Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets
Johnny's Dad | 25.12.2005 23:21 | Anti-militarism | World
A death sentence here and abroad
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"
Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.
And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that "Gulf-era veterans" now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.
This week the American Free Press dropped a "dirty bomb" on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.
Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense's Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.
This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff.
Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as "spectacular ... and a matter of concern."
This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate - the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.
In simple words, DU "trashes the body." When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: "I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people."
Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.
The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II.
They brought it home
Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health problems.
In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases. In some veterans' families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans.
How did they hide it?
Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully tested. The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project.
Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry's father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent.
Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly.
They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust.
The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs.
The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries.
Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment.
Women living around these facilities have reported increases in endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past decade. The military denies that DU is the cause.
The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only.
Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.
Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, D.C.
Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12. Although I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me I could only talk about DU in Oregon "and nothing overseas ... nothing political."
Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several months later. When that didn't work, he contacted Dr. Allan Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr. Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq.
Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR, reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her last job had been with the CIA.
How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel serving in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen. Paul Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95 percent of Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the military by 1995. Any of those continuing in military service were isolated from each other, preventing critical information being transferred to new troops. The "next DU war" had already been planned, and those planning it wanted "no skunk at the garden party."
The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret
A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael Collins Piper, "The High Priests of War: The Secret History of How America's Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their Drive for Global Empire," details the early plans for a war against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide with getting the DU "show on the road" and the oil crisis in the Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon. The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the oil in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the Iraqis and Kurds in 1912.
The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their "godfather" and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a "war against terrorism" long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the most influential men in the United States.
Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby's neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch. Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group, who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II, with the same faces.
When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John McCarthy, who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU to destroy the genetic code and genetic future of large populations of Arabs and Moslems in the Middle East and Central Asia - just coincidentally the areas where most of the world's oil deposits are located - he replied: "It has all the handprints of Henry Kissinger."
In Zbignew Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives," the map of the Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S. foreign policy. The "South" region corresponds precisely to the regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S. bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU.
A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from atmospheric testing!
No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from Agent Orange, "Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used for foreign policy."
Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will be carried around the world and deposited in our environments just as the "smog of war" from the 1991 Gulf War was found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii.
In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by 2020. What else do they know that they aren't telling us? I know that depleted uranium is a death sentence ... for all of us. We will all die in silent ways.
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml
add a comment on this article
*********************************************************************
Johnny Got a Gun - Protest Song 25.Dec.2005 13:53
By: Johnny's Dad
(Please distribute freely.)
MP3 - http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/5801.php
They gave my boy a gun,
loaded with uranium.
war complex profits rise
you filthy rotten scum!
Our leaders lie and deceive,
to feed their corporate friends greed,
pre-emptive war is what we need
while our veteran's kids are born with no feet
Our children will cry,
"what have you done?
You believed a lie?
Now look what has come"
Propaganda blows,
agitation grows,
blood and oil flows
the right wing knows
Our children will cry,
"what have you done?
You believed a lie?
Now look what has come"
Politicians working for you and me?
Neo-cons and mega money
Now we're voting electronically
PLEASE WAKE UP!
Fascist screws tightening down,
Corporations control your town,
Climate change is....
just around the corner....
They won't spend a dime
destroying the environment is no crime
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
How is the air?
How is the ice?
Oceans are diluting,
but why stop polluting?
They won't spend a dime
destroying the environment is no crime
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
(new verse)
They brought my boy back
then they sent him back to Iraq
oil simply must flow
Stop loss, stock price, mega money is just like crack
Our children are being murdered
Who profits - Halliburton
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
They gave my boy a gun
said he'd get an education
they gave my boy a gun
loaded it up with uranium .
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"
Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.
And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that "Gulf-era veterans" now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.
This week the American Free Press dropped a "dirty bomb" on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.
Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense's Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.
This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff.
Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as "spectacular ... and a matter of concern."
This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate - the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.
In simple words, DU "trashes the body." When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: "I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people."
Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.
The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II.
They brought it home
Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health problems.
In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases. In some veterans' families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans.
How did they hide it?
Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully tested. The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project.
Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry's father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent.
Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly.
They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust.
The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs.
The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries.
Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment.
Women living around these facilities have reported increases in endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past decade. The military denies that DU is the cause.
The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only.
Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.
Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, D.C.
Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12. Although I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me I could only talk about DU in Oregon "and nothing overseas ... nothing political."
Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several months later. When that didn't work, he contacted Dr. Allan Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr. Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq.
Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR, reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her last job had been with the CIA.
How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel serving in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen. Paul Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95 percent of Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the military by 1995. Any of those continuing in military service were isolated from each other, preventing critical information being transferred to new troops. The "next DU war" had already been planned, and those planning it wanted "no skunk at the garden party."
The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret
A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael Collins Piper, "The High Priests of War: The Secret History of How America's Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their Drive for Global Empire," details the early plans for a war against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide with getting the DU "show on the road" and the oil crisis in the Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon. The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the oil in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the Iraqis and Kurds in 1912.
The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their "godfather" and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a "war against terrorism" long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the most influential men in the United States.
Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby's neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch. Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group, who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II, with the same faces.
When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John McCarthy, who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU to destroy the genetic code and genetic future of large populations of Arabs and Moslems in the Middle East and Central Asia - just coincidentally the areas where most of the world's oil deposits are located - he replied: "It has all the handprints of Henry Kissinger."
In Zbignew Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives," the map of the Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S. foreign policy. The "South" region corresponds precisely to the regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S. bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU.
A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from atmospheric testing!
No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from Agent Orange, "Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used for foreign policy."
Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will be carried around the world and deposited in our environments just as the "smog of war" from the 1991 Gulf War was found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii.
In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by 2020. What else do they know that they aren't telling us? I know that depleted uranium is a death sentence ... for all of us. We will all die in silent ways.
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml add a comment on this article
*********************************************************************
Johnny Got a Gun - Protest Song 25.Dec.2005 13:53
By: Johnny's Dad
(Please distribute freely.)
MP3 -
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/5801.php They gave my boy a gun,
loaded with uranium.
war complex profits rise
you filthy rotten scum!
Our leaders lie and deceive,
to feed their corporate friends greed,
pre-emptive war is what we need
while our veteran's kids are born with no feet
Our children will cry,
"what have you done?
You believed a lie?
Now look what has come"
Propaganda blows,
agitation grows,
blood and oil flows
the right wing knows
Our children will cry,
"what have you done?
You believed a lie?
Now look what has come"
Politicians working for you and me?
Neo-cons and mega money
Now we're voting electronically
PLEASE WAKE UP!
Fascist screws tightening down,
Corporations control your town,
Climate change is....
just around the corner....
They won't spend a dime
destroying the environment is no crime
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
How is the air?
How is the ice?
Oceans are diluting,
but why stop polluting?
They won't spend a dime
destroying the environment is no crime
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
(new verse)
They brought my boy back
then they sent him back to Iraq
oil simply must flow
Stop loss, stock price, mega money is just like crack
Our children are being murdered
Who profits - Halliburton
they got a place in the Cayman Ils
you filthy rotten scum
They gave my boy a gun
said he'd get an education
they gave my boy a gun
loaded it up with uranium .
Johnny's Dad
Comments
Hide the following 40 comments
Just give us one
26.12.2005 02:39
sceptic
sceptical through ignorance
26.12.2005 10:18
Matt
Dear septic
26.12.2005 11:17
mark
Sources?
26.12.2005 14:40
Ah, the radioactive dust ablowing in the wind. I remember a similar posting a year or two ago, when we told that radioactive dust from Iraq was going to blow all over Europe last summer, and how we'd wake up one morning to find our cars covered with radioactivity. Didn't happen. Even remotely.
To repeat the calculation made then. Uranium is found in 1.4 parts per million in the Earth's crust [
One of the more crass and misleading comments:
"A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs."
This might be true if we waited for it all to decay. Unfortunately, its half life is more than 4 billion years.
sceptic
Your dodgy science
26.12.2005 19:10
No there won't. The typical concentration will be lower than the average since uranium ores are concentrated in certain regions. Living on top of a uranium mine would also be unsafe.
