U.S. Scientists Skeptical of Palestinian Tear-Gas Death Reports

American scientists are skeptical of Palestinian claims that 41 people have been killed and 100 women have suffered miscarriages as a result of tear gas used by Israeli soldiers to quell recent rioting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Yet, they said, these claims cannot be dismissed flatly because sufficient laboratory studies--by today’s standards--were not done when tear gas first became available about seven decades ago.

Such studies might have shed light on whether pregnant women and their fetuses, infants and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the effects of tear gas.

According to Palestinian officials, 25 of the 41 dead were infants or over age 65. But an Israeli army spokesman would acknowledge only one death caused by tear gas--that of a 20-year-old man hit in the head by a tear-gas canister.

Based on more than 70 years of actual experience, according to U.S. physicians, law-enforcement officials and military officials, deaths caused by exposure to tear gas are rare even when it is used in high concentrations in a confined area, such as in a house where a criminal has taken refuge. They cited five cases in which this has happened in the United States.

Palestinians have said that “nearly half” the 41 dead were indoors when they were exposed to the tear gas.

None of more than 15 tear-gas experts interviewed by The Times knew of any instance in which exposure to tear gas out of doors proved lethal--because tear gas dissipates quickly. “I have never heard of a death in the open,” said Dr. Samuel A. Cucinell, an internist at the Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. “I don’t think it could occur. It (the tear gas) won’t stay around.”

But because the type of tear gas used by the Israelis is widely used around the world, some scientists are urging that such research be undertaken now.

“It is irresponsible to use these agents when so little is known about their effects,” said Jonathan E. Fine, an internist with the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights, which investigates allegations of torture and human rights violations.

The 41 deaths were cited in a statement released Wednesday by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington. The group’s head, Faris Bouhafa, said that 18 of the victims were infants and that seven were over age 65. No information was available about the victims’ prior health.

Under normal circumstances, tear gas irritates membranes of the eyes, nose and throat and makes the victim secrete tears, sneeze and cough. But animal studies have shown that the chemicals in extremely high concentrations can kill by constricting air passages and burning tissues in the lungs, which causes a fatal accumulation of fluids in the lungs.

“The first time you get a whiff, it’s like being hit by a club,” said Cucinell, who studied tear gases for three years at the Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Aberdeen, Md.

Exposure for more than a minute or two “is like having a severe asthma attack,” said toxicologist Yves Alarie of the University of Pittsburgh. “You can’t work or run or function properly. . . . “ But the effects subside within 15 to 30 minutes after the exposure stops, he added.

Tear gases are effective at concentrations as low as 3 to 10 parts per million in the air, Cucinell said. His laboratory studies with rodents, rabbits, goats and dogs have shown that concentrations of 30,000 to 50,000 parts per million are necessary to cause death from respiratory arrest.

At least three people died as a result of tear-gas exposure during the Vietnam War, according to Dr. Alje Vennema, an internist at New York University.

In an interview, he said he examined at least 23 Vietnamese who suffered severe respiratory distress after U.S. forces pumped tear gas into underground tunnels to drive out Viet Cong. Three of the victims, who claimed to be civilians, died within hours of the examination, Vennema said.

“I couldn’t find any evidence of war injuries,” said Vennema, who spent five years in Vietnam as part of a Canadian medical team. “But while I was examining them, my hands started to burn and I became quite sick” from tear gas clinging to their clothing and skin.

At least five deaths have been caused by tear gas used by police in the United States, according to Dr. Arthur A. Stein, a pathologist at Albany Medical College in New York.

One such case occurred on Oct. 7, 1958, when New York State Troopers threw one tear-gas grenade into the bedroom of Marvin Titcomb, a 29-year-old newspaper carrier who had barricaded himself in his house after it was condemned for construction of a highway.

After 30 minutes, Titcomb, who had vowed he would not be taken alive, collapsed. He was rushed to the Albany Medical Center, where he died 12 hours later from respiratory arrest, according to Stein, who performed the autopsy.

The other four cases, in New York, Florida and Virginia, also involved the use of tear gas in small rooms.

But whether tear gas is used indoors or in the open, experts agree that tear gas could aggravate heart and lung diseases.

Alarie recalled a 1952 episode in which a dense, toxic smog of coal smoke and industrial fumes blanketed London. “There were about 4,000 excess deaths due to irritants in the fog. Almost all of these deaths were in . . . people who had cardiovascular or respiratory disease,” he said.

But Alarie noted that the London siege lasted a week, while tear-gas exposure would normally be for only a few minutes.

Manufacturers of tear gas argue that its safety has been repeatedly demonstrated and that it is the most humane way to control crowds. “You would see much more grief and many more fatalities and injuries if it were not available,” said Burl Alison, vice president of TransTechnology Corp. of Sherman Oaks, the parent company of the largest U.S. tear-gas manufacturer, Federal Laboratories Inc. of Saltsburg, Pa.

Maugh reported from Los Angeles and Fisher from Jerusalem.