Depleted Uranium-Far Worse Than 9/11
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Leuren Moret: Depleted Uranium Is WMD
Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 1:52 pm
Opinion: Leuren Moret
Depleted Uranium Is WMD
By Leuren Moret
Tuesday August 9, 2005
Translations: French, Italian German
My grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Edwin Joseph McAllister, was born in Battle Creek in 1895. He does not know that his first grandchild is an international expert on depleted uranium. I have worked in two U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, and in 1991 I became a whistleblower at the Livermore lab. Depleted uranium is very, very, very nasty stuff:
# Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.
# DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law.
# Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
# The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons.
# DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 micron and smaller.
# The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L. Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas weapons - dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets.
# DU weapons are very effective kinetic energy penetrators, but even more effective bioweapons since uranium has a strong chemical affinity for phosphate structures concentrated in DNA.
# DU is the Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing. There is no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes in over 20 steps.
# Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August 2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.
# In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects - missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.
# In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of inhabitants. In fact, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are uninhabitable.
# Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is 1/20th of a cubic centimeter and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second.
Before my grandfather died, he told me that his generation had made a mess of this planet. I wonder what he would say to me now I would tell him to see "Beyond Treason" (www.beyondtreason.com), a new documentary about the history of treason by the U.S. government against our own troops: Atomic veterans, MK-Ultra, Agent Orange and DU. After Vietnam, Henry Kissinger said, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. . ." (from Chapter 5 in the "Final Days" by Woodward and Bernstein).
*************
Leuren Moret is an international radiation specialist, with a B.S. degree in geology from University of California at Davis, a M.A. degree in Near Eastern studies from University of California at Berkeley and has done post-graduate work in the geosciences at UC-Davis. She is environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley, Calif.
Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 1:52 pm
Opinion: Leuren Moret
Depleted Uranium Is WMD
By Leuren Moret
Tuesday August 9, 2005
Translations: French, Italian German
My grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Edwin Joseph McAllister, was born in Battle Creek in 1895. He does not know that his first grandchild is an international expert on depleted uranium. I have worked in two U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, and in 1991 I became a whistleblower at the Livermore lab. Depleted uranium is very, very, very nasty stuff:
# Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.
# DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law.
# Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
# The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons.
# DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 micron and smaller.
# The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L. Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas weapons - dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets.
# DU weapons are very effective kinetic energy penetrators, but even more effective bioweapons since uranium has a strong chemical affinity for phosphate structures concentrated in DNA.
# DU is the Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing. There is no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes in over 20 steps.
# Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August 2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.
# In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects - missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.
# In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of inhabitants. In fact, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are uninhabitable.
# Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is 1/20th of a cubic centimeter and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second.
Before my grandfather died, he told me that his generation had made a mess of this planet. I wonder what he would say to me now I would tell him to see "Beyond Treason" (www.beyondtreason.com), a new documentary about the history of treason by the U.S. government against our own troops: Atomic veterans, MK-Ultra, Agent Orange and DU. After Vietnam, Henry Kissinger said, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. . ." (from Chapter 5 in the "Final Days" by Woodward and Bernstein).
*************
Leuren Moret is an international radiation specialist, with a B.S. degree in geology from University of California at Davis, a M.A. degree in Near Eastern studies from University of California at Berkeley and has done post-graduate work in the geosciences at UC-Davis. She is environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley, Calif.
RE: Depleted Uranium-Far
Asbestos was thought to be benign for decades and corporate pricks paid legions of lawyers to impede legislation and regulation and to debunk science and medical evidence, so too with DU which will take forever to work it's way through the corrupt court and legal systems of the west, millions of deformed babies will be required to get any justice. JimMoyer it doesn't necessarily take a long time to kill, it depends on levels of exposure and existing medical conditions, I have read accounts of American soldiers involved in the fall of bagdad who in a matter of months died as a result of suspected DU poisoning, they were tankers.
asbestos see Dying For a Living
Asbestos was thought to be benign for decades and corporate pricks paid legions of lawyers to impede legislation and regulation and to debunk science and medical evidence, so too with DU which will take forever to work it's way through the corrupt court and legal systems of the west, millions of deformed babies will be required to get any justice. JimMoyer it doesn't necessarily take a long time to kill, it depends on levels of exposure and existing medical conditions, I have read accounts of American soldiers involved in the fall of bagdad who in a matter of months died as a result of suspected DU poisoning, they were tankers.
asbestos see Dying For a Living
ITN wrote:
With all respect to jimmoyer, everything in his post had already been said. The one thing I would add is that the deaths from DU are not reported in the mainstream American press. Those 11,000 deaths somehow don't get added to the three thousand in the official body count.