If you want a reputable source about the hazards of DU how about Doug Rokke? He was appointed by the Pentagon to assess the effects of DU after the first Gulf War. Of course, you would say he is biased, since after inspecting the sites he and most of his team are dying from DU related illnesses.
mark
dodgy science and uranium mines
26.12.2005 20:46
Read the conclusion, and you may learn somethng. Then, maybe not.
sceptic
Genotoxicity
27.12.2005 13:02
1. This means it could cause birth defects without causing radiological damage.
2. Are you seriously saying that covering an area in tonnes of slightly radioactive dust has no-effect on background radiation. (Hello? Sellafield hardly glows in the dark but it produces enough radiation to cause leukemia clusters, and that's with safety procedures.)
I hope you show this much scepticism when a Govt. official tells you that DU is perfectly safe, but I somehow suspect that you don't.
Would you mind eating some delicious Yellow-cake I have left over from Christmas? Don't worry it's fully depleted. It's so light and airy you can almost inhale it. Yum Yum.
xxx
Sim1
Waiting for you next cut and paste job.
27.12.2005 13:37
It is fundamentally bad science to attempt to prove a negative using very limited theoretical models. The only way to discover the effect that DU has on combatants and civilians is to conduct large scale long term studies on the health of people who have actually been exposed to it.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that DU may have very bad and very long lasting effects indeed. Why have these studies which would tell us for sure never been carried out?
Mark
You want studies?
27.12.2005 18:27
There's also the British Journal of Radiology [no! They've been got at by The Powers That Be! Not.]
BTW, the Sellafield leukemia cluster isn't true:
Of course uranium is poisonous, and no, I wouldn't eat yellowcake. But that's a bloody silly comment. Lead is poisonous, and think of the tons of lead from bullets on a battlefield. Is the firing of lead bullets now a 'war crime'?
sceptic
More cut and paste from the septic tank.
27.12.2005 21:33
And uranium is radioactive as well as poisonous, so your comparison with lead is as nonsensical as the rest of the trash you've been spouting.
Mark
There is a limit to stupidity
27.12.2005 23:26
World Health Organisation? Cut and paste!
Just read it - or are you too blinkered? Read the conclusions.
I do apologise for one thing: I posted the wrong link for the British Journal of Radiology:
Now, we have some of the world's leading experts on one side, and Mark on the other. Now, people, who do you think is the more reliable?
sceptic
WHO?
28.12.2005 00:04
sceptic - he's been wandering this forum for at least three years to my knowledge, only seeking to undermine the exposure of the bad deeds and manipulation of the people in charge. That is his only role and can be roundly rejected
His only role is to present the arguments of the establishment
He can be regarded as a government/intelligence agency/corporation shill
dh
ah, dh
28.12.2005 00:59
And the World Health Organisation - yeah, they're all out to kill us - providing that dh's intestine doesn't get fed up with his stupidity that it rises up and throtles him first [apologies to Douglas Adams]
sceptic
Not to yours there isn't
28.12.2005 01:53
Yes, you cut and pasted a link to a World Health Organisation report.
If you think your report contradicts my argument that there has been no long term, large scale studies on real world DU exposure, then provide relevant quotes from a report, and provide a link to the report. That is how debates are conducted in science.
But then you don't actually know much about science do you? You just pretend to.
Mark
sources and studies
28.12.2005 08:58
I'm not going to bother quoting from the report. Unless, of course, you're too damn idle to go and read it. I give you the reference, you read it. It will tell you all you want to know.
How about the WHO DU mission to Kosovo? You want to read it? I'm not going to quote from it, because that's just 'cut and paste', isn't it?
What the report does tell us is that the original post, on which I am commenting, is bollocks.
Well, I'll gave you one quote. Page 25.
'Scientific and medical studies have not established a link between depleted uranium and the onset of cancers, congenital abnormalities, or serious toxic effects on organs.'
Now, if your level of literacy permits it, READ THE STUDIES.
sceptic
Septic can't read
28.12.2005 11:46
That is because there have never been any long term, large scale studies.
