Iranian Doctors Speak out for Peace in the US

This weekend, I attended a presentation in Washington DC by members of an Iranian NGO that have come here to promote peace, to oppose WMD in any form, and to share information about the treatment of chronic illnesses suffered by survivors of WMD attacks.

In Tehran, last December, I met some of the staff and supporters of the Tehran Peace Museum, which is a project of the SCWVS, Society for Chemical Weapons Victims' Support, and Iranian NGO that supports victims of chemical warfare, educates the public about the consequences of using chemical weapons, and promotes world peace through international dialog. They have been touring the US under the sponsorship of PSR, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and CASMII, Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran. Their presentations have all been in big cities, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC. In each city, doctors from SCWVS have conferred with US Physicians about treatment and diagnosis of long term symptoms of Chemical Weapons Victims. These people have dedicated their lives to the treatment of war victims and the prevention of future use of weapons of mass destruction. The talk and exhibit will take place in Georgetown at the George Washington University Marvin Center in a meeting room on the 3rd floor across from the "Grand Ballroom".

I arrive a few minutes before the talk is to begin. A series of posters have been displayed around the room with photos and stories about the use and effects of chemical weapons. Flyers and other informational materials are displayed on a table in the back of the room. Leaflets have been placed on about 70 chairs present, and Dr. Khateri sits at a front table, working on laptop computer. Ten people or so are in the room, walking around or sitting and waiting. I approach the front of the room where a small, frail looking woman, sitting in the front row, invites me to sit. I tell her that I had been to the Peace Museum in Tehran, and she beckons to Dr. Khateri, speaking to him in soft Farsi.

He looks up and smiles. We exchange a pleasant greeting before I go to find my seat. The talk begins shortly thereafter, with about 25 people now in the room, a third or so appear to be Iranian. I would have liked to see more, but turn my attention to the talk. The first speaker, Jill Parillo, says that she is with PSR Security Division, the part of the organization that deals with Issues around Nuclear Weapons. She says that PSR is a US affiliate of International Physicians for the prevention of Nuclear War. She speaks against war, with a focus on American casualties and costs, over 4000 dead, 500 amputees, 320,000 with traumatic brain injuries, more than 300,000 cases of PTSD. American Military deaths and injuries from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars total well over 650,000 American soldiers who will never return to life and wellness.

Dr. Khateri begins by telling us that Iran/Iraq war is not over for everyone. It is not over for the victims of Chemical Weapons, or other individuals with debilitating injuries from the war, and for the professionals who treat these people. He described the development of chemical weapons during World War I, and how they were 'sanctioned' by the Geneva Protocol in 1925, though not outright prohibited. Because of this, they were not used in World War II, though development continued. Chemical weapons are classified as either 'lethal' or 'incapacitating'. Sarin nerve gas, one of the gases used by Saddam, is a lethal substance. Dr. Khateri described the method of action of a nerve gas, but I won't attempt to transcribe it here. Suffice it to say that they cause sweating, tremors, cramping, seizures, and death. Atropine is an antidote. If a victim survives the initial encounter with the gas, they will likely not have further symptoms. Unfortunately, many do not survive.

According to Dr. Khateri, mustard gas, Saddam's favored 'incapacitating' gas, is chemically simple. He says that the recipe is widely available, though he does not advise experimenting with it due to its extreme volatility and horrific affects. The gas causes cell death and mutation, blistering burns, damage to the eyes, and respiratory passages. The effects take 4-12 hours to emerge so people don't escape and protect themselves effectively because they aren't aware they are being affected. Many rescue workers were affected this way after the attack on the Iranian Kurdish city of Sardasht. They came to dig the initial victims out of collapsed buildings and found themselves poisoned as well. When this chemical was initially weaponized, it was promoted as a kinder, gentler form of warfare as it is not instantly lethal. However, even a cursory review of the immediate and ongoing symptoms caused by this chemical will contradict that premise.

By his own accounting, Saddam Hussein dropped 190 tons of mustard gas during the war; also, 40 tons of Tabun gas and 600 tons of Sarin gas were used in the course of more than 350 gas attacks, many of them on civilian targets. Close to 1 million people were killed by these attacks. During that period, Iran repeatedly brought this issue before the United Nations Security Council and asked that Saddam be restrained from this kind of warfare, and they were, in every case rebuffed. UN Inspectors, commissioned by UN Secretary General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, sent 6 reports to the Security Council with evidence that chemical weapons had been used, and of the devastation they had caused to civilian populations as well as military targets. Finally, in May of 1988, the Security Council approved a non-binding resolution that enjoined both sides, Iraq and Iran, to desist from the use of Chemical Weapons, though Iran had never used them. In August of 1988, after the ceasefire that ended the war was affected, the Security Council finally passed the long awaited resolution prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, and specifically targeting Iraq, but it was too late for the million Iranians already exposed to the gas, more than 100,000 hospitalized at the time, 55,000 still registered for treatment of chronic after affects. Dr. Khateri did not say so, but the United States was the main actor in suppressing earlier action by the Security Council in this matter.

Dr. Khateri points out that these weapons, like other weapons of mass destruction, are an international, not a national problem. He says that the duplicity and hypocrisy of the international forums that now condemn Saddam for the attacks on the Kurdish towns including the town of Halabja, after turning their backs on this use of the weapons on Iranian and Kurdish towns for half a dozen years, is shameful. No one was ever held responsible for these war crimes. SVCWS is committed to helping those who are currently suffering from the effects of chemical warfare, and to engaging people around the world in a movement to make sure that this never happens again. They have assisted in treatment of Iraqi victims of chemical warfare, and have engaged international assistance for their patients where their own resources were inadequate. They have a formal relationship with the Hiroshima Victims who, like themselves, oppose all construction and use of Weapons of Mass Destruction based on their own experience.

