The main aim in this study was to collect the experiences of Iranian researchers about sulfur mustard (SM) and provide a guideline for the prevention of abuse for this dangerous agent. We searched valid national and international databases using related key words in the two languages. We found 193 articles which had been published in medical journals. Among them, 25 articles had some implicat...

Delayed evaluation and management of penetrating cardiac injuries especially mortar fragments were performed in 30 war victims in the Shahid Rajai Heart Hospital, Tehran. All were men with a mean age of 20.7 years. Pleuritic chest pain was the most common symptom (53.3%), while physical examination was negative in the majority of cases (66.8%). 50 percent of the cases had pericardial effus...

Sexual torture constitutes any act of sexual violence which qualifies as torture. Public awareness of the widespread use of sexual torture as a weapon of war greatly increased after the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Sexual torture has serious mental, physical and sexual health consequences. Attention to date has focused more on the sexual torture of women than of men, partly ...

Fifteen years since the events that are held by some to have caused it, Gulf War Syndrome continues to exercise the mind and energies of numerous researchers across the world, as well as those who purport to be its victims and their advocates in the media, law and politics. But it may be that the search for a scientific or medical solution to this issue was misguided in the first place, for Gul...

Although war-trauma victims are at a higher risk of developing PTSD, there is no consensus on the effective treatments for this condition among civilians who experienced war/conflict-related trauma. This paper assessed the effectiveness of the various forms of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) at lowering PTSD and depression severity. All published and unpublished randomized controlled trials ...

This exploratory, descriptive study investigates the experiences of Iranian war veterans living with chronic disease acquired as a result of chemical warfare. Sulphur mustard (SM) is considered one of the most important agents of chemical warfare and was widely used during the Iran-Iraq conflict in 1980-1988. There are approximately 100 000 Iranian SM casualties who suffer from serious long-ter...

T he history of medicine is full of examples of the determination of scientists when faced with public health disasters. As a result of this strength, many tragedies that occurred in the 20th century were followed by important scientific developments. If World War I marked the advent of chemical weapons, it also provided respiratory specialists with knowledge about the effects of poisonous gase...

It seems mere common sense to begin any serious discussion of terrorism with an attempt at definition. After all, how can we talk sensibly about the topic unless we know what the topic is? It is true that there are various objections to common sense at this point, but I shall not pursue them here beyond remarking that widespread disarray among theorists about what to count as terrorism suggests...

Civilians play an increasingly important and complex role in armed conflicts, both as victims and as perpetrators. While this overall trend towards ‘civilianization’ encompasses all types of present-day conflicts, it is twofold: it takes on a very different nature in high-technology warfare than in the context of low-technology combats that are typical of many civil wars. This article explores ...