'Have not established a link' does NOT mean that a link does not exist.
You say you 'cannot be bothered' to post the quotes which support your argument, yet you expect the rest of us to read the tens of thousands of words you have linked to searching for them.
I don't think you are even reading the reports you are linking to, here's a quote from one of them, talking about the civilian population in Iraq
"there is an apparent threefold increase in leukaemia in the southern provinces, the sites of the major battlefields of the Gulf War".
This clearly supports the original article. There is more from the WHO reports which stress the importance of cleaning up sites which have been contaminated by DU.
Why dont you go and read the studies before telling the rest of us to.
Mark
selective quoting
28.12.2005 13:40
'Of relevance to war is the agent benzene, which has been established as an occupational cause of acute myeloid leukaemia [36]. This is relevant on battlefields since the advent of mechanized warfare because the residues include partially burnt hydrocarbons from fuels, explosives, propellants and plastics. For the Gulf War, there is also the Kuwait oil fires to take into consideration. The retreating Iraqi forces set the Kuwait oil fields alight and the smoke generated was carried by the prevailing winds over Iraq.'
Since the WHO concludes DU is not a health hazard, nor that any harmful effects have been noted in Kosovo, Kuwait or Iraq, then the need for a long term large scale follow up doesn't seem relevant. Further, such a study is almost impossible, since the distribution of DU will be very difficult to trace. Of course, it is never possible to prove that there isn't a link, but people have probably got more urgent health issues to worry about.
But, as I said, the original post is crap.
sceptic
DU testing in Scotland
28.12.2005 14:34
Since 1980 the British Ministry of Defence have fired by their own admission approximately 30 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions over the Firing Range at Dunderennan in South West Scotland.
The misnamed 'Depleted' Uranium is left after enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium in order to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. During this process, the fissionable isotope Uranium 235 is separated from uranium. The remaining uranium, which is 99.8% uranium 238 is misleadingly called 'depleted uranium'. While the term 'depleted' implies it isn't particularly dangerous, in fact, this waste product of the nuclear industry is 'conveniently' disposed of by producing deadly weapons.
It may also have traces of plutonium. And like lead or other heavy metals it is chemically toxic. It also has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, making it a hazard forever.
When it hits a hard target it ignites and aerolizes into a fine mist of radioactive particles, that has been blamed for causing cancers, leukemias, birth defects, Gulf War Syndrome and other illnesses.
If inhaled or ingested it can cause damage to kidneys and other internal organs. It can also enter the food chain through water or soil. A good gust of wind could send the particles for miles.
The MOD claim they don't hit hard targets but only fire into the Solway Firth. Around 20-29 tons of Depleted Uranium waste is lying at the Solway Seabed with the MOD making no attempt to retrieve the shells and munitions. This is stealth dumping. As Depleted Uranium is radioactive waste, it is an breach of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and other Matter,
1972. .
The MOD are therefore breaching international law through the dumping of Radioactive Waste in the Solway. They are also creating environmental and human health hazards by hitting hard targets with Depleted Uranium weapons.
Below are photos taken by activists during the summer 2003 at Dundrennan near Kirkcudbright in SouthWest Scotland.
The photos have raised concerns that the MOD have been testfiring DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS by hitting tanks and other hard targets. The MOD claim they don't but have refused to say what kind of munitions are used.
Compressed photos;
There is also photographic evidence that the MOD are conducting tests through 'DU Gardens', where DU fragments are buried and studied to see how long it corrodes in the soil.
The company which is in charge of weapons testing in Dundrennan, and at another MOD base at West Freugh is called QuietQi. This company was formed by the MOD, and the American company Carlyle Industries has bought up a 33% stake in QuietQi. Carlyle Industries has strong links with the Bush administration and the Dept of Defence. It is the 11th biggest defence contractor to the Pentagon. They are also intending to test a electro-magnetic gun at Dundrennan.
The MOD camp is to the west of the village of Dundrennan, and the range is close to the cliffs overlooking the Solway Firth. The tanks and other debris are between Gypsy Point in the West and Netherlaw Point to the east.
