[ RadSafe ] Depleted Uranium: ANY illness to anyone, ever?

[John R Johnson]

Howard et al

I don't think that "convincing evidence that depleted uranium in munitions
has EVER caused illness" will ever be found, but "convincing evidence" of
"illness" from other radioactivities or chemicals has not been found either.

FYI, I've copied and pasted below some old Radsafe items I have sent on the
subject.

++++
Radsafer

Try http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_library/ and linked sites for DU
information.

John
++++
Radsafers

We would all profit from reading the following references on uranium.

Radiation Risks and Uranium Toxicity; A Brodsky, RSA Publications, 1996

A Review of the Scientific Literature as it Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses;
Harley et al; RAND, 1999

Depleted Uranium Sources, Exposure and Heath Effects, World Health
Organization, 2001

John
+++++
All

Uranium is a known kidney toxin, but we think that the toxicity depends on
the instantaneous kidney concentration (Harley et al 1999 RAND report). The
intakes need to be large before this concentration is reached.

There are private water supplies that result in uranium intakes above that
usually see in the workplace, without significant health effects. Are the
intakes "around MED AEC sites" greater than these private wells?
 _________________
John R Johnson, Ph.D.
*****
 _________________
John R Johnson, Ph.D.
*****
President, IDIAS, Inc
4535 West 9-Th Ave
Vancouver B. C.
V6R 2E2
(604) 222-9840
idias at interchange.ubc.ca
*****



-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of howard long
Sent: July 16, 2006 12:35 PM
To: Roger Helbig; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Depleted Uranium: ANY illness to anyone, ever?


Off-list, anyone with convincing evidence that depleted uranium in munitions
has EVER caused illness (not injury, the purpose of its use is to penetrate
armor),
  please forward to me.

  Benefit of DU is great, as in stopping Iraqi tanks. Persons involved in
combat have many other sources of illness: fear, dust, sleep deprivation,
diet, withheld waste, etc.

  Howard Long

Roger Helbig <rhelbig at california.com> wrote:
  --- In deadlyDUST at yahoogroups.com, Romi Elnagar
wrote:
sibercor2000 wrote: To: "Kosovo Daily News 2"

CC: "Republika Srpska News" ,
"Depleted Uranium in ex-Yugoslavia"
From: "sibercor2000"
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:21:16 -0300
Subject: [DUXYU] URUK Depleted Uranium - An American War Crime That
Has No End

moderator's note: the following article contains multiple hyperlinks
to
additional resources. to access these, please access the html version
of the
article by the following the link immediately below this note.
-----

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23973&hd=0&size=1&l=e

URUKNET (ITALY)

Depleted Uranium - An American War Crime That Has No End
EuroYank

The Most Ignored & Covered Up
by Mass Media News Story ...

Hundreds of Thousands of American Troops
Contaminated, dying, and disabled from Depleted
Uranium by American Arms.

The use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States, defying all
international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth
including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so
with
full knowledge of its destructive potential.

Since 1991, the United States has staged four wars using depleted
uranium
weaponry, illegal under all international treaties, conventions and
agreements, as well as under US military law.

Depleted Uranium Videos are
extremely scarce here are a few

See the Videos ...

*Contaminated with Depleted Uranium
*Depleted Uranium Problem
*Depleted Uranium Secrecy
*Depleted Uranium Study

Military Secrecy

The vast majority of servicemen and women in the U.S. military, and
likely
in the armed forces of other countries which are developing or have
obtained
depleted uranium munitions, are unaware of the use and dangers of
depleted
uranium munitions, or of the protective clothing and procedures which
can
minimize or prevent serious short-term exposures.

The following military DU training videos sat on shelves seldom
shown ....

*Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness
*Standard DU Army Training Video

The continued use of this illegal radioactive weaponry, which has
already
contaminated vast regions with low level radiation and will
contaminate
other parts of the world over time, is indeed a world affair and an
international issue.

Read more ...

*Depleted Uranium:The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War

The last Iraq war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass
destruction - yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.

Read more ...

*US forces use of depleted uranium weapons is illegal

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?

Read more ...

*Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets
*Depleted Uranium Ammunition:Nuclear Waste as a Weapon

Children of the Gulf War Photo Exhibit
Warning - Extreme Graphic Violence

*Save the War Children
*Children of the Gulf War

Read On ...

>From Gulf War I, fully 75% of our fighting men who were on the ground
are
now dead, dying, or sick from Depleted Uranium.

There are reports that the Pentagon is preventing American soldiers
from
writing home to complain about the variety of illness afflicting them
because of the deadly combination of Depleted Uranium and Toxic
Vaccinations.

