibility for a quick turnaround. I agree with Tom that the timeframe isn't good for an anti-coagulant. However, something like a sodium fluoride rodenticide would do the job quite nicely. Nitrite poisoning from using sodium nitrate to prevent meat or veggies from spoiling when held without adequate refrigeration is also a possibility, and finally, diahhretic shellfish poisoning caused by harvesting shellfish infected by dinoflagellates from a "red tide" might do the trick. With the fast acting things, upper GI symptoms usually predominate. With things that work slower, it is lower GI and neurological symptoms.
If we aren't morally superior to our adversaries, then might really does make right, and we should nuke them this afternoon. If it kills a few innocents, that's just acceptable losses. OTOH, one of the things that made Saddam such a Bad Man was the fact that he gassed the Kurds, because might made right, and he could.We're supposed to be better than that.
MoM: Staph usually takes at least an hour and a half and 3 to 6 is more like it. So this doesn't sound like a microbial based intoxicant. It really sounds chemical in its swiftness. I would guess accidental, except for all the rest of the stuff going on there. Still, poison would be a first, even for these folks.
My bet would be organophosphates...insecticides...cheap, avaliable and very lethal.
Tom, Where were you on the night of.......
/:0)
It's my understanding that these accounts have become somewhat blown out of proportion ref the ear bleeding. There was an individual who was bleeding from his ear(s?) when he was treated for the food poisoning but it was probably due to an ear infection. Someone in the media probably took that and ran with it. Must have been a whopper ear infection but I suppose outside the U.S. people don't necessarily run to the doctor for every ache & pain. Cheers.
Well, you know about those chemical weapons that didnt exist. One of them was Super Warfarin. Onset of symptoms is fairly quick and obviously bleeding is one of them. There isnt enough clinical information to do a match up but its something to be considered.
I harp all the time about the missing VX gas that Saddam had. I wonder if this might have been a chemical attack. Both the Iraqi's and the US are being mighty quiet about this one.
If the bleeding from the ears thing is unconfirmed then the whole incident may have been mass hysteria. That would explain the sudden onset of symptoms and the lack of any evident cause. Until more data is in there's no way to tell, of course.
If it was insecticides, they would have to be delivered in a drink either juice or pop because I believe they have a bitter taste...the residues would be in the glasses or pitchers.
There are antidotes to this type of poisoning so the hospital should have picked it up.
I'll by that mass hysteria thing if there are no other cases of bleeding. It has a distinct chemical footprint and is on the CDC's pages for nasty shit. I remembered something about this stuff and then started searching. It acts quite fast but the problem with the Ruskies using it was that it didnt have a very good shelf life. Probably sold it to Saddam as part of a fire sale, if thats the stuff.
Im American and I am ashamed of how we behave..... torture is WRONG no matter where it happens and we are SUPPOSED to be better than that...... Herr Rumsfeld himself may have poisoned that food..... or at least had it ordered.... I dont trust anything i hear coming out of any embedded reporters mouth at that.... THe scariest thing about all of this is I dont think we will ever HONESTLY know what went down or who the perp was..... too far removed and no one is paying attention..... although i dont think they have even proved who the perp was on 9-11 either.... dont be duped..... keep seraching for the truth....
disgusted -- while I sympathize with being disgusted with a lot of things, try not to give the gov't too much credit for such plots as it is probably not competent to pull them off even if it wanted to. This was food poisoning with a generous dose of that mass hysteria (both the sick and the worried well behaving badly) other commenters mentioned.
Let's not jump to conclusions. Early reports can be very misleading. The "bleeding ears" may turn out to be a red herring.
Revere,
if it's histamine poisoning (Scombroid poisoning), it could be bacterial. Proteus, a relative of E. coli, produces lots of histamines very rapidly when growing on fish.
Mike: Yes, I know. The symptoms and the relationship with fish are the giveaways usually on scombroid, which is why I said that should have been fairly easy to diagnose. Other than that, few things with a bacterial origin (and it isn't the bacteria but what they produce in that case) that appear so quickly (if indeed the reports on timing are accurate, which they may not be). I didn't mean to imply that scombroid wasn't bacterial in origin. It is. I was trying to say that other than scombroid, the only thing that acts that fast are chemical contaminations.