One tank near Gypsy Point is admitted by MOD to be radioactive and there was a article in the Sunday Herald about it- March/April 2004. The MOD claim they left a luminous radium dial inside. The last I heard they said they were going to dispose of it as radioactive waste.
jeb the wise
Septic still can't read
28.12.2005 15:49
And as for selective quoting, I note that you ommitted the first sentence of the paragraph you quoted. Here it is since you didn't seem to be able to read it the first time.
"The increase in the number of Iraqi cancer registrations may be due in part to exposure to chemical carcinogens."
MAY be due IN PART...
At least you have finally admitted that there have indeed been no long term, large scale studies. You are wrong when you say that such a study would be impossible. We know where DU was used in Iraq, at the sites of the major battles, as the report BRJ report noted.
So eventually your entire argument falls down to your last line 'it's crap'. Well thankyou septic for such an intelligent and literate contribution to the discussion.
Mark
As much stealth dumping
28.12.2005 16:41
sceptic
the cows!
28.12.2005 17:42
I see cows in the pics grazing near the tanks. With all the DU flying about, I asume they glow in the dark by now?
freddie
The TRUTH
28.12.2005 19:40
'DU is a death sentence' 'DU "trashes the body."' 'DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health problems.' ' Four nuclear wars' 'depleted uranium is a death sentence'
Reality:
'"The increase in the number of Iraqi cancer registrations may be due in part to exposure to chemical carcinogens."
MAY be in PART
oops I'm sorry if I seem to be exaggerating ...
Of course they'd recommend clear up. Classic bureaucratic response. In other words, we don't think there's a problem, but just in case one emerges, clear the site up so that you can't blame us.
I think the world has other, more important, things to worry about.
sceptic
Repeat after me
28.12.2005 21:14
The reports you quoted clearly show that DU exposure has been a death sentence for Iraqi cancer victims in the south.
Earlier on, before you'd read the reports you'd posted, these were "some of the world's leading experts" and now that you've actually glanced at the reports and realised they contradict you, you dismiss the WHO as bureaucrats. At least try to be consistent with your lies.
It's great to hear you say that the world has "more important things to worry about" than a threefold increase in leukemia cases. Such as? Winning Hearts and Minds?
Mark
Oh, grow up
28.12.2005 23:50
Why no leukemia in uranium mines? In Kosovo? In Kuwait?
More important thngs? Yes. The daily death toll due to malaria, hunger, dysentry ... why go on?
The link to health hazards of DU are tenuous at the best. As you have repeatedly CAPITALISED, it MAY be a health hazard. Proving a negative in this sort of context is extremely difficult. But if it is a serious health hazard, then it's taking a remarkably long time to show up. When was the Balkans War? More than ten years ago. SO where are the casualties?
sceptic
You are transparent sceptic
29.12.2005 00:19
And isn't this list so much better without the relentless policing of the 'volunteers'?
I wish it could be Christmas on IMC every day
dh
Sorry septic, did I offend you?
29.12.2005 01:13
OTHER factors MAY have had SOME influence on the leukemia rates in southern Iraq. The report wan't saying that DU may have caused the leukemias, it was assuming that they were mainly caused by DU.
"Why no leukemia in uranium mines?"
Again, did you even read the report you quoted? It had a section on the higher rates of lung cancers in uranium mine workers. Are you seriously suggesting that there are no ill effects to working with uranium. Your ignorance is truly remarkable.
"But if it is a serious health hazard, then it's taking a remarkably long time to show up."
The effects are already showing up. In the report which you quoted, they talked about the tripling of leukemia rates.
"The daily death toll due to malaria, hunger, dysentry ... why go on?"
Malaria etc are all important complex problems, difficult to solve. The problem of DU contamination would be easy to solve, just stop bombing people with it.
"When was the Balkans War? More than ten years ago. SO where are the casualties?"
8 tonnes of DU were used in Kosovo, 300 were used in the first Gulf War, 1000 in the most recent episode. Which region do you think would show the strongest effects?
Mark
Not offence, just exasperation
29.12.2005 12:25
2. The hazard in uranium mines is made quite clear - radon, particularly in poorly ventilated mines, and silocosis. Page 12 of the report.