Dr Khateri describes and shows slides of the various affects of mustard gas exposure, Severe, painful burns all over the body that heal slowly and leave thick ugly scars; narrowing of trachea and bronchial passages, bronchial inflammation, scarring and tissue damage, pneumonia, air trapping that inhibits exhalation; many victims' lungs function at 25% to 40% of normal capacity; blindness, invasive capillaries in the eye and corneal scarring that recurs even after a corneal transplant due to a so far unknown mechanism. Many victims have impaired sight for the rest of their lives, though a few recover completely. Though the immediate risk to small children is worse than for adults, they heal better in the long term. On the other hand, they have a lifetime to experience the emerging symptoms of lung deterioration interfering with their ability to breathe and progressive eye disorders stealing their vision.

The slides he shows are, in some cases technical, and in others disturbingly human photos of victim's injuries, and masses of burned and wounded victims in makeshift hospitals. We are reminded that no hospital can hold the number of victims produced by this kind of attack. I am reminded of the first time I saw Dr. Khateri's presentation at the Peace Museum in Tehran. I can hear a woman somewhere behind me sobbing and sniffling intermittently. I had the same sense at the talk in Tehran. As before, I don't turn around. I wonder, is there always someone overcome by the suffering? Or have I summoned these mourners from the fog of pain and sadness enshrouds my own heart. The last slide says “No More War”. This is the bottom line.

Two patients under treatment for the symptoms of mustard gas exposure have come with the physicians to tell their stories. First, there is Fara Shafe'i, a resident of Sardasht at the time of the attack with mustard gas in 1987, comes to the podium, along with Mr. Javidan, a wounded veteran of the Iran/Iraq war. Fara speaks first. On the day of the attack, she was a young married woman with a 22 month old son. She had invited her sister to visit with her 3 young girls, the eldest just over 5 years, the youngest only 18 months old. When they heard the airplanes, they were not overwhelmingly alarmed. There were no loud crashes, but there was a funny smelling smoke billowing through the windows, so they went into the basement for protection. All were terribly burned, Fara, her husband and son, her sister and her 3 children. If only she had not invited them that day, the baby girl, Nahid, might still be alive, she said. The others suffered severe burns and respiratory damage, and required extended hospitalization at the time.

After every sentence, Fara pauses to catch her breath. A photo from the Peace Museum that I use in my presentation on Iran turns out to be a picture of her sister and her two surviving children shortly after their exposure to the mustard gas in June of 1987. Recently, Fara was informed that there is some unusual scarring on her cornea. The Doctor, who wasn't aware of Fara's past, wondered what might have occurred to cause the problem, but Fara, of course, knew exactly where it came from, and what the prognosis might be. A mustard gas victim I met in Iran last December had thick scars over the surface of his eyes. I didn't need to be told that he is blind.

Abdolreza Javidan spoke next. He spoke in a soft breathy Farsi, with Fara translating. He says that he was 17 years old when, on graduating from high school, he joined the military to defend his country. The Iraqis had invaded, and he volunteered to defend his home and country. Over the years, Mr. Javidan has received numerous treatments in Iran and Europe since his exposure to mustard gas during the war. He says that the disability causes numerous problems including anxiety over the future and disturbed family relationships, as well as the miserable, life threatening, physical symptoms. He repeatedly expresses his wish that, if there are any doctors anywhere who have information about the effective treatment of the lifelong symptoms of mustard gas exposure, that they will come forward and join the effort begun by the doctors of the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support.

Finally, Javidan said that he brought a message of peace of peace and friendship. He says that he has been deeply affected by the friendliness and kindness of the Americans he met on this tour, and his wish is that their visit might begin to form a bridge of peace between their nation and ours. He also expresses his concern about countries that continue to build Weapons of Mass Destruction. How wonderful it would be, he says, if we had a world of peace where nations resolved their differences through discussion and conversation.

During the QA session, a question is asked about the present level of cooperation, and where SCWVS would like to see this work go in the future. Dr. Soroush, who is President of SCWVS, says that they would like to see an end to sanctions, where they affect medical resources. They receive very little international aid, yet they would like to expand their research and internationalize the initiative. He expressed the hope that if politicians could not resolve international conflicts, then maybe physicians working together can narrow the gap.

When asked about the long term effects of low levels of contamination from these materials, Dr. Soroush says that this is an interesting problem requiring further study. He says that SCWVS has conducted large scale research to define the injuries sustained under these circumstances, and that their studies show that those with sustained contact to the substances, who do not show acute symptoms, are directly affected and the symptoms show up later. Though it is not clear from X-Rays and CT Scans, they find the biomarkers associated with these toxins in the systems of these patients. These studies are relevant to soldiers who handle the materials during warfare, soldiers and civilians who reside near large weapons dumps like those currently in Iraq, and aid workers who are in close contacts with first line victims. “This is not an Iranian problem”, he says, “It is an international problem.”

There are numerous issues with presenting this information to the public. When the victims of Hiroshima tell us their story, we hear them. When the victims of the European Holocaust tell their story, we are entranced. But when the victims of the wars in the Middle East and Southwest Asia come forward, we would prefer to be deaf. The subject is too immediate, and too tied to our hopes and fears in an ever more chaotic and uncontrolled world scenario. SCVWS' tour of the US is rooted in the medical community, and is dedicated to the exploration of the symptoms of, and effective treatments for victims of war, as well as an initiative to avert a 'next' war. The message is 'we don't need another war'. We can to work together to heal the effects of previous wars. I think to myself that this is the 'RoadMap' to Peace. Perhaps, if we can open our minds and hearts to these people, to the victims of these wars, of which we ourselves are also victims, and to those who would heal them, we might end the current conflict and find peace a little sooner.