Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Hi, it's John. I'm back because I wanted to
share some additional information with everyone about
what you can do after chemical weapons exposure as well as some
aftercare. And I know that I included this
in the previous episode that I recorded with Randy, but wanted
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to make sure that it was in its own bite sized episodes so that
folks were able to access it more easily and more quickly.
So to cover some basics around chemical weapons exposure, this
is something that has been coming up because of the
presence of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents here in the
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Chicago area and their use of these weapons against
protesters. Both at the Broadview site that
Randy and I talked about and discussed on the previous
episode, as well as in residential areas where folks
may not be protesting, but just going about the activities of
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their daily lives. So tear gas and pepper spray,
which are two types of chemical weapons, are frequently referred
to as gases, but they are actually composed of very, very
fine powders, which means that instead of dissolving or instead
of kind of evaporating into the air, they are something that
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stick to bodies and stick to objects as well as settle on
surfaces after they're used. Most of the research that shares
a lot about long term impacts ofexposures to chemical weapons
are are done. Most of that research is done in
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places that have repeat exposures, ongoing exposures.
But I also included in the in the episode notes some anecdotal
evidence that reporters have gathered from Broadview
residents about physical irritation from secondary
exposure, which means that chemical weapons were used in
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the area and are still lingeringin the air.
I I assume that this is likely to be the same for residents of
the Brighton Park neighborhood, as well as potentially in Logan
Square, where chemical weapons were used in more residential
areas. But those have those haven't
necessarily been shared through the news.
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I can share for myself as someone who was on the ground at
Broadview and didn't experience direct chemical weapons exposure
there, but did experience secondary exposure from previous
chemical weapons use, that when it got windy or there was a
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breeze, I was definitely experiencing symptoms of sore
throat, a little bit burning eyes and coughing.
And then when I was on the ground in Brighton Park, I
experienced primary exposure to chemical weapons, so was there
when they were being used and soexperienced the symptoms that
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are frequently associated with that type of exposure.
So runny nose, tearing, eyes burning and a lot of discomfort
and like psychological disorientation.
So in the the Chicago area, ICE and CBP officers have primarily
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been using two types of chemicalweapons.
They've been using pepper balls,which are shot, shot out of
what's called like an airsoft gun, which looks super similar
to a paintball gun. They're also really similar in
diameter to paintballs and similarly meant to explode on
impact the way that paintballs do.
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The term Pepper Ball itself is trademarked by a company called
United Tactical Systems or UTS, and this company is located in
Lake Forest, IL, which is just north of Chicago in Lake County.
And the Chicago Reader, which isone of our local news outlets
here, printed a story a few weeks ago in late September
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revealing that the Department ofHomeland Security or DHS had
purchased $1.7 million in supplies from UTS that are
either pepper balls, pepper ballguns or other related equipment.
So that's one type of chemical weapon that that ICE and CVP
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have been using. The other type is called CS gas
and this has been used in a variety of canisters and
different smoke colors and is manufactured by a company called
Defense Technologies. So some of the canisters are our
whole canisters. They come in one part.
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When they are used, they stay inthat one part and then others
are in three parts that are meant to break apart into three
different parts to increase the area that the smoke and gas can
reach. So when they get to their their
high temperature, they'll break apart and then be able to to
scatter the CS gas kind of in a bigger radius.
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And I've included pictures of both types of those canisters
that have been photographed herein Chicago so that you can see
examples of what they might looklike if if you, you know, see
them in your neighborhood or want to just search For more
information about them based on the pictures or the logos.
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Defense Technologies as a company, it's AUS subsidiary of
a company called BAE Systems, which is Auk company.
They are a defense company and have a history of contracts with
countries like Saudi Arabia for use of BA ES weapons in Yemen
and with Israel for use of BA ESweapons across occupied
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Palestine. I also wanted to mention that
the use of CS gas is banned during times of war by the
Geneva Conventions, but it has been approved in various places
around the world for things likecrowd control and riot control,
very loosely defined. So the risk of injury from these
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weapons can come both from the powders that are in them, the
gas or the pepper powders that are in them, as well as from the
projectiles themselves. The balls or the canisters can
cause injuries even if even if they are not giving off the
powder or the gas. So before I move into ways that
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you can treat or provide aftercare, I wanted to mention
that even though there's no universal prevention for pepper
spray or pepper balls or tear gas attacks, there are a few
things that you can do to reduceharm or risk of injury if you
know that you're going to be in a place where chemical weapons
might be used against the people.
