Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.
Iraqi former battle zone sees abnormal clusters of infant tumours and deformities.
Fallujah – Doctors in Iraq’s war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja’s over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems – are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.
Read more by clicking, here.
Important Message: Please Read
For 25 years, Truthout has survived by publishing impactful investigative journalism and analysis; distributing full editions 365 days a year; and building a community of readers who support us with small, hard-earned donations.
Eighty percent of our $3 million yearly budget comes from small donors alone. Of those, 8,000 readers support us with monthly donations. Back in 2018, when Facebook decided to suppress the circulation of posts made by organizations, thereby cutting readers off from seeing many articles shared by the news organizations they had intentionally decided to follow, Truthout’s total traffic declined by 40 percent, as nearly all of our traffic from that platform disappeared.
As Google plans to roll out its new AI search bar, providing shoddy AI summaries instead of directing readers to our site, the consequences promise to be even more explosive. Google Search is our single largest source of traffic; it’s the route by which 27 percent of our readers find us. If even half of that 27 percent disappears, it will have a devastating impact on our journalism.
The entire journalism ecosystem will shoulder this blow, particularly independent publishers and news sites that depend on traffic and aren’t bankrolled by large corporations. If you can support Truthout with a donation today, you can help us resist the inevitability of Big Tech’s AI takeover. Please give today.