3. I am not advocating the use of DU and never have. On the other hand, the assertions that are made as to its hazards are clearly wrong.
4. A case could be made for its use: if, as a democracy, we are going to ask people to fight wars for us, then they deserve to be supplied with the most effective of weapons. If DU provides that effectiveness without any disadvantages, ten a case can be made for its use.
sceptic
Exasperated? at least you haven't got cancer.
29.12.2005 14:15
Yes, and neither do you. Neither does anyone. Something is causing the leukemia rates to triple, what is it? The authors note that the chemicals might be part of it, but not all of it. What other candidates are there? Oh hang on, yes that's right, radioactive dust can cause cancer, maybe it's DU.
2. "The hazard in uranium mines is made quite clear - radon, particularly in poorly ventilated mines, and silocosis. Page 12 of the report. "
You really haven't read it at all have you.
"high rates of radon exposure and primitive mining techniques, resulting in a high dust burden"
You see, the report specifically mentions uranium dust as well. Do you really think that breathing in uranium dust is safe? How ignorant are you?
3. "On the other hand, the assertions that are made as to its hazards are clearly wrong."
So the WHO are mistaken then? Earlier you were touting tham as the world's leading experts.
4. "If DU provides that effectiveness without any disadvantages"
Well that's a very big if isn't it. We don't know and we won't know until large scale, long term studies have been conducted. Over half of the US veterans from the first gulf war are now on permanent disability benefits. Don't we owe it to them to find out why? Not according to you.
Mark
blah radioactive dust blah
29.12.2005 15:56
1000 tonnes dropped? Unlikely. But to go back to the calculations: a volume 1km by 1km and 1m deep contains 2.5 x 10^6 tonnes of earth. At the average concentration of U in the earth's crust that corresponds to around 4 tonnes of U. DU is less radioactive than natural U, so the activity of that soil is equivalent to around 6 tonnes of DU.
There's probably as much uranium in a 1m depth under Heathrow airport as there is in Iraq as a result of the war.
other random points:
'You really haven't read it at all have you.
"high rates of radon exposure and primitive mining techniques, resulting in a high dust burden"
You see, the report specifically mentions uranium dust as well. Do you really think that breathing in uranium dust is safe? How ignorant are you?'
Dust Silicosis. Miners. Coal miners. Heard of silicosis in conext of mining?
"3. "On the other hand, the assertions that are made as to its hazards are clearly wrong."
So the WHO are mistaken then? Earlier you were touting tham as the world's leading experts. "
Referring to the scaremongering of the original article, not the WHO.
sceptic
More septic ignorance
29.12.2005 18:07
It's a widely available figure. Go and look it up. The fact that you don't know this only displays your ignorance.
"But to go back to the calculations: a volume 1km by 1km and 1m deep contains 2.5 x 10^6 tonnes of earth. At the average concentration of U in the earth's crust that corresponds to around 4 tonnes of U. DU is less radioactive than natural U, so the activity of that soil is equivalent to around 6 tonnes of DU."
Your theory falls down on 2 points of fact. 1. Uranium is not distributed evenly through the earths core. 2. Uranium which has been burnt is in a different physical form to uranium in the earth.
Theories count for nothing against observation.
"Dust Silicosis. Miners. Coal miners. Heard of silicosis in conext of mining?"
What has silicosis got to do with lung cancer? The article was specifically talking about lung cancer, not silicosis.
"Referring to the scaremongering of the original article, not the WHO."
Well the WHO also say that DU is hazardous and should be cleared up. You disagree with them?
Mark
Reputable responses
29.12.2005 18:16
"Because DU is a chemical toxicant heavy metal with nephrotoxic (kidney-damaging)[16], teratogenic (birth defect-causing)[17], and potentially carcinogenic[18] properties, there is a connection between uranium exposure and a variety of illnesses[19]. The chemical toxicological hazard posed by uranium dwarfs its radiological hazard because it is only weakly radioactive. In 2002, A.C. Miller, et al., of the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, found that the chemical generation of hydroxyl radicals by depleted uranium in vitro exceeds radiolytic generation by one million-fold[20]. Hydroxyl radicals damage DNA and other cellular structures, leading to cancer, immune system damage in white blood cells, birth defects in gonocytes (testes), and other serious health problems. In 2005, uranium metalworkers at a Bethlehem plant near Buffalo, New York, exposed to frequent occupational uranium inhalation risks, were found to have the same patterns of symptoms and illness as Gulf War Syndrome victims[21],[22].
