Saturday 2/28/98 9:44 PM I transcribe some of what I got in the mail today. Volume 9, Number 4, 1997 MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY The Official Journal of the Division of Military Psychology American Psychological Association Special Issue: Effects of Chemical Protective Clothing of Military Performance Guest Editors: Gerald P. Krueger and Louis E. Banderet Psychological Aspects of Chemical Defense and Warfare James W. Stokes U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School Fort Sam Houston, Texas Louis E. Banderet U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine Natick, Massachusetts Concerns about chemical, biological, or radiation (CBR) weapons and their potential for warfare can be very stressful. Such concerns subject people to unfamiliar threats in highly ambiguous situations, in which people feel they may be wronged or they are helpless. Maladaptive psychological overreactions or underreactions may result. Such reactions to chemical warfare are illustrated with the experience from World War I, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the 1995 terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. General principles of psychology suggest strategies and tactics for training and materiel development that should enhance military performance and reduce maladaptive stress in CBR threat situations. Some of these practices may be relevant to nonmilitary law enforcement and relief agencies that manage CBR threats. page 395. Now I transcribe some of the more relevant stuff. Effects of Chemical Protective Clothing on Military Performance: A Review of the Issues Gerald P. Krueger Star Mountain, Inc. Alexandria, Virginia Lous E. Banderet U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine Natick, Massachusetts This review in this special issue of Military Psychology on the effects of chemical protective clothing (CPC) on military performance provide a historical perspective on continued anxieties over likely use of battlefield chemical-biological weapons and summarizes significant concerns of military personnel weaning CPC in training and combat. This review describes pschophysiological stresses such protective ensembles have on personnel and how these affect military performance, and it summarizes major military psychological research program on the effect of wearing CPC. This article reviews what is known about wearing CPC, describes future CPC developments, and identifies domains for improved military training with CPC. MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT OF C-B WEAPONS There are many medical, physiological and psychological reactions from exposure to chemical-biological (C-B) weapons. Many bio-warfare agents and most chemical weapons are designed to interfere with function of the nervous system and to disrupt normal control of vital organ systems that sustain life. For example, the more common chemical war nerve agents involve organophosphate compounds, similar to insecticides, that inhibit cholinesterase enzymes throughout the body. Because cholinesterase hydrolyzes acetylcholine where ever liberated, this inhibition results in excessive concentrations of acetylcholine at various sites - from the ending of the parasympathetic nerves to smooth muscles of the iris, ciliary body, bronchi, gastrointestinal trace, bladder, and blood vessels; to secretary gland of the respiratory tract and to endings of the sympathetic nerves to sweat glands (Newhouse, 1987; Simmons et at 1989). Exposure to large amounts of nerve agent may lead to loss of muscle control, twitching, paralysis, unconsciousness, convulsions, coma, and even death. The most common cause of death after acute exposure is respiratory arrest. Death may occur within minutes or take several hours. In terms of psychological functioning, moderate but nonlethal exposure to nerve agent produces severe impairment in cognition, vigilance, memory and language. Acute intoxication produces confusion, drowsiness, and difficulty in concentration (Newhouse, 1987). These impairment make it difficult to continue to perform may soldier tasks. Effects on cognition may persist after only a slight exposure. Performance improvement appears to correlate with the bodys regeneration of acetycholinesterase, usually requiring several months. Neurophysychological testing (Newhouse, 1987) reveals that chronic exposure to organophosphates significantly impairs higher mental function requiring use of the frontal lobes, particularly the left lobe. Organophosphate poisoning selectively impairs memory of recently learned information, and this impairment is likely related to cholinergic involvement in the memory processes. The effects include defects in long-term memory, visual searching, and response alteration - effects similar to those caused by a frontal lobotomy. In chronically exposed individuals, speed of task performance and overall cognitive efficiency also declines. Persistent visual impairments are reported in workers poisoned with anticholinesterase insecticides, and acute poisoning impair oculomotor function. Poisoning with nerve agents may also cause psychiatric disturbances such as depression. Use of C-B weapons results not only in large number of physical casualties on the battlefield by in may psychological casualties as well. Concern over the mere threat that C-B weapons might be used raises battlefield anxiety of combatants and can produce a level of fear disproportionate to that evoked by countless alternative conventional battlefield means of killing or maiming, such a with guns, artillery, and bombs. Such anxieties can create large numbers of psychological stress casualties contribution to unit ineffectiveness on the battlefield and combat losses. Such adverse emotions may also cause posttraumatic stress disorders after combat ceases. DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTERMEASURES FOR THE COMBAT THEATER Modern military forces recognize the C-B weapons can be the attention-getting