On NPR's Morning Edition, journalist Leila Fadel interviewed anthropologist Kali Rubaii of Purdue University about her research into the ongoing health problems experience both by U.S. veterans and Iraqi civilians, because of the unregulated burning of mixed waste during the wars there.
In the 1970s and 1980s, newly emerging environmental laws were widely ignored on military bases in the United States. This changed at some point in the 1990s, personnel were retrained, and those bases began to come into compliance. The case of Iraq, however, highlights the long-term damage done by war.
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Children in Mosul, from Professor Rubaii's 2020 article Birth Defects and the Toxic Legacy of War in Iraq |
This is a particularly difficult example that illustrates the severe damage done by long-term exposure to toxic chemicals. It is as if we either learned nothing from Love Canal or chose to ignore what we did learn.
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