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Alan H. Lockwood, MD
SUNY at Buffalo (NY) School of Medicine and Biomedical Science

JAMA. 1991;266(5):652.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—War in the Middle East has increased fears that chemical or biological weapons (CBW) might be used in battle. Iraq's "supposed use" (Marwick's term¹) of mustard gas and tabun, a nerve gas, has been well documented by medical teams from the United Nations² and portrayed vividly in a recent Public Broadcasting Service documentary ("NOVA," The Poison Winds of War, 1990). The CBW battlefield is not as safe as we were led to believe by Marwick.¹ Unfortunately, misconceptions concerning the hazards of CBW agents and the ability to defend against them could affect decisions concerning their use.

Although there are defensive measures that can protect combatants on a CBW battlefield, they are associated with significant risks and are likely to affect decision making and impair performance.^3,4 The use of mission-oriented protective posture gear, designed to isolate the wearer from the environment, induces severe psychological . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), and Don Riesenberg, MD, Senior Editor.

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