With all respect to jimmoyer, everything in his post had already been said. The one thing I would add is that the deaths from DU are not reported in the mainstream American press. Those 11,000 deaths somehow don't get added to the three thousand in the official body count.
RE: Depleted Uranium-Far
I wonder how rotten a the main stream media must really be to completely ignor a story like this but they'll give a rape or murder case thousands of hours of coverage, and you can watch a celebrity like OJ Simpson for months, that's how you keep them dumb, just feed them shit.
I wonder how rotten a the main stream media must really be to completely ignor a story like this but they'll give a rape or murder case thousands of hours of coverage, and you can watch a celebrity like OJ Simpson for months, that's how you keep them dumb, just feed them shit.
Re: RE: Depleted Uranium-Far
That's ok DB, as long as Canadians remain smart that's all you should be concerned with.
darkbeaver said:
That's ok DB, as long as Canadians remain smart that's all you should be concerned with.
DU Syndrome Stricken Vets Denied Care
Pentagon Hides DU Dangers to Deny Medical Care to Vets
By Christopher Bollyn
Far from the radioactive battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another war is being waged. This war, over the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, is being fought between the military top brass and the men who understand the dangers of DU: former military doctors and nuclear scientists.
This war is for the truth about uranium weapons, and the consequences of their use, and has been waged for more than 13 years—since the U.S. government first used DU weapons against Iraq. Most Americans, however, are unaware of this historic struggle, because the Pentagon has used its power to prevent information about DU from reaching the public.
John Hanchette, editor of USA Today from 1991 to 2001, in a recent interview with anti-DU activist Leuren Moret, said he had written several news stories about the effects of DU on gulf wars veterans. Every time he was ready to publish a story about the devastating illnesses afflicting soldiers, however, the Pentagon called USA Today and pressured him not to publish the story. Hanchette was eventually replaced as editor and now teaches journalism to college students.
Dr. Doug Rokke, 37-year Army veteran and former director of the Army’s Depleted Uranium Project, has become an outspoken “warrior for peace” in the war against DU weapons. Rokke is fighting for medical care for all people exposed to DU: active soldiers, veterans and civilians, including Iraqis, and for “remediation” or cleansing of all DU-contaminated land.
“Anyone who demands medical care and environmental remediation faces ongoing and blatant retaliation,” Rokke told AFP. “Anybody who speaks up—their career ends.”
During Gulf War I, Rokke was theater health physicist with the 12th Preventive Medicine Command professional staff and served on three special operations teams. Rokke and members of his teams were exposed to large amounts of uranium during recovery of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles mistakenly hit by DU weapons.
Today, Rokke is fighting to get the Pentagon to abide by its regulations regarding care for individuals exposed to uranium and remediation of contaminated areas.
The military records of one of Rokke’s comrades, who suffers from the effects of DU exposure, have been completely “gutted” from Army archives, Rokke told AFP.
“They [defense officials] willfully ignore existing Department of Defense directives that require prompt and effective medical care be provided to ‘all’ exposed individuals,” Rokke says.
Rokke points to a U.S. Army Medical Command memo dated April 29, 2004, from Lt. Gen. James B. Peake about medical management of Army personnel exposed to DU. The memo, which says “all personnel with actual or potential exposures to DU will be identified, assessed, treated (if needed), and assigned a potential exposure level (I, II, or III),” reiterates the U.S. Army regulations originally written by Rokke in 1991, he said.
“A radio bioassay has to be done within a few days of exposure,” Rokke said. “This means nasal and pharyngeal swabs being taken and 24-hour urine and fecal analysis.
“Today,” Rokke writes, “although medical problems continue to develop, medical care is denied or delayed for all uranium-exposed casualties while Defense Department and British Ministry of Defense officials continue to deny any correlation between uranium exposure and adverse health and environmental effects.”
