healthmedicinet

• Katrina Brown has a deadly illness called systemic sclerosis
• She is convinced she became ill after being exposed to poisonous material
• Worked in an area of Iraq where depleted uranium munitions were used
  

By
Sue Reid

PUBLISHED:

17:02 EST, 24 April 2013

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UPDATED:

19:55 EST, 24 April 2013

On the wall at Katrina Brown’s home is a treasured photograph of her beaming with joy in Iraq, her arms around two Army friends. In another picture she is in uniform, standing near the British Army’s 34 Field Hospital in Iraq where she was serving as a combat nurse during the second Gulf War.

Both pictures show Katrina smiling happily, her eyes shining and her skin glowing with good health.

Today though, a decade later, she is unrecognisable as the same woman. Her face is pale and she has a severe limp because of damage to her toes and feet. When she reaches out her hand to shake mine, it feels like a block of ice. 

Fighting spirit: Katrina Brown (centre) is seen smiling happily, her eyes shining and her skin glowing with good health

Her body is so cold that last year on a holiday to the Canary Islands with her soldier husband, Charlie, she had to wear an insulated jacket designed for polar explorers as she sat on the beach.

At 30, Katrina has a deadly illness called systemic sclerosis. It severely affects her immune system, which has started to attack her internal organs and harden her skin.

If nothing is done to stop the disease’s progress, she will die.

It took a long time for Katrina, a chirpy and intelligent girl from Manchester, to work out the cause, but now she is convinced she knows the answer.

Before she flew home from serving in Iraq in 2003, she was handed a white plastic card by Army officials. 

It stated: ‘You have been working in an area where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used. DU has the potential to cause ill health. You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment.’

Fatally poisoned? Katrina pictured as she is today, at her home in Gloucestershire

Katrina, sitting wrapped in blankets at her home in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, says: ‘We all got the cards and a verbal de-briefing warning about the dangers of DU in the area.

‘I didn’t take much notice. I was young and excited about returning to the UK, not worried about something that might happen ten years down the line. All of us Army personnel were advised to tell our GPs that we had been in contact with DU.’

But many, including Katrina, feared that if they did, the fact would be put onto their medical records and could possibly stop them getting life insurance or mortgages.

Now, though, Katrina realises her deadly illness is the result of being exposed to the highly poisonous material, which was used in bunker-buster bombs during the war.

Depleted uranium has been linked to high rates of cancer and birth defects. It is the product left over after natural uranium is enriched to make fuel for nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons. It has been blamed for a host of health problems among British soldiers who served in the two Gulf War conflicts.

Highly toxic and 2.5 times denser than iron, it is used to increase the penetrative power of bombs and bullets. If a weapon fired with a DU tip strikes a solid object, such as the side of a tank, it is so tough that it remains sharp on impact.

It’s also very flammable — adding further devastating damage to the target before it erupts in a burning cloud of vapour which settles as dust. This dust is poisonous if inhaled and also contains dangerous levels of radiation. During the early months of the conflict, in 2003, it is estimated that up to 2,000 tons of munitions laced with DU were fired by the British and American forces. This was in addition to the 320 tons fired in the previous Gulf war nearly 12 years before.

Official reports by Iraqi scientists have since identified 365 sites, mainly in the Basra region of southern Iraq as being still contaminated with DU dust. The numbers of children diagnosed with cancer in the area has rocketed and local people complain they are suffering from serious life-threatening illnesses that never existed before the first Gulf conflict.

Depleted uranium: A man tests a DU ammo sleeve for radiation levels in May 1998 near the Kharanji Oil Pump Station in Iraq

As early as 1997, British Army doctors also warned the Ministry of Defence in an official report that: ‘All military personnel .?.?. should be aware that uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk. The dust has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers.’

But Katrina and her colleagues were not aware of this when they were sent to a derelict airstrip called Shaibah, seven miles from Basra.

The area was being used as a dumping ground for tanks and other Iraqi military equipment blown up in the 1991 war with depleted uranium-enhanced weapons.

Dr Chris Busby, an eminent scientist and expert on DU who has conducted contamination tests in the Basra region since the conflicts, says: ‘There is still dust containing DU everywhere.’

He said anyone who inhales it risks terrible health problems.

Married: Katrina and her husband, Martin ‘Charlie’ Brown, while on duty during the war in Iraq

Another of those who suspects he is a victim is Andy Hodgetts, a 42-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman who served in both Iraq conflicts.

