Call for data collecting on reproductive health: Newweapons publishes a specific protocol

War has long term effects on reproductive health, but large amounts of data to  are needed to examine the problem. Nwrc has released a protocol to collect data, that every scientific body can use.

In order to help those involved in collection of data in Gaza, Nwrc ha released also a modified version of the protocol.

We publish here the text of the call:

Reproductive health and children
health are emerging as the most evident legacy of the long term
effects of war-determined contamination in many countries.

Data that justify alarm about the
deterioration of population health, are emerging sporadically from
many countries which have been under the fire of the products of the
military industry and of Western states attacks.

Most often in the countries affected
the health system has been deteriorating during war and occupations
and the medical personnel has not been able to register the pattern
of these changes.

It is necessary to study the pattern
and frequencies of presentation of the long term effects on health,
in relationship with the detection of war contaminants that can
persist in the environment for long term.

This requires both registration of the
events and obtaining data that gives indication of the changed pattern of
their presentation in time and studies to understand if there are
relationships between the accumulation of specific war-derived
contaminants and the presentation of reproductive and other health
problems in the new generations.

The first step to obtain information
in this direction is to register systematically the occurrence of
health problems at birth and their incidence on the baseline of
normal health in the population.

This can be obtained by the
introduction of registration for birth defects and for infant cancer.

The lack of previous data, could
nonetheless make difficult the evaluation of the present state of
health deterioration. The collection of history of reproductive life
of the parents in the context of birth (and cancers) registration can
partly overcome this lack.

Here is a protocol adopted in 2010 by
Newweapons in collaboration with Iraqi doctors, and that can be
adapted to the various specific situations, to record present
prevalence of birth defects, obtain history of reproductive life and
correlate it with exposure (subjectively assessed) to war
contaminants. This protocol for birth registration consists of one
form for mothers and one form for fathers and includes questions on
the health of the nearest kin, that set light on the possibility of
genetic origin of the birth defects observed.

We remain available for any
consultation on this tool.

October 2010, prepared by Prof.
Paola Manduca for Newweapons