Rokke said the individuals at the Department of Defense are engaged in a “criminal” conspiracy to deny the toxicity of DU weapons. “The lies by senior Defense Department officials are designed to sustain use of uranium munitions and avoid liability for adverse health and environmental effects,” he said. According to Rokke, a recent Gulf War Review reported that only 262 vets had been treated for DU poisoning through September 2003.
The military’s strategy of lies and concealment about DU began in March 1991, shortly after the first widespread combat use of DU weapons by the U.S. government in Iraq, Rokke said.
On March 1, 1991, Lt. Col. Michael V. Ziehmn of Los Alamos National Lab wrote a memo about the effectiveness of DU penetrators. The “future existence” of DU weapons should be ensured by active “proponency” by the Department of Defense, Ziehmn wrote.
“If proponency is not garnered, it is possible that we stand to lose a valuable combat capability,” Ziehmn wrote. “I believe we should keep this sensitive issue at mind when after-action reports are written.”
When American Free Press began this series on DU weapons, the U.S. Army alerted the Centers for Disease Control, an Atlanta-based agency of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The CDC is going to do a whitewash on DU,” Marion Fulk, a former nuclear chemical physicist at Lawrence Livermore Lab, said. Fulk told AFP he had received this information directly from CDC officials.
AFP asked Stephanie C. Creel of the CDC about its position on the toxicity of DU. Creel said the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) on-line “fact sheet” would provide the “most in-depth information” on the subject.
The ATSDR fact sheet: “The radiation damage from exposure to high levels of natural or depleted uranium are [sic] not known to cause cancer.”
“No apparent public health hazard,” the CDC assessment of Livermore lab, published June 29, said about local exposure levels to tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, Fulk said.
“It’s nonsense,” Fulk said. “It’s been dumped all around the area. It goes through glass and steel.”
Depleted uranium is a misnomer, according to Fulk. Depleted uranium, mostly U-238, is uranium that has had the naturally occurring fissile material, U-235, removed. DU is very radioactive, however. While one gram of U-235 emits 81,000 alpha particles per second, U-238 emits 12,000 per second. These high-energy particles coming from DU particles lodged in the body cause the most damage, according to Fulk and others.
“Depleted uranium dust that is inhaled gets transferred from the lungs to the regional lymph nodes, where they can bombard a small number of cells in their immediate vicinity with intense alpha radiation,” said Dr. Asaf Durakovic, former Pentagon expert on DU.
Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a defense contractor in San Diego, published an extensive article about the dangers of DU six months before President George H.W. Bush waged war against Iraq in 1991.
“Under combat conditions, the most exposed individuals are probably the ground troops [who] re-enter a battlefield following the exchange of armor-piercing (DU) munitions,” SAIC published in its July 1990 magazine.
“Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer,” SAIC wrote.
AFP submitted written questions to the U.S. Army Medical Command asking how the Army can claim that DU exposure is harmless when military documents have stressed its lethal toxicity.
Mark A. Melanson, of the Army’s Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Aberdeen, Md., responded in an email: “The two positions are not opposing. As with all potentially hazardous material, the amount determines the risk.”
Melanson wrote that the Army was complying with its own regulations regarding medical care for DU exposure, saying: “Soldiers are being screened by completing the post deployment health questionnaire upon demobilization. Troops identified as being at potential risk for DU exposure are directed to provide a urine bioassay for analysis.”
Rokke said: “That is too late. Hence they find a way out.”
AFP repeatedly tried to speak to Melanson about the quantity of DU that the Army considered hazardous. He did not return phone calls.
“An individual could [safely] breathe in up to a gram per year every year for 50 years,” Melanson recently told The New York Daily News.
“That’s absolutely absurd,” Fulk said. Fulk said the number of alpha particle emissions from a gram of DU lodged in the body over a year would be about the same as one-10th of all the cells in his body.
The inhaled DU particles have a tendency to bind with phosphate in the human body, found in the bones and the DNA. The alpha particle being emitted to the cells nearby “is doing the dirty work,” Fulk said.
Painful breathing and respiratory problems are the first and most common symptoms of DU inhalation, Rokke said. Dr. Janette Sherman told AFP she met a 31-year-old female former soldier at a Maryland veteran’s hospital who had recently served in Kuwait. Sherman, a toxicologist, was shocked when the young woman told her that she required a lung transplant.
Not so slam dunk this DU as we are led to believe....