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And these are things that I do as a protest medic just to make
sure that I'm able to treat as many patients as possible
without, hopefully without getting injured myself.
So these things include wearing long sleeves and long pants,
wearing long socks and closed toed shoes.
This can be uncomfortable because it can get really
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sweaty, but it also protects your skin and covers your skin
from possible attack. Also refraining from wearing
contacts, lotions, face paint and heavy sunscreens because the
powder will get stuck in these creams or between your contact
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and in the surface of your eye. It can be really painful.
It can be really hard to remove on site when when these weapons
are deployed or when an attack happens.
And if you can, wearing goggles that are airtight, kind of stick
to your face and then AP 100 or better type respirator face
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mask. And that's the kind of reusable
face mask or that's the kind of sorry, non non disposable face
mask. But if that type of respirator
face mask isn't available, I would suggest definitely wearing
the best disposable that you canfind rather than going without
anything. So if you are in the vicinity of
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a tear gas attack or are near where pepper balls have
exploded, there's a few things that you can do.
So the first one is to move yourself and others away from
where the powder has exploded ascalmly and as quickly as
possible. If you run, it can both create
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panic as well as cause you to breathe more heavily, which can
when you're breathing more heavily, it can let more
chemical into your lungs and this can increase the amount of
pain that you're feeling. Also, if you're dealing with a
tear gas canister, you could potentially put something over
it to prevent the spread of the tear gas powder, something like
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a cardboard box, which would like keep it contained or I've
seen people use traffic cones. And if you were going to do
that, then you would also want to pour water around the
perimeter of the traffic cone aswell as through the hole that's
in the top of the traffic cone before moving to fresh air.
And if you are you have like really thick gloves on or
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prepared to do this as an action, you could also throw or
kick a tear gas canister away from you or away from the crowd
before moving to fresh air. But also knowing that this comes
with high risk of injury to the the temperature of the canister.
And it could also come with highrisk of charges if the way the
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way that you are kicking or throwing the canister is like
back in the direction of the officers who who deployed it
against you. So it's just to know those
things and to keep them in mind.So next I'm going to share some
some things you can do to treat tear gas or pepper ball
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exposure, both immediately kind of on the scene as well as in
terms of the aftercare. So immediately on the scene,
what you want to do to treat tear gas or pepper ball exposure
is to tilt your head all the wayback.
I demonstrated this in the otherpodcast video that I
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conversation I had with Randy. You're going to tilt your head
all the way back like this and then either kneel or squat if
you need to, to lower the level of your face or your head.
I'm short, so I'm regularly asking people to kneel or just
get lower than me so that I can reach up to their faces rather
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than having them stand next to me And then start.
You're going to take a water bottle or a bottle of water that
has one of those like sport topsand starting at the inside of
the of the open eye, you're going to squirt a direct and
steady stream of water like thiskind of while you're moving that
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water bottle outwards. And a few things I wanted to
mention about this because the way that you do this is
important to how well it can be used for treatment.
So it, it's going to be temporarily painful, but it's
important to hold the eye open and this can help you
effectively remove all the debris.
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So remember it's a powder, a really fine powder that that's
settled in. And so if you have your eyes
closed, which is definitely going to be your like natural
instinct, especially if you're in pain, you want to either hold
the eye open or have someone hold the eyes open so that that
water can get in there and kind of flush everything out.
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And then remember that it's not necessarily the composition of
the liquid. So what's in it that's most
important? It's actually the impact of that
water stream moving the tiny powder particles.
So that's why you start at the inside and then move outwards
because you're hoping that like the gravity will do, it's it's
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best to like have a stream of water outwards.
