``Soldiers in a slow-moving convoy kept nodding off at the wheel,'' read one US despatch from Tallil Airfield in southern Iraq. ``Their military vehicles drifted off route, vanishing into a swirling sandstorm until comrades from behind caught up to shake the drivers awake.''
About a week into the second Gulf War, reports from American journalists embedded with advancing forces were replete with detailed accounts of utter exhaustion, of soldiers in heavy combat helmets dozing wedged between ammunition, rucksacks and bottled water amid the roar of trucks and the clatter of weapons.
Even when light rain fell, some turned their faces away and slept on.
http://afr.com/articles/2003/07/02/1056825452903.htmlThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is searching for ways to create the "metabolically dominant soldier." Among the projects it is pursuing is the creation of a warrior who can fight 24 hours a day, seven days straight. "Eliminating the need for sleep while maintaining the high level of both cognitive and physical performance of the individual will create a fundamental change in war-fighting," says the Defense Sciences Office on its Web site. As usual, DARPA did not comment directly for this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61282-2002Jun16¬Found=true
The Defense Department has spent nearly 70 years trying to find ways to help its military personnel fight off the effects of and the need for sleep. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency -- the organization responsible for stealth technology and the internet -- may help the Pentagon eliminate its reliance on medication and amphetamines to keep service members awake during combat.
The agency is harnessing Electro-magnetic energy to externally stimulate brain cells in hopes of repelling sleep deprivation effects.
"Eliminating the need for sleep during an operation will create a fundamental change in war fighting and force employment," said Dr. John Carney, director of the agency's Continuous Assisted Performance program. "This program is really out of the box. We want to look at capabilities in nature and leverage it so we can apply it in ways that no one thought possible."
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/8_17/national_news/22999-1.htmlThe Pentagon has launched a series of remarkable medical experiments to find a way to keep its soldiers and pilots awake and alert for up to five days at a time.
<snip>
The idea now is to identify the genetic material which allows this, and find it in human "junk" DNA - those parts of the human genome which have no so-far identified function. Genetic codes could then be modified to create soldiers who run and run.
But as Dr Stern points out, this raises considerable ethical issues with a permanent genetic change. His own work - "zapping" brains with electro-magnetic energy - does no harm, he insists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F01%2F05%2Fwpent05.xmlA more recently developed stimulant, modafinil (sold under the name Provigil), was approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 1999 and has been shown to keep people awake and alert for two days straight. More than 250,000 people now use the drug, although it was created mostly for people suffering from narcolepsy, a condition that triggers overwhelming impulses to sleep.
The military has tested modafinil for its usefulness in operations, but Carney says the program is seeking a better drug.
"Most drugs are developed for clinical diseases," he says. "This is not a clinical disease, this is a need. We want to select which effects we want a drug to employ."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/nosleep021218.htmlIt is fascinating to see that several countries armed forces have studied (and use!) modafinil for military operations. The use of stimulants to keep troops awake and alert is not a new one. In fact, British troops used them during the Falklands conflict and that USAF aircrews took amphetamines during the Libyan air strikes. More recently the French government admitted that its crack Corp, the Foreign Legion, used modafinil during covert operations inside Iraq during the Gulf war.
In fact. Professor Michel Jouvet, an authority on sleep, claimed during an international defense meeting in Paris that, "modafinil could keep an army on its feet and fighting for three days and nights with no major side effects."
Not surprisingly then, we have heard that modafinil is in use in some sections of the Belgian, Dutch and US airforces.
Side effects in 3 years continuous studies of modafinil have been minimal and usually noted as nothing more than headache or nausea, at therapeutic dosages (17,18).
In rare cases there has been hyper-salivation (19) and moderate tachycardia (increased pulse rate- 20), this probably accounts for modafinil's instruction sheet, which states that those suffering from a heart condition must consult their physician before use. However, blood and pulse rates usually remain unchanged at normal therapeutic doses.
http://smart-drugs.net/modafinil-adrafinil.htmModafinil / Adrafinil been used for?
US Army, USAF, Special Forces, (as recently as Afghanistan and Iraq) French Foreign Legion, Dutch and Belgian military.
http://www.modafinil-adrafinil.com/Researchers in Belgium have reported a new study showing a deterioration in sperm quality in young Belgian men since1977........The new finding follows on a report earlier
this year in the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, that sperm from men in Paris, France has deteriorated in quantity and quality during the past 20 years. .........In the U.S., chemical-industry-sponsored researchers have begun to attack the original study which suggested that sperm density is dropping among men in industrialized countries.
http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r448.htmlMore recently, concerns have been raised about aggression and violence among soldiers returning from Afghanistan. In three of four cases in which men killed their wives, the accused husbands were in special-forces units based at Fort Bragg, N.C.
"It is quite obvious that someone needs to pose this question in the context of the business at Fort Bragg," says Pike. "This sort of hyper-aggressive behavior is just what one would associate with excessive use of such drugs or from withdrawal from using them."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0809/p01s04-usmi.html14,000 cases of Modafinil were shipped under a false name while at the same time the French army refused to disclose to its soldiers what they were ingesting (and many refused to do so).
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_colloneng.htmModafinil is also being tested on those with sleep apnea.
"But this is all very early. No one knows what the longer-term effects of this will be," she said. "The biggest problem is drug interaction effects about which nothing is known."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA011203Stay_awake_pill.htmlIn "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything" (Vintage, 2000), author James Gleick writes about our changing notion of time. Reached by e-mail, he was dubious about using a drug to lengthen our days. "In a time-obsessed age, this is the Holy Grail," said Gleick. "Cheating sleep is the closest thing we have to cheating death." However, until scientists better understand the phenomenon known as sleep, he was quick to add, "Beware of miracles."
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-041502sleep.storyUS soldier dies in sleep in Iraq
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6941076%255E401,00.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
