Assalamu aleikum. The very soil of Iraq has arisen to help crush the invading aliens.
ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR! Note: For interior illustrations of "War of the Worlds" see: http://drzeus.poskanzer.org/wotw/illus/interior.html - "In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--dead!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. "For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain." excerpted from H.G. Wells, "War of the Worlds", Chapter Eight Please note that 2 articles follow: *The Iraq Infection *Military Chases Mystery Infection --- (1) The Iraq Infection Matthew Herper Forbes 08.02.05 http://www.forbes.com/home/sciencesandmedicine/2005/08/02/iraq-war-infection-bacteria-cx_mh_0802iraqinfect.html NEW YORK - Military doctors are fighting to contain an outbreak of a potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria that apparently originated in the Iraqi soil. So far at least 280 people, mostly soldiers returning from the battlefield, have been infected, a number of whom contracted the illness while in U.S. military hospitals. Most of the victims are relatively young troops who were injured by the land mines, mortars and suicide bombs that have permeated the Iraq conflict. No active-duty soldiers have died from the infections, but five extremely sick patients who were in the same hospitals as the injured soldiers have died after being infected with the bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii. "This a very large outbreak," says Arjun Srinivasan, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. public health service and a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control. Breaking This Threat Down To Numbers. Acinetobacter was the second most prevalent infection for soldiers in Vietnam, but the military did not expect to see it as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Researchers are still working to understand where it came from and how patients were infected. (See: "Military Chases Mystery Infection.") Doctors worry not only about soldiers who are already infected but also those who are carrying Acinetobacter on their skin even though they themselves are not infected. Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Petersen, an infectious disease specialist at National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda, Md.,says his hospital treated 396 patients who had been wounded in Iraq between May 2003 and February 2005. About 10% were infected and another 20% were found to have Acinetobacter bacteria on their skin but were not infected. The rate of appearance of the bacteria has "been flat-out steady," says Petersen. The same has been true at Army hospitals that include Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Tipler Medical Center in San Diego and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where there has been a total of about 240 cases of patients infected, while another 500 have carried the bacteria, according to Col. Bruno Petrucelli, director of epidemiology and disease surveillance for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine. Petrucelli says the five patients who died were at Army hospitalsmost of them at Walter Reed. They were already suffering from serious health problems before they contracted the bacteria. "These were the sickest of the sick," says Petrucelli. The infections are split evenly among wound infections, respiratory infections and a mix of bloodstream and other infections. Preventing the bacteria's spread has required doctors to take extreme care, putting all patients who are returning from the theater of war into isolation. "It's one of those pathogens that once it gets into a population and a chain of care, it can set up shop. Trying to contain the spread of this infection to other people is very difficult," says Andrew Shorr, a doctor who recently left Walter Reed for Washington Hospital Center. "What has happened over the past 18 months is every patient who shows up, we assume they're positive until they are demonstrated negative." One of those infected in Iraq was Marine Cpl. Sean Locker. On July 10, he was attacked by a suicide bomber in a car while guarding a convoy. Shrapnel hit him in his nose, his right index finger and his right eye, blinding him. His left lung collapsed. But the worst damage was done to his left arm. It was amputated, and Locker says he knew it would be as soon as he looked down at it. "I tried to stay level-headed," he says. Locker, 25, was flown to an army base in Landstuhl, Germany, and then to NNMC in Bethesda. There, doctors found that what was left of his arm after the amputation had been infected with Acinetobacter. For Locker, the prognosis was good, as two years of hard experience treating patients who had returned from war had taught doctors how to deal with the infectionand to prevent it from spreading to sicker patients. Using imipenem, one of three intravenous antibiotics effective against Acinetobacter, doctors are treating Locker's infection. He hopes to go home soon and buy a new truck. But other patients have been less fortunate, as they have suffered from infections of the bone, the bloodstream or of internal organs, which have complicated their care. Lt. Cmdr. Petersen says that NNMC's annual bill for the kind of antibiotics Locker received has increased tenfold to $200,000. Besides imipenem, which carries a risk of seizure, two other drugs have worked. Another is amikacin, which does not work for bone infections and has not been effective against some strains of the bacteria. A third is colistin, an antibiotic doctors had stopped using because of its toxic effects on the kidneys. "It is a scary thing about any drug-resistant bacteria, when you grow it for the very first time out of a patient and you've only got three antibiotics, one so old that we had to bring it back from the archives," says Col. Joel Fishbain, chairman of the infection-control committee at Walter Reed. The methods used by the military in dealing with Acinetobacter represent a model for preventing drug-resistant infections, which kill some 100,000 patients per year in the U.S. Patients arriving are swabbed in the armpit and the groin. Until the cultures show they are negative, the soldiers are kept in isolation. Doctors and nurses make sure to wear gloves and gowns when coming into contact with them. At NNMC, the cost of gowns and gloves to help prevent infection has jumped 80% to $12,000, according to Petersen. Soldiers and their family members are not confined to the room, howeverthe main point is to keep doctors and nurses from spreading bacteria from one patient to another. At NNMC, an added step has been taken by making sure infected and contaminated patients are kept in clusters of rooms separate from those who don't test positive for Acinetobacter. A patient such as Locker might not even think much about Acinetobacter if the infection can be treated quickly and doesn't cause other problems. But some others feel they weren't given enough information about the bugperhaps because military researchers themselves were still putting together answers. Merlin Clark, a civilian contractor who was in Iraq doing humanitarian de-mining, was also infected with Acinetobacter and treated at Walter Reed, according to his wife, Marcie Hascall Clark. "My biggest problem," she says, "isn't so much that my husband had it, but why didn't they tell me about it?" http://www.forbes.com/home/sciencesandmedicine/2005/08/02/iraq-war-infection-bacteria-cx_mh_0802iraqinfect.html --- (2) Military Chases Mystery Infection Matthew Herper Forbes 08.02.05 http://www.forbes.com/2005/08/02/iraq-military-infection-cx_mh_0802mystery.html NEW YORK - In Iraq, Clint Murray was a doctor charged with giving medical care to 6,000 troops on the front lines, patching the injured together before they were sent for more medical care for 12 months ending in September 2004. "It was the most rewarding experience that I had in the military," he says. "You get to see the benefits of what you're doing for a soldier immediately." While he was dealing with pressing matters, he found time for some long-term work. Murray's regular job was as an infectious disease specialist at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Before he left, there had already been the first reports of patients returning from the battlefield with wound infections, pneumonia and other problems caused by a bacteria called Acinetobacter baumannii, which is rarely seen in the United States. Eventually, it would become clear that the number of cases for blood infections alone had skyrocketed 20-fold. So far, there have been about 240 cases of infection in the army and more in the navy. But Murray didn't find Acinetobacter when he took cultures of his patients' wounds. Instead, the infection seemed to turn up somewhere between the initial site of injury and when they arrived in a hospital such as Brooke Army Medical Center or Walter Reed Army Medical Center stateside. Where, then, was the infection coming from? One possibility was in Landstuhl, Germany, an army base that serves as a stopover point for soldiers being sent back to the U.S. for treatment. But tests by Paul Scott, an infectious disease researcher, then at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, found that the water there was clean, according to Col. Joel Fishbain, chairman of the infection-control committee at Walter Reed. Nor, says Fishbain, did tests seem to show a high degree of infection at field camps in Iraq. The Acinetobacter was found by Scott in the soil in Iraq. And it has turned up in both native Iraqi's and in patients treated there for a long time. Scott's study had limitations, but there is a long history of Acinetobacter infections in the Middle East. "If you read the Israeli literature, the Israelis are like, 'duh,'" says Andrew Shorr, an infectious disease specialist who recently left Walter Reed for Washington Hospital Center and says the Israelis have been dealing with the bacteria in battlefield situations for a long time. Acinetobacter was also the second most common pathogen in Vietnam. Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Petersen, an infectious disease specialist at National Naval Medical Center, notes that aside from Vietnam, the other cases where Acinetobacter infection turned up include after the bombings in Bali and the earthquakes in Turkey. Petersen hypothesizes that the Acinetobacter comes from dirt deeply ingrained in wounds. At one time, patients might have suffered from gangrene or staph infections, but early treatment with antibiotics prevents that. The Acinetobacter is a sturdier bug, however, and starts to move in where other bacteria have been killed off. Three to five days after injurywhen injured soldiers would be in Landstuhlthe infections would suddenly show up. Says Petersen: "Right now, no one has enough data to say who's right or wrong." http://www.forbes.com/2005/08/02/iraq-military-infection-cx_mh_0802mystery.html *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest". Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamcity/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