And that's why I recommend wateras being the most effective way
to do this. So mixes with Maalox or baby
shampoo, they haven't necessarily been found to be any
more effective than water on itsown.
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And if you're using milk, it canbe harmful because of how
quickly and easily it might spoil.
If you're like carrying it outside for a while as well as
you might, you don't know if theperson could have an allergy to
milk or sensitivity to milk. It could irritate kind of like
the inside of the eye more than water would.
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So that's why I always recommendwater.
It's usually cheaper and more widely available than any other
like DIY mix that you also mightmake yourself.
So I doing that until the pain subsided and then trying as much
as possible to not worsen thingsby rubbing your eyes.
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So that's what you can do immediately after exposure.
And then in terms of aftercare, I would suggest removing the
clothes that are soiled or that are that may have been exposed
as soon as possible and putting them in a plastic bag.
A grocery bag is fine and tying,tying that up and setting it
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aside. Some people would say that you
could leave that for about 48 hours before you wash it to like
quote UN quote deactivate the powder or just let it subside,
which I I have heard anecdotallybut don't know if it is
completely truly helpful. But it definitely doesn't hurt,
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especially if a child or pet is not going to get to that bag of
clothing. Photograph any visible injuries
that you have, whether this is from redness from your eyes,
irritation on the face, irritation from exposure
anywhere on your body, or an injury, direct injury from the
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projectile that was used, whether that's a pepper ball or
ACS gas canister. Try to shower quite soon and
wash your hair with cold water. Now using cold water will
decrease the likelihood that your pores will continue to
open, which would just make it alot more painful because it
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means that like the CS gas can just get more into your body.
And then if you have long hair, I would suggest washing it
upside down. So the runoff is it of it isn't
getting into your eyes, is it like going over your face or
isn't going down your back? And then to of course, like
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engage in some supportive general aftercare.
So rest, hydration, having nutritionally dense foods, I
especially suggest liquids that are going to be soothing to your
throat. And you know, I'm sure if you've
had a sore throat before, you will know what that means for
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you, whether it's soup or tea orwater.
But yeah, whatever. Whatever that may mean for you,
whatever might be cozy and supportive for you.
And then in the days following, I would suggest refraining from
wearing any heavy lotions or creams for the next two to three
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days because your body is going to be continuing to like try and
get rid of any powder that was exposed to.
And if it gets trapped under those creams or skins, then it
might cause additional pain similar to your initial
exposure, or it could cause a rash or other skin irritation.
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And then even if you are not a person that typically goes to
the doctor, if you're like, I'm going to tough it out, I'm going
to see what happens. I would suggest to make note of
all the symptoms that you experienced kind of from the
time of your exposure to, to at least like three to five days
after and to seek additional care if needed.
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And that helps to start a paper trail of of evidence that like
you were impacted by this chemical exposure.
So whether it's throat irritation, cough, nausea,
headache, rash, hives, dizziness, interruptions to your
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menstrual cycle in any way, these are some of the symptoms
that folks have reported as as being delayed from initial
chemical weapons exposure or potentially happening from
happening from secondary exposure as well.
And especially remember that allof all of what you're
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experiencing can be compounded if you have any sort of chronic
conditions like asthma or heart disease, any other immune
conditions or a post viral illness like long COVID.
Something that hasn't been talked about, but that I think
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is important to discuss or suggest because of the world
that we're living in with an ongoing COVID pandemic as well
as an annual flu season is to wear KN 95 or equivalent type of
disposable mask for five to seven days in indoor public
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places. If you're not doing that already
after your chemical weapons exposure.
Because of course that sort of exposure is going to impact both
your immune and your respiratorysystems.
And so it could increase your risk for for transmission of
something like COVID or flu, especially through your nose or
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your throat. So I've included some additional
pictures for you. I have included additional links
for episode notes or for furtherreference.
So I hope that this is helpful. I hope that you don't actually
need it, but because we are living in times where these
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chemical weapons are being beingused in time in ways that we
can't predict, I want to make sure that everyone is at least
prepared with the information and the knowledge that can help
them spread calm and support others if you are exposed.
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So be safe and take care. Thank you.