What poisoned Fallujah can tell us about toxic risks in Gaza and Lebanon

Over the past few months, thousands of people returned to their homes in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, where they faced threats from unexploded ordinances and lack of access to water, food, and safe shelter. Many were forced to handle war debris, which may pose long-term health risks.

Our new research from Fallujah, Iraq published today by the Costs of War project at Brown University reveals just how dangerous this debris can be. Two decades after the US-led invasion and almost a decade after the occupation of the city by ISIS, the enduring health effects of war are still evident.

Our team’s X-ray fluorescence bone sampling detected uranium in the bones of 29 percent of study participants in Fallujah, while lead was detected in 100 percent of them. The levels of lead were 600 percent higher than averages from similarly aged populations in the US. Healthy adults should have no uranium present in the bone, so any presence is significant.

Heavy metals such as lead and uranium can cause serious adverse effects in neurodevelopment, general neurological health, cardiovascular health, and birth outcomes.

When ISIS occupied Fallujah in 2014, one of our study participants Reina (not her real name) and her young family managed to flee north to the relative safety of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. While they were away, ISIS fighters used their house to store weapons. Iraqi and US warplanes then bombarded the entire neighbourhood, damaging the family’s house.

After they returned to their home two years later, and during the first trimester of her pregnancy, Reina cleared up the rubble almost single-handedly – all the time breathing in a toxic admixture of concrete dust, munition remnants, and the burned fragments of her home’s interior.

Her son was born in 2017 with a congenital anomaly. Reina and her family – among thousands of returning residents of Fallujah – faced the deferred health risks triggered by post-war clean-up activities. Though she has fully restored her home, Reina remains concerned: “I can’t tell if the house is still making us sick,” she told us.

Her concerns are well-founded. More heavily bombarded areas in Fallujah still have higher levels of heavy metals in the soil than other areas. But the bombardment has not been the only source of toxicity threatening Iraqis.

As the US army drew down its presence in Iraq, it burned huge amounts of military equipment and weapons in so-called burn pits, which produced toxic fumes that spread to nearby population centres. It was well-documented that these burn pits caused serious health issues among US veterans who faced only short-term exposure.