A report written by an Irish petro-chemical engineer stated that in Iraq, the death rate per 1000 Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 2.3 in 1989 to 16.6 in 1993, and cases of lymphoblastic leukaemia more than quadrupled. (K. Rirchard (1998) Does Iraq's depleted uranium pose a health risk? The Lancet, Volume 351, Number 9103). I. Al-Sadoon, et al., writing in the Medical Journal of Basrah University, report a similar increase (see Table 1 here). (See Gulf War syndrome for more details specifically on the controversy over the use of depleted uranium in the Persian Gulf War.)"
"In 2002, A.C. Miller, et al., of the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, found that the chemical generation of hydroxyl radicals by depleted uranium in vitro exceeds radiolytic generation by one million-fold[20]." (Just in case you missed it in the body of all that text)
The rest of the article and the links that follow are required reading, for a non-emotionally manipulating response to sceptic's criticisms.
Sceptic, you're right about one thing. The original article overstates the case against DU, but the concern are geniune and legitimate. Your original response, particularly your sneering use of the word reputable, as if a lay person could never justifiably comment on this issue hardly seems tailored to provoke reasoned debate does it now?
Also I believe that if DU is chemically toxic then huband/wife cross contamination would be possible and I for one can do without mutagens around my gonads, ta very much.
xxx
Sim1
silicosis
29.12.2005 21:28
Page 12: 'the health effects observed .. are attributed to radon, silicosis (lung cancer), dust, smoke ...'
Silicosis is a well known occupational hazard in all mining industries - eg coal mining. There is no separating comma between the silicosis and the bracketed lung cancer. The two are being taken as synonymous.
I think you mean crust rather than core. Indeed, rather than invalidating the theory, it strengthens it. It means that are places where the uranium concentration is far higher - to no ill effect.
Uranium when burnt is in a different physical form. Relevance to its toxicity? In any event, a good shower of rain [and it does rain in Iraq) will weather any residue quite rapidly.
Theory counts for nothing as against observation. How very true. No such effects have been directly observed.
Chemically toxic: yes, indeed. As are all heavy metals. All the articles make the point very strongly that the radiological hazard is tiny in comparison. Lead is another heavy metal, and is extremely toxic. Far more lead will be scattered about a battlefield than uranium. So why is uranium singled out as a hazard when there is far more lead around? There is another point here: lead is an accumulative poison. The literature makes it clear that uranium is eliminated quite rapidly from the body. Lead is not.
sceptic
Silicosis is not cancer
30.12.2005 00:48
The BRJ report you quoted mentions nothing about silicosis. Silicosis is not cancer.
"It means that are places where the uranium concentration is far higher - to no ill effect. "
And your source for this is?
"Uranium when burnt is in a different physical form. Relevance to its toxicity?"
Because you can't breathe in uranium which is in rock form, whereas the fine dust will get into your lungs and then stay there.
"Theory counts for nothing as against observation. How very true. No such effects have been directly observed."
Apart from the facts that half of US veterans are on disability benefits, and that leukemia rates have tripled in southern Iraq.
Mark
Attempt at an answer
30.12.2005 01:11
The hydroxyl radical, ·OH, is the neutral form of the hydroxide ion. Hydroxyl radicals are highly reactive and consequently short lived, however they form an important part of radical chemistry. Most notably hydroxyl radicals are produced from the decomposition of hydro-peroxides (ROOH) or, importantly in atmospheric chemistry, by the reaction of excited atomic oxygen with water.
The Hydroxyl radical is often referred to as the "detergent" of the troposphere because it reacts with many pollutants, often acting as the first step to their removal. The first reaction with many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is the removal of a hydrogen atom forming water and an alkyl radical (R·).