Traprock Peace Center: Leuren Moret and Doug Rakke Mislead Public on Depleted Uranium
http://www.ntanet.net/traprock.html
Overview of Depleted Uranium Properties
http://www.unitednuclear.com/uraniummsds.htm
A Review of the Scientific Literature as It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/randrep/du/cover.html
Traprock Peace Center: Leuren Moret and Doug Rakke Mislead Public on Depleted Uranium
http://www.ntanet.net/traprock.html
Overview of Depleted Uranium Properties
http://www.unitednuclear.com/uraniummsds.htm
A Review of the Scientific Literature as It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/randrep/du/cover.html
Juan
Such language - are we now playing: Your link is smarter than mine?
Is crap your final answer?
Such language - are we now playing: Your link is smarter than mine?
Is crap your final answer?
So I guess to you Johnny, as cited in another thread that it is okay to bomb other people with DU which is a terribly crime, and when the war is over it effects the civilians for generations and generations. SO long as it doesn't effect America.
RE: Depleted Uranium-Far
Hey WC somebody named Robert Holloway wrote the article at your first link, who is he, he dosn't leave any credentials with the article, and the UN link attached to his article is a dead end, no such article exists. The second site is for the sale of DU but it's not weapons grade. Your third link points to a government site who are the lying pricks that advocate it's safe use in the first place. So I don't understand where your reassurance
about DU comes from.
Hey WC somebody named Robert Holloway wrote the article at your first link, who is he, he dosn't leave any credentials with the article, and the UN link attached to his article is a dead end, no such article exists. The second site is for the sale of DU but it's not weapons grade. Your third link points to a government site who are the lying pricks that advocate it's safe use in the first place. So I don't understand where your reassurance
about DU comes from.
I also don't understand, WC.
You indicated your very sad losses from war in another post and I extend deep sympathy to you.
You indicated that your loss was due to a brain tumour linked to the Gulf War. Why would you not be suspicious of the carcinogenic nature of many of the dangerous chemicals used in the war, including DU??
You indicated your very sad losses from war in another post and I extend deep sympathy to you.
You indicated that your loss was due to a brain tumour linked to the Gulf War. Why would you not be suspicious of the carcinogenic nature of many of the dangerous chemicals used in the war, including DU??
Depleted Uranium: Confusing Ends and Means
War is brutal. This is not news, as we all know innocent lives are inevitably lost in the pursuit of "strategic goals." Hawkish foreign policy wonks explain it away with shrugged resignation: "You’ve gotta break some eggs to make an omelet." But, it turns out, our military technologies do more than that, they annihilate the eggs while also altering the genetic legacy of the hen.
In Gulf War I, we broke plenty of eggs; the image of carbonized bodies of Iraqi soldiers along the road to Baghdad is a wrenching depiction of the immediate horrors of war. Here’s the long-term horror: the use of depleted-uranium (DU) warheads—which are frighteningly effective in piercing and destroying tanks—is causing severe birth defects in the children of Gulf War veterans and Iraqi citizens, according to Dr. Siegwart Horst-Gunther, President of the International Yellow Cross. And scientists are strongly suggesting a link between their use and Gulf War Syndrome.
In one particularly graphic account, babies are being born with extreme hydrocephalus, without eye sockets and arms, some with a mysterious white substance shrouding their entire bodies, enormous tumors, and fused fingers, not to mention respiratory disorders and leukemia. And the Pentagon remains firm in its plans to use depleted uranium warheads in our upcoming confrontation with Iraq.
Depleted uranium has been in wide use by the US military for years: made from low-level nuclear reactor waste, DU warheads were used by the US in the first Gulf War, in Kosovo, in Vieques, and in Afghanistan—although the Pentagon denied each of these uses for many months. In the first Gulf War alone, some 400,000 vets were exposed to depleted uranium, according to Pentagon estimates, and when our troops pulled out they left between 300 and 800 tons of the stuff on battlefields between Kuwait and Iraq. The government denies any link between DU and Gulf War Syndrome or other ill effects, despite this reference to its hazards in Appendix D of the armaments, munitions, and chemical command report "Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, July 1990":
Aerosol DU (Depleted Uranium) exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects. …Under combat conditions, the most exposed individuals are probably ground troops that re-enter a battlefield following the exchange of armour-piercing munitions. …We are simply highlighting the potential for levels of DU exposure to military personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime operations. …[DU is]a low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage. …Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been linked to cancer. …Our conclusion regarding the health and environmental acceptability of DU penetrators assume both controlled use and the presence of excellent health physics management practices. Combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of DU. ...The conditions of the battlefield, and the long term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic penetrators for military applications.