equivalent of a poor countrys nuclear weapons. Such weapons can be counter-acted, however, and concerned nations prepare their forces to preserve their health and safety against C-B warfare. ... I will send a complete copy to John Young. So I skip to the next section. THE THREAT OF C-B WARFARE Although biological warfare was used centuries ago by the Romans and was used in the 14th century by the Tartars, who catapulted plague-infected bodies into cities under siege (Hewish, 1997), military forces have made scant use of biological warfare in modern times. The more recent innovation of chemical warfare dates to 1914 when the French used tear gas against unprotected German forces, who in turn introduced chlorine and phosgene in 1915 and mustard gas in 1917 against the British, who sustained 14,000 casualties in 3 months (Hewish, 1997). May World Ware I soldiers were grotesquely injured or died in gas war trenches in France and Russia; Russias gas casualties exceed a half million, including 50,000 fatalities (Westerhoff, 1980). In 1925, many countries signed a Geneva Protocol prohibiting first use of chemical and bacteriological weapons. However, during the 1930s, several countries, notably Germany, encouraged chemists to develop chemical weapons as a by-product of insecticide research production. By World War II, Germany and powers stockpiled huge caches of chemical, but probably due to fear of in-kind retaliation, chemical weapons were not used in World War II. After the war, Germanys organophoshporous arsenal fell into Russian hands, and for the next 50 years, military forces relegated C-B warfare efforts to relatively quiet development programs for future battlefields. Since World War II, C-B weapons have been employed several times on a relatively small scale. In the 1970s, the Vietnamese used chemical and yellow rain biological agents in Cambodian jungles, the Soviets used chemical in Afghanistan (U.S. Department of State, 1980), Iraq used sulfur mustard and other chemical in the Iran-Iraq conflict (1979-1980), and Iraq used chemical in 1980 - this time against its own people, the northern Kurds (Studeville, 1997). There have been periodic threats to use chemical weapons on a grand scale. In the 1970s, the Warsaw Pact possessed huge stockpiles of chemical weapons ( mostly soman, cyanide, and mustard gas), and Soviet chemical warfare teams openly conducted extensive training in gas warfare tactics. Such readiness for large scale C-B warfare was underscored in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, as Iraq threatened to use chemical (sarin) and biologicals (anthrax spores) against coalition forces and possibly against neighboring cities in Saudi Arabia and Israel (Begley, Barry, & Hager, 1991). By January 1991, Saudi Arabia had predug 50,000 graves planned for burying civilian (noncombat) casualties expected to succumb to Iraqi chemical poisoning from anticipated rocket attacks on Saudi cities or aerosols drifting from the battlefields (Kaplan, 1991). Although Iraq did not unleash such chemical, and the battles were ultimately short, many U.S. military personnel may been exposed to chemical during the March 1991 destruction of Iraqi weapon stockpiled (mostly sarin) near Khamisiyah, Iraq (Stuteville, 1997). The U. S. government continue to investigate whether exposures to chemical agents may have contributed to the so-called Gulf War illnesses experienced by many U.S. military veterans of that encounter. Exposure of soldiers to multiple chemical and and environmental stressors may be linked to psychophysiological illnesses that manifest in symptomatology such as disabling fatigue, insomnia, malaise, joint and muscle pains, skin sores, hair loss, and gastrointestinal and respiratory difficulties (Brown & Priest, 1996). Others asset that U.S. military personnel were exposed to Iraq chemical warfare from Scud missiles, artillery and aircraft (Stuteville, 1997) PUBLIC CONCERN Open, frank, public news of existent military chemical stockpiles, proliferation of chemical or biological weaponry, and periodic saber-ratting threats to use such weapons amplify world public concerns over the enormity of what someday could be a horrific chemical or biological calamity. Unprotected civilian populations fear they may be deliberately attacked by chemical and biological weapons or inadvertently by aerosol warfare agents drifting into populated areas of a battlefield. Disastrous incident like the one in 1984 at a chemical factory in Bhopal, India, which killed over 2,000 people and sickened countless others, sensitized citizenry to the lethal potential of such chemical compounds. In 1995, terrorist attacks on the Tokyo subway, and news media discussion of possible use of nerve agents in terrorist disruption of public gathering like the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, heightened Public fears over such chemical incidents have become almost visceral. News of recent advances in genetic technologies (Dando, 1997) suggest use of future biological weapons with unprecedented insidiousness and specificity is possible. Moreover, the mass media and media expert sources remind the public that the United States may not be adequately prepared or trained to defend itself against chemical or biological warfare (Beal, 1997). ... Send more money, of course. Banderets Ph. D. thesis article is Visual Marking Following Transient Adaptation Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol 51, 7 955-958 July 1971 Banderet has worked for US Army Institute of Environmental Medicine since 1971. Banderet is another of my former Ph. D. students. In human factors, not computer science. US soldiers, of course, need some tranquilizers to calm them down is the face of such threats. To improve battlefield performance. Keep in mind guys that the US goverment is not above killing a bunch of its own citizens for its own BUSINESS goals. Keep up-wind bill Title: Untitled Document Viewing this page requires a browser capable of displaying frames.