He was  also there in 2003 as a Lance Corporal in the Territorial Army, attached to the Royal Logistics Corps. Like Katrina, he was posted to the Shaibah airstrip. Today, Andy, who lives in Newark, Nottinghamshire, has cancer of the colon and most of his large intestine has been removed.

Andy, who has a wife and child, hopes to prove the link between his illness and his exposure to uranium. He is fighting for compensation from the Army — and Dr Busby believes he was poisoned by DU.

‘I started feeling aches and pains all
over my body. I began to feel tired, too — and my fingers and toes felt
cold all the time’ 

– Katrina Brown

His case has been boosted by the findings of an inquest into the death of a soldier called Stuart Dyson who fought in the first Gulf War.

Dr Busby gave evidence at the hearing and the jury concluded: ‘It was more likely than not Mr Dyson’s death was caused, or contributed to, by his exposure to depleted uranium during his service in the first Gulf War.’

The coroner, Robin Balmain, reported the findings to the Lord Chancellor asking that action be taken by the Government to stop the ‘obvious risk’ to the military from DU weapons in the future.

He said: ‘On impact, depleted uranium burns to a fine aerosol of minute uranium oxide particles.?.?. which are significantly radioactive. It is likely that radiation has been focused into the DNA of cells in Mr Dyson’s colon, causing damage leading to the cancer.’

For its part, the Ministry of Defence refuses to reveal details of what it knows about how DU may have harmed anyone serving in Iraq.

However, in a statement made in the House of Commons, it admitted that DU was ‘likely to be a concern for those in, or on vehicles, at the time they were struck or those who entered them soon afterwards.’

Of course, such comments have deeply worried Gulf War veterans such as Katrina Brown.

Healthy: Katrina while on duty during the war in Iraq

She began to feel ill four years after her return from Iraq. First, the blood vessels in her fingers and toes started to constrict. As a result, less blood reached them, the skin changed colour to white and they constantly felt cold and numb.

Katrina says: ‘I started feeling aches and pains all over my body. I began to feel tired, too — and my fingers and toes felt cold all the time.’

She was working as an agency nurse in the north of England at the time and decided to visit her GP.

The diagnosis was Reynaud’s disease, a condition which blocks the flow of blood to the fingers and toes, especially in cold temperatures. She continued to work — in hospital operating theatres where she was so cold she wore a lead-lined gown. To keep warm, she was allowed to wear trainers instead of regulation nurses’ theatre clogs. 

Her hands were losing their movement so fast her colleagues had to open the plastic lid of her lunch box and put up patients’ drips for her.

War nurse: Katrina (pictured in 2011) began to feel ill four years after her return from Iraq

But one day, while working at Bradford Royal Infirmary, an orthopaedic surgeon noticed she was shivering and asked what was wrong. She explained she was suffering from Reynaud’s disease, but he said he thought it might be more serious.

Her GP who sent her for tests at the NHS’s Salford Royal Hospital in Greater Manchester, which proved she had the rare — and chronic — systemic sclerosis, provoked by the immune system attacking the body’s healthy cells.

Doctors told her the illness was progressive and there was no known cure available on the NHS. They explained that the condition was sometimes provoked by proximity to toxic chemicals.

It was not until a year later that Katrina made the link with her exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq, after she stumbled across that little white card she had been given by Army officials warning about the possible dangers of DU. She says: ‘It was only then that I read it properly for the first time, I realised what had happened to me.’

Immediately she began to research into cases of other Army soldiers and medics who had fallen ill after returning from Iraq. This search led her, via the internet, to a doctor called Richard Burt of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

He is the pioneer of adult stem-cell therapy which, for the first time, has been able to combat a whole range of illnesses, including Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and — most importantly, for Katrina — auto-immune diseases such as her own. 

She is now trying to raise £110,000 to be treated by his team.

He told me: ‘Up to now there was been no treatment that works for systemic sclerosis. I know that this adult cell therapy is not available in the NHS. But we have figured a way to reverse and treat it and would be prepared to help Katrina.’

Earlier this month, he was in London, lecturing to British medics about his treatment, which involves wiping out the patient’s immune system and ‘rebooting’ it. This extraordinary breakthrough was recorded in the respected medical journal the Lancet in January. 

Dangerous: A man approaches radioactive debris on May 1, 1998 in Iraq

Katrina, meanwhile, is getting more feeble by the day.