According to Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a Gulf War vet and former DU researcher for the VA (he was fired when his research implicated the military) interviewed yesterday on Democracy Now, more than 60% of veterans referred to him at the Uranium Medical Research Center contain depleted uranium in their bodies. (Democracy Now also reports that soldiers shipping out to Iraq, fearing another round of Gulf War Syndrome, have been banking their sperm in anticipation of DU’s effects.)
Depleted uranium warheads are made by Honeywell and its subsidiary Alliant Techsystems, the latter of which is headquartered right here in the Twin Cities. Alliant makes at least two such weapons, 120mm tank ammunition (dubbed "the silver bullet") and 30mm Gattling gun ammo. While Alliant's promotional copy ironically boasts how these warheads save Allied lives (presumably in the short-term), the words "depleted uranium" never appear. Instead, they use the almost-happy term "kinetic energy."
When hawks suggest that the "ends justify the means," I contend they have no clue what that truly means. It takes 4.5 billion years for depleted uranium to lose its radioactivity. Is the "ends" of a "liberated Iraq" really worth an eternity of "means"?
War is brutal. This is not news, as we all know innocent lives are inevitably lost in the pursuit of "strategic goals." Hawkish foreign policy wonks explain it away with shrugged resignation: "You’ve gotta break some eggs to make an omelet." But, it turns out, our military technologies do more than that, they annihilate the eggs while also altering the genetic legacy of the hen.
In Gulf War I, we broke plenty of eggs; the image of carbonized bodies of Iraqi soldiers along the road to Baghdad is a wrenching depiction of the immediate horrors of war. Here’s the long-term horror: the use of depleted-uranium (DU) warheads—which are frighteningly effective in piercing and destroying tanks—is causing severe birth defects in the children of Gulf War veterans and Iraqi citizens, according to Dr. Siegwart Horst-Gunther, President of the International Yellow Cross. And scientists are strongly suggesting a link between their use and Gulf War Syndrome.
In one particularly graphic account, babies are being born with extreme hydrocephalus, without eye sockets and arms, some with a mysterious white substance shrouding their entire bodies, enormous tumors, and fused fingers, not to mention respiratory disorders and leukemia. And the Pentagon remains firm in its plans to use depleted uranium warheads in our upcoming confrontation with Iraq.
Depleted uranium has been in wide use by the US military for years: made from low-level nuclear reactor waste, DU warheads were used by the US in the first Gulf War, in Kosovo, in Vieques, and in Afghanistan—although the Pentagon denied each of these uses for many months. In the first Gulf War alone, some 400,000 vets were exposed to depleted uranium, according to Pentagon estimates, and when our troops pulled out they left between 300 and 800 tons of the stuff on battlefields between Kuwait and Iraq. The government denies any link between DU and Gulf War Syndrome or other ill effects, despite this reference to its hazards in Appendix D of the armaments, munitions, and chemical command report "Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, July 1990":
Aerosol DU (Depleted Uranium) exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects. …Under combat conditions, the most exposed individuals are probably ground troops that re-enter a battlefield following the exchange of armour-piercing munitions. …We are simply highlighting the potential for levels of DU exposure to military personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime operations. …[DU is]a low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage. …Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been linked to cancer. …Our conclusion regarding the health and environmental acceptability of DU penetrators assume both controlled use and the presence of excellent health physics management practices. Combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of DU. ...The conditions of the battlefield, and the long term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic penetrators for military applications.
According to Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a Gulf War vet and former DU researcher for the VA (he was fired when his research implicated the military) interviewed yesterday on Democracy Now, more than 60% of veterans referred to him at the Uranium Medical Research Center contain depleted uranium in their bodies. (Democracy Now also reports that soldiers shipping out to Iraq, fearing another round of Gulf War Syndrome, have been banking their sperm in anticipation of DU’s effects.)