OH + RH → H2O + R·
The alkly radical will typically react rapidly with oxygen forming a peroxy radical.
R· + O2 → RO2
The fate of this radical in the troposphere is dependent on factors such as the amount of sunlight, pollution in the atmosphere and the nature of the alkyl radical which form it.
The very short in vivo half-life of approx. 10-9 s and its high reactivity renders it a very dangerous compound to the organism. Unlike superoxide which can be detoxified by superoxide dismutase it cannot be eliminated by an enzymatic reaction as this would require its diffusion to the enzyme's active site. As diffusion is slower than the half life of the molecule it will react with any oxidizable compound in vicinity. The only means to protect important cellular structures is the use of antioxidants such as glutathione and of effective repair systems."
Sorry sceptic, this is a complete rip from wikipedia,
But i think you'll find that the chemical activity of uranium is particularly harmful. Lead is also bad in the environment, but this isn't a case of "singling out" uranium, it's about identifying the possible health effects of a relatively new weapon.
Also wouldn't the uranium be persistent in the environment, particularly if an area was being bombarded with the stuff and it vapourised on contact as uranium shells do?
Sim1
more
30.12.2005 02:10
As to Mosul, leukemia and lung cnacer, the article concludes: ' Certainly they cannot be correlated with DU exposure as is sometimes reported in the media.'
As to the physical form: the particles will settle to the ground or will be washed down in rain. Once in the ground, they will agglomerate quite quickly.
Sim1:
Apparently 90% of ingested uranium is excreted within 24 hours. I attached a pdf to am earlier comment [urnaium.pdf]; it talks about the health effects there. Pages 16 & 17 discuss the health effects. One of the troubles with pdfs is that you can't copy and paste! Apparently 210,000 tons of U was mined in the former east germany and shipped to Russia. You might find the paper interesting. Although parts of it are very technical, there is some good discussion.
sceptic
Why do I call him septic tank?
30.12.2005 09:22
You're lying again septic, It attributes them to radon and uranium dust.
As to Mosul, leukemia and lung cnacer, the article concludes: ' Certainly they cannot be correlated with DU exposure as is sometimes reported in the media.'
Mosul is in the north, the report was talking about the correlation between DU exposure and leukemai in the south where the major battles were fought.
"As to the physical form: the particles will settle to the ground or will be washed down in rain. Once in the ground, they will agglomerate quite quickly."
Can we have a source for this septic? Or are you just making stuff up again?
Mark
31.12.2005 01:04
sceptic
Hoist by your own petard.
31.12.2005 10:26
Septic-"I did say 'REPUTABLE MEDICAL JOURNAL'. None of the sources listed come remotely close. Lots of data, and very unusual science. Uranium transmitted through semen. I don't think so, somehow ... "
Page 18 of the report
"However, a 7-year follow-up of Gulf War veterans exposed to DU, showed significant changes in serum prolactin levels and uranium concentrations in semen."
Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 64 (2003) 175–193
www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvrad
So it seems that not only do you know very little about DU, you also can't read.
Mark
blimey!
31.12.2005 11:30
a) buried away b) chemically bound to other elements,
the uranium a blowin in the wind after being used in munitions is not. This gets into lungs, water systems, food, people and animals. The alpha and beta radiation given off only travels short distances - less than millimetres in some cases - but inside the body this is enough to cause cell mutations, cancers and so on. The report on Kosovo said that there had not been a sufficient time span to accurately assess the effects of DU. The problem with the accepted methods of testing for radiation hazards is that they only look at radiation penetrating the body from outside - beta and gamma radiation. Inhalation of uranium does not fit into the accepted methods of dose assessment.
For the sake of health and safety wouldn't it be better to stop using DU munitions (?!) (Wouldn't be better to stop using munitions). The reason that this nasty stuff is used is that it is a cheap by-product of the nuclear power industry but now I'm opening another can of worms.
Keep up the healthy argument folks.
Matt
Congenital abnormalities (Teratogenesis)
31.12.2005 15:37
Not in my back yard thankyou.
Sim1