She can barely flex her hands, one of her legs drags as she walks, and she is permanently in pain.

She has great trouble zipping up or undoing her trousers and on rare trips out has had to ask for help from other women to use public lavatories. 

‘But I wrap myself in blankets and most of the time I cannot even think of going outside.’

Every day, she must take 18 pills (at a cost of £3,000 a month to the NHS) to try to keep the sclerosis and pain at bay.

Remarkably, Katrina does not blame the Army for what happened. She just wants to raise the money needed to get the U.S. treatment to save her life — £7,200 has been raised so far, and a new website gofundme.com/2jbkd0 can take donations.

‘I am supposed to have it within four years of diagnosis — and I am in my fourth year. Time is running out.’

While her family have expressed  anger that ‘people get welfare benefits for nothing’ while Katrina ‘can’t get the help’ she deserves, this brave former medic refuses to claim compensation from the Army.

Showing the fighting spirit which made her such a good soldier, she hopes this is another battle she will win.

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The comments below have been moderated in advance.

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Unfortunately DU tipped munitions have been used for decades with many, many serving soldiers like Katrina suffering from its toxic effects. She is being unfairly treated and I wish her well as this woman served us and her government, she deserved better.

–

C.Thing
,

down the Rabbid Hole,
25/4/2013 01:14

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The US dropped depleted uranium and white phosphorus on Fallujah what about those innocent civilians? Or do their lives not matter?

–

The Boot Of Cantona
,

Old Trafford Trophy Room,
25/4/2013 01:14

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I feel sorry for all the innocent Iraqi people because of our illegal, unnecessary and pointless war. Think of all those iraqis who have been exposed to this dust…

Shame on the British government for this atrocious war!

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Anon
,

Kent,
25/4/2013 01:13

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I’m sure if Mr. Blair reads this tragic report he will donate the required amount without fail. ????

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fyodor
,

cheshire, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 01:12

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Think government should pay for her treatment cos she served the country init

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Keenan London
,

london, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 00:45

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she was in the army. In a war. Why is she complaining? ££££’s

–

Gavin Davies
,

Port Talbot, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 00:44

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I feel awful that this has had to happen to them when they were doing their job and serving their country, but imagine the effects these bombs have on the people they’re dropped on. During the war in Serbia I know these types of bombs were dropped and there are higher rates of cancers and birth deformities, and there are entire sections of land which can’t be used by farmers. I really don’t think it’s necessary to drop uranium bombs on anyone. It’s not just a one time explosion, it affects the area and the people they’re dropped on for generations and it obviously affects the people that were around the bombs prior. It’s also unbelievably sneaky to tell her of her “possible” exposure, which they know wasn’t ever just going to be a possibility, after she has served her time there. The Army owes her the money for her treatment even if it helping her is a “possibility”, after all her exposure was a “possibilty” too.

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Anabela
,

Belgrade, Serbia,
25/4/2013 00:39

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Why are we exposing our brave service personnel to depleted uranium?and handing them a white card after being in the contact area as if it was a football match-then leaving her to find the funding for her medical care as nether the MOD or the NHS are prepared to fund this, and are turning there back on her-and how many more of our soldiers have come home with the same dangerous condition and are suffering ?Sounds as if we are doing more damage to our own rather than the enemy.This is a serious violation of the soldiers contract sounds like Christmas Island all over again,I would be interested to hear from those who were used in a similar way without knowing-A investigation against the MOD wants to be set up, sounds as if they are aware there is a problem with this equipment otherwise they would not have printed the white cards. Our soldiers Mr Cameron are not guinea pigs, get it sorted out.before it brings your government down-as I shall have this asked in the house at the next PMQs .

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Brittania
,

widnes, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 00:35

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Our politicians must be extremely proud of what they have polluted for all time with the use of DU munitions !
May they all Fester in Hell !!!

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Nosser
,

Gosport, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 00:32

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It is well known that DU has serious effect on the environment. The Danube was heavily polluted, now Iraq and Afghanistan, and probably many more countries in Africa. I think use of such metal should be considered as weapon of mass destruction, and those who use it as criminals. I had the unfortunate chance to enter a development centre where those weapon were to be tested while working in the nuclear industry in the late 80s. I changed job straight after that. Arm dealers, politicians, they are all responsible. No big bang like Hiroshima, but still generations of suffering people.

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lauren
,

london, United Kingdom,
25/4/2013 00:27

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