Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani

ANN ARBOR — Local scientist Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani won the prestigious Rachel Carson Prize for her work on the effects of war on public health, particularly the rise of birth defects in Iraq, because of pollution from bombs dropped during the war. 

The Rachel Carson Prize is awarded annually in Norway “to a woman who has distinguished herself in outstanding work for the environment.” It is named after an American activist who is dubbed “the mother of the modern environmental movement.”

Savabieasfahani is an Iranian American environmental toxicologist who resides in Ann Arbor. She has taught in Iranian colleges and attended New York University. She conducted her post-doctoral studies at the University of Michigan on the effects of pollutants in plastic and pesticides on public health.

“When I finished my post-doc, I went back to the Middle East,” she told The Arab American News. “My people in the Middle East are being forced to live through a chaotic situation because they are being bombed. I decided to focus on that.”

Savabieasfahani said she came to think about war pollution in 2004 while working as a professor at a university in Ahwaz, Iran, near the Iraq border. She said Iranians could feel the bombs falling on the neighboring country during the invasion.

“When they would bomb Basra, which is close to where I was working, our chairs would shake,” she said. “I knew these bombings were inflicting a huge amount of pain on the people. Later on, I learned from interviews with Iraqi doctors that they were witnessing increases in birth defects and cancers. When you bomb a place, you are scattering carcinogens and other pollutants into the environment.”

Savabieasfahani said polluting compounds are sturdy and do not break down easily, so they persist in the environment, exposing people to health risks. She said because of common dust storms in Iraq, harmful compounds leave footprints all over the country and even spill across the border.  

Savabieasfahani said birth defects witnessed in Basra and Fallujah, where she conducted most of her research, were mostly heart problems and neural tube issues. She said that when pregnant women are exposed to toxic particles through air, food and water, the pollutants impact the fetuses, which are at critical junctures of their growth, and cause them to deviate from  the normal path of development. 

She also said Iraq witnessed a sharp increase in birth defects after the 2003 invasion. She cited a study by her research colleague, Iraqi Dr. Muhsin Al-Sabbak, which shows that before 2003, for every 1,000 live births, there were 1.7 birth defects in his hospital in Basra. By 2009, there were 48 birth defects per thousand live births. 

“This is an enormous jump,” she said. “We saw a similar scenario in Fallujah, so we know something is drastically wrong.”

Savabieasfahani said the research confirmed that the birth defects are directly linked to pollutants from the war because of the abnormal presence of heavy metals in children’s hair.

“What we found is that mercury and lead are very high in the hair samples of children with birth defects,” she said. “These two metals are heavily used in bombs and bullets.” 

She added that she conducted a study last year in Hawija, a small town north of Fallujah, after a hike in neurodevelopment disorders, like cerebral palsy. The research revealed that titanium is “extremely high” in the hair samples of the town’s children. 

“Titanium has also been found in lung tissues of U.S. soldiers who lived in military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said. “This is a very strong link.”

Savabieasfahani said besides bombs, pollution came from the burning of computers and old equipments at U.S. army bases. She said the fire pits used remain lit around the clock.

She said a similar spread of war pollution happened during the Vietnam war when the U.S. dropped about 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides 

“That created about 40 years of generation after generation of Vietnamese being born with huge birth defects,” she said. “Only recently, the U.S. has agreed to clean up one site that has been extremely high in dioxins. There are many places that should be cleaned up.”

Savabieasfahani said armies that cause war pollution must be held responsible for the consequences. 

“If they are forced to clean up the damage they have caused, it will make them think twice before doing it again,” she said.

And that’s what she aims to do. She wants to back her research on pollution with strong data and spread the word about the environmental dangers of war in the scientific community. She said she hopes science would eventually force the United States to clean up the pollution in Iraq and consider the price before going to war.

“If my colleagues had stood and forced the United States to clean up the pollution in Vietnam 40 years ago, the Iraq war would never have happened,” she said. “My responsibility as a public health and human rights advocate is to bring this up to the global community and show them that it is possible to clean up, and it is or duty to clean up.”

Last year, Savabieasfahani toured the country with Al-Sabbak to promote their research. They lectured at 17 prestigious universities, including the University of Michigan, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia. 

The schools contributed to the tour, but all of Savabieasfahani’s research is independently conducted and funded. 

The scientists plan to study the effects of the Iraq War on Iran. 

Savabieasfahani urged students of public health to focus on the effects of war.

“They should also think about what wars have done to the people of the Middle East and by extension to the people of the world,” she said. “It is our responsibility to think about how these war pollutants are affecting millions of people around the world and how we can stop it. Science is not just to describe how something is happening, but also a responsibility to change it. My aim to be able to change things through my discipline.”