The Pentagon is said to be threatening to muster out soldiers who
complain,
thus cutting off their medical care after they get out. However, when
these
men do return home and they are very ill from D.U. contamination, the
Pentagon is refusing to*admit that these men are sick with D.U.! A
special
report published by eminent scientist*Leuren Moret naming depleted
uranium
as the definitive cause of the Gulf War Syndromehas fed a*growing
scandal
about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.

The Veterans Administration acknowledged a third of all living Gulf
War
veterans, 181,996 were collecting *service-related disability
pensions. Now
the same thing is happening to veterans of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops have
been*contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive depleted and
non-depleted uranium as a result of post-9/11 United States' use of
tons of
uranium munitions. Researchers say surrounding countries are bound to
feel
the effects as well.

The Pentagon used its radioactive arsenal mainly in the *urban
centers,
rather than in desert battlefields as in 1991. Many hundreds of
thousands of
Iraqi people and U.S. soldiers, along with British, Polish, Japanese
and
Dutch soldiers sent to join the occupation, will suffer the
consequences.
The real extent of injuries, chronic illness, long-term disabilities
and
genetic birth defects won't be apparent for five to 10 years.

Cancer, respiratory diseases and horrible birth defects have been
widespread
in Iraq even after Gulf War I and are bound to increase. While
officially,
only 467 soldiers were wounded during the first Gulf War, according
to Terry
Jemison at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), of the more
than
592,560 discharged personnel who served there, at least 179,310 - one
third - are receiving disability compensation and over 24,760
additional
cases were pending as of September 2004.

Read more ...

*Uranium Munitions Are Weapons of Mass Destruction

This number of disabled veterans is shockingly high. Most are in their
mid-thirties and should be in the prime of health. Before sending
troops to
the Gulf region, the military had already sifted out those with
disabilities
or chronic health problems from asthma, diabetes, heart conditions,
cancers
and birth defects.

In 2003 scientists from the *Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC)
studied
urine samples of Afghan civilians and found that 100% of the samples
taken
had levels of non-depleted uranium (NDU) 400% to 2000% higher than
normal
levels. The UMRC research team studied six sites, two in Kabul and
others in
the Jalalabad area. The civilians were tested four months after the
attacks
in Afghanistan by the United States and its allies.

*NDU is more radioactive than depleted uranium (DU), which itself is
charged
with causing many cancers and severe birth defects in the Iraqi
population,
especially children over the past ten years. Four million pounds of
radioactive uranium was dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone. Uranium dust
will be
in the bodies of our returning armed forces.

Conducted at the request of The News, as the U.S. government
considers the
cost of $1,000 per affected soldier prohibitive, the test found that
four of
the nine men were contaminated with high levels of DU, likely caused
by
inhaling dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops.

Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets,
tank
shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of radioactive
uranium.
Depleted or non-depleted, these types of weapons, on detonation,
release a
radioactive dust which, when inhaled, goes into the body and stays
there. It
has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Basically, it's a permanently available contaminant, distributed in
the
environment, where dust storms or any water nearby can disperse it.
Once
ingested, it releases subatomic particles that slice through DNA.

UMRC's Field Team found several hundred Afghan civilians with acute
symptoms
of radiation poisoning along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium
contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local
civilians
reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the
point of
impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages,
throat
and upper respiratory tract.

Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and
chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the
cervical
column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower
back/kidney pain,
joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory
problems
and disorientation.

At the Uranium Weapons Conference held October 2003 in Hamburg,
Germany,
independent scientists from around the world testified to a huge
increase in
birth deformities and cancers wherever NDU and DU had been used.
Professor
Katsuma Yagasaki, a scientist at the Ryukyus University, Okinawa
calculated
that the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive
equivalent of
83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to
250,000 Nagasaki bombs.

At the Uranium Weapons Conference, a demonstration by British-trained
oncologist Dr. Jawad Al-Ali showed photographs of the kinds of birth
deformities and tumors he had observed at the Saddam Teaching
Hospital in
Basra just before the 2003 war. Cancer rates had increased
dramatically over
the previous fifteen years.

In 1989 there were 11 abnormalities per 100,000 births; in 2001 there
were
116 per 100,000-an increase of over a thousand percent. In 1989 34
people
died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths. The 2003 war has
increased these figures exponentially.

At a meeting of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan
held
December 2003 in Tokyo, the U.S. was indicted for multiple war crimes
in
Afghanistan, among them the use of DU.

Leuren Moret, President of Scientists for Indigenous People and
Environmental Commissioner for the City of Berkeley, testified that
because
radioactive contaminants from uranium weapons travel through air,
water, and
food sources, the effects of U.S. deployment in