[ RadSafe ] Another Letter to the Editor about DU

[bobcherry at cox.net]

Radsafers,

Some you have privately expressed support when I tell you of another anti-DU article in the media. Some of you have privately asked me to stop sending such notes to Radsafe. I would like to know what is preferred: to keep this to myself or let you know what the activists are saying about DU and my occassional responses.

Pushing on, here is the web address for an opionion piece by Lauren Moret in today's Battle Creek Enquirer:

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050809/OPINION02/508090332/1014/OPINION

Here is my response to the editor:
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Dear Editor:

I will make this short with regard to the Lauren Moret-written opinion piece you published on August 9, “Depleted uranium is WMD”: The column is a flat-out misrepresentating, mistake-ridden, anti-war anti-nuke propagandist tirade from the start (Lauren Moret “is an international expert on depleted uranium”) to the end (“Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions”) and for virtually everything in between.

Opinions are fine, but one should support her arguments with the truth and the facts. Moret did neither, as anyone can easily verify. Since her arguments have no scientific merit and no support within the responsible scientific community, she did not support her premise. 

I wonder why you printed it. How did it come to you? Do you always publish opinion columns that purport to be scientific without a minimum of fact-checking?

Robert N. Cherry, Jr., PhD (physics, University of Michigan)
Certified Health Physicist
Colonel, U.S. Army (retired)
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Bob C