Depleted uranium warheads are made by Honeywell and its subsidiary Alliant Techsystems, the latter of which is headquartered right here in the Twin Cities. Alliant makes at least two such weapons, 120mm tank ammunition (dubbed "the silver bullet") and 30mm Gattling gun ammo. While Alliant's promotional copy ironically boasts how these warheads save Allied lives (presumably in the short-term), the words "depleted uranium" never appear. Instead, they use the almost-happy term "kinetic energy."
When hawks suggest that the "ends justify the means," I contend they have no clue what that truly means. It takes 4.5 billion years for depleted uranium to lose its radioactivity. Is the "ends" of a "liberated Iraq" really worth an eternity of "means"?
Apparently my other sources of information were not good enough for some - and when a moderator informs us they were crap - I would seriously question the validity of this topic in itself if we are to be directed by one in observance of one school of thought.
I like to offer alternatives and questions and open up some windows of curiosity but people here seem to prefer staying on the path of comfort especially when they are able to "win" (if it is a win in their perception) of argument with one in opposition.
My husband may have picked up something in the Gulf which contributed to his brain tumor. It may also have been caused by the headgear worn constantly during his days on patrol. The medics don't know and there was only one "military" medic in consultation but we only had nine days to do anything.
We still don't know why he died.
DU is one of those controversies which can be argued forever but to deny others the right to question whether it is as harmful as you wish to preach Juan, is childish on your part.
Aren't forums open to question and debate? If not what are you running here a school of mind control?
To what end Juan - do you insist that everything American is dangerous and bad for our world? What are you actually attempting to do here? And is it in the best interests of Canada that you continue this theory - for it is a theory, unproved and untested.
I suggest you run the scenario that Canada is cut off from the U.S. and operating on its own.
If you have the courage to look into the possibility that is what you are promoting. Would that be in Canada's best interest?
I wonder.
I like to offer alternatives and questions and open up some windows of curiosity but people here seem to prefer staying on the path of comfort especially when they are able to "win" (if it is a win in their perception) of argument with one in opposition.
My husband may have picked up something in the Gulf which contributed to his brain tumor. It may also have been caused by the headgear worn constantly during his days on patrol. The medics don't know and there was only one "military" medic in consultation but we only had nine days to do anything.
We still don't know why he died.
DU is one of those controversies which can be argued forever but to deny others the right to question whether it is as harmful as you wish to preach Juan, is childish on your part.
Aren't forums open to question and debate? If not what are you running here a school of mind control?
To what end Juan - do you insist that everything American is dangerous and bad for our world? What are you actually attempting to do here? And is it in the best interests of Canada that you continue this theory - for it is a theory, unproved and untested.
I suggest you run the scenario that Canada is cut off from the U.S. and operating on its own.
If you have the courage to look into the possibility that is what you are promoting. Would that be in Canada's best interest?
I wonder.
Fuzzylogix / BitWhys / Beav
Thank you for asking questions. That is what we should be doing - not putting each other down.
The long term effects of Depleted Uranium is all over the scientific board at the present time but as with all chemicals, can morph into something more deadly as time passes. Humans react differently as well to variants which affect neurological function, body chemistry, and how our bodies fight and discharge the foreign invaders. I cannot find definite answers regarding DU or other causative factors regarding my husband because:
He was a pilot so his ground time was limited as he was based on a carrier. I don't know where he would have been explosed to DU.
The the matter came up with the medics who brought in the VA.
He wore electronic headgear of which there is a school of thought that his particular tumour was more occasioned by electronic means (it is an individual situation where some people can wear headsets and suffer no long term effects, and some current kids [not in battle] down the line in the year 2030 will suffer tumors because of cell phones and using headphones for music and entertainment). If one wears headgear it is important to switch sides of the head regularly so one side is not the primary site.
It could have been one of many of the other chemicals - there were fires set in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf One and many people suffered inhalation and respiratory disease down the line.
There have been some pretty exotic things come out of that horrible place...with all of the weaponry rotting in the sand...baking into things we have never dreamed of....not all DU.
Has anyone done a study of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people suffering from the long term effects of DU? Would that not be the best locale for studies ??? Where are the other nations involved ??? Nobody is stepping up to the plate....we prefer to sit back and point fingers at the Americans ... now that is smart eh? That and a nickle will buy you comfort.
The other loss - isn't a loss Fuzzy - but an injury - a long term life changing one but that had nothing to do with DU - a bomb under a vehicle, killing two, injuring two - of the four occupants.
Beav I am not in awe of government proclamations any more than you - but I want to throw out as much "crap" as I can to demonstrate we can't just read one article or two by a couple of people and accept their work as fact. When it is in fact NOT fact.
There are too many variables and if the government are in charge (because they are on site).... and outside groups are not brought in to do the actual investigation either to confirm or debunk what DU has done....we will never serve the people who have died or are dying over this.
What I object to is reading about DU as an anti-american podium giving one questionable source and all of us sitting on our floor pillows saying "oh ya" .... let's hate the government again and again and again.... that's not worthy thought.
I also object to those who put up more questions being called down for it.
Unless everyone wants a pied piper approach...and we know where the rats ended up -
Thank you for asking questions. That is what we should be doing - not putting each other down.
The long term effects of Depleted Uranium is all over the scientific board at the present time but as with all chemicals, can morph into something more deadly as time passes. Humans react differently as well to variants which affect neurological function, body chemistry, and how our bodies fight and discharge the foreign invaders. I cannot find definite answers regarding DU or other causative factors regarding my husband because:
He was a pilot so his ground time was limited as he was based on a carrier. I don't know where he would have been explosed to DU.
The the matter came up with the medics who brought in the VA.
He wore electronic headgear of which there is a school of thought that his particular tumour was more occasioned by electronic means (it is an individual situation where some people can wear headsets and suffer no long term effects, and some current kids [not in battle] down the line in the year 2030 will suffer tumors because of cell phones and using headphones for music and entertainment). If one wears headgear it is important to switch sides of the head regularly so one side is not the primary site.
It could have been one of many of the other chemicals - there were fires set in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf One and many people suffered inhalation and respiratory disease down the line.
There have been some pretty exotic things come out of that horrible place...with all of the weaponry rotting in the sand...baking into things we have never dreamed of....not all DU.
Has anyone done a study of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people suffering from the long term effects of DU? Would that not be the best locale for studies ??? Where are the other nations involved ??? Nobody is stepping up to the plate....we prefer to sit back and point fingers at the Americans ... now that is smart eh? That and a nickle will buy you comfort.
The other loss - isn't a loss Fuzzy - but an injury - a long term life changing one but that had nothing to do with DU - a bomb under a vehicle, killing two, injuring two - of the four occupants.
Beav I am not in awe of government proclamations any more than you - but I want to throw out as much "crap" as I can to demonstrate we can't just read one article or two by a couple of people and accept their work as fact. When it is in fact NOT fact.
There are too many variables and if the government are in charge (because they are on site).... and outside groups are not brought in to do the actual investigation either to confirm or debunk what DU has done....we will never serve the people who have died or are dying over this.
What I object to is reading about DU as an anti-american podium giving one questionable source and all of us sitting on our floor pillows saying "oh ya" .... let's hate the government again and again and again.... that's not worthy thought.
I also object to those who put up more questions being called down for it.
Unless everyone wants a pied piper approach...and we know where the rats ended up -
The conversation wouldn't so readily degrade into bashing the US and the US military if they weren't using the stuff by the ton.
the TON!
They're playing with a known poison and placing the burden of proof on those who consider it dangerous. I'd remind you its that sort of reasoning that kept the tobacco industry in business all these years and in only the last couple of decades gave birth to BSE.
The article I posted renders a vast portion of the previous literature either archaic or moot. Its THAT significant.
from the Stars and Stripes...
Study: Depleted uranium could damage DNA
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, April 15, 2006
"no evidence exists"??? knowing what is KNOWN now, that particular conclusion strikes THIS skeptic as more than just a little convenient.
The only thing standing between current established scientific fact and a moritorium on the continued use of DU is the true engine of the current state of American politics.
the TON!
They're playing with a known poison and placing the burden of proof on those who consider it dangerous. I'd remind you its that sort of reasoning that kept the tobacco industry in business all these years and in only the last couple of decades gave birth to BSE.
The article I posted renders a vast portion of the previous literature either archaic or moot. Its THAT significant.
from the Stars and Stripes...
Study: Depleted uranium could damage DNA
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, April 15, 2006
"no evidence exists"??? knowing what is KNOWN now, that particular conclusion strikes THIS skeptic as more than just a little convenient.
The only thing standing between current established scientific fact and a moritorium on the continued use of DU is the true engine of the current state of American politics.