.Public Health Concerns

A study on veterans who had contracted malaria in Vietnam, testing by the neurologist revealed a 30-point drop in his IQ from his military induction exam and an abnormal electroencephalography (EEG).Malaria is the general name of a tropical disease spread by mosquitoes. Its onset is indicated by a high fever, anemia and severe flu-like symptoms, such as shivering, joint pain, and headaches. When a person is bitten by a mosquito bearing Plasmodium, the parasite is injected into the bloodstream, where it lives out its life cycle in red blood cells and concentrates in the vital organs, principally the liver. Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum or falciparum malaria) is the predominant type of malaria worldwide and likely accounted for 90 percent of malaria illnesses reported in Vietnam. It is also the most feared because it primarily affects the brain.

At its most every, it can become cerebral malaria, a complication that develops when infected blood cells stop circulating as they reach the brain and bind to the inner walls of the blood vessels carrying them. The resulting obstruction of blood flow is traumatic, depriving the brain of oxygen, causing hemorrhaging and producing severe psychiatric symptoms. the treatment they will die if they are not put into alcohol ice baths.’ A combination of anti-malarial drugs is available that effectively kills the parasite and relieves symptoms of the illness; however, P. falciparum is highly resistant to treatment, requiring frequent changes to the drug regimen. Figures for the total number of malaria cases treated in Army hospitals during the Vietnam War were unavailable from the Department of the Army.One study of cerebral malaria patients who were treated at an evacuation hospital in Vietnam during the war concluded that cerebral malaria causes no permanent psychiatric harm. many veterans exhibiting symptoms of PTSD may actually be suffering long-term effects of cerebral malaria infection and might benefit from improved treatments incorporating anti-convulsant medications like Tegretol and Depakote

Figures for the total number of malaria cases treated in Army hospitals during the Vietnam War were unavailable from the Department of the Army. Cerebral malaria patients were studied at the height of the Vietnam War. In 1968, an article titled ‘Psychological Testing of Cerebral Malaria Patients’ was published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, with Dr. Albert J. Kastl as the lead author.

Casualties and causes

There are an estimated 650,000 deaths in Hong Hanh in Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic conditions. Another 500,000 have already died. The thread that weaves through all their case histories is defoliants deployed by the US military during the war. Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who lived off land that was sprayed. The second generations are the sons and daughters of war veterans, or children born to parents who lived on contaminated land. This is a chain of events bitterly denied by the US government. Millions of liters of defoliants such as Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnam, but US government scientists claimed that these chemicals were harmless to humans and short-lived in the environment. US strategists argue that Agent Orange was a prototype smart weapon, a benign tactical herbicide that saved many hundreds of thousands of American lives by denying the North Vietnamese army the jungle cover that allowed it ruthlessly to strike and feint. New scientific research, however, confirms what the Vietnamese have been claiming for years. It also portrays the US government as one that has illicitly used weapons of mass destruction, stymied all independent efforts to assess the impact of their deployment, failed to acknowledge cold, hard evidence of maiming and slaughter, and pursued a policy of evasion and deception.

In December 1969, President Nixon made a radical and controversial pledge that America would never use chemical weapons in a first strike. He made no mention of Vietnam or Agent Orange, and the US government continued dispatching supplies of herbicides to the South Vietnamese regime until 1974.

 

 

 

 

citations http://www.historynet.com/us-vietnam-war-soldiers-and-malaria.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/29/usa.adrianlevy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3582694/