San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Medical consequences of attacking Iraq
Helen Caldicott
 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/10/ED44718.DTL

As the Bush administration prepares to make war on the Iraqi people -- and
make no mistake, it is the civilian population of that country and not Saddam
Hussein who will bear the brunt of the hostilities -- it is important that we
recall the medical consequences of the last Gulf War. That conflict was, in
effect, a nuclear war.

During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States deployed hundreds of tons of
weapons, many of them anti-tank shells made of depleted uranium 238. This
material is 1.7 times more dense than lead, and hence when incorporated into
an anti-tank shell and fired, it achieves great momentum, cutting through tank
armor like a hot knife through butter.

What other properties does uranium 238 possess? First, it is pyrophoric: When
it hits a tank at high speed it bursts into flames, producing tiny aerosolized
particles less than 5 microns in diameter that are easily inhalable into the
terminal air passages of the lung. Second, it is a potent radioactive
carcinogen, emitting a relatively heavy alpha particle composed of 2 protons
and 2 neutrons. Once inside the body -- either in the lung if it has been
inhaled, or in a wound if it penetrates flesh, or ingested since it
concentrates in the food chain and contaminates water -- it can produce cancer
in the lungs, bones, blood, or kidneys. Third, it has a half-life of 4.5
billion years, meaning the areas in which this ammunition was used in Iraq and
Kuwait during Gulf War will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of
time.

Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to the effects of radiation than
adults. My fellow pediatricians in the Iraqi town of Basra, for example, are
reporting an increase of 6 to 12 times in the incidence of childhood leukemia
and cancer. Yet because of the sanctions imposed upon Iraq by the United
States and United Nations, they have no access to drugs or effective radiation
machines to treat their patients.

The incidence of congenital malformations has doubled in the exposed
populations in Iraq where these weapons were used. Among them are babies born
with only one eye or missing all or part of their brain.

The medical consequences of the use of uranium 238 almost certainly did not
affect only Iraqis. Some U.S. veterans exposed to it are reported, by at least
one medical researcher, to be excreting uranium in their urine a decade later.
Other reports indicate it is being excreted in their semen. (The fact that
almost one-third of the American tanks used in Desert Storm were themselves
made of uranium 238 is another story, for their crews were thereby exposed to
whole-body gamma radiation.)

Would these effects have surprised the U.S. authorities? No, for incredible as
it may seem, the American military's own studies prior to Desert Storm warned
that aerosol uranium exposure under battlefield conditions could lead to
cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease,
neurocognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.

Do George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald
Rumsfeld understand the medical consequences of the 1991 war and the likely
health effects of the next one they are now planning? If they do not, their
ignorance is breathtaking; even more incredible though -- and alas, much more
likely -- is that they do understand, but do not care.

Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years to an international campaign to
educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age. She spoke in
San Francisco recently in a benefit for the Nuclear Policy Research Institute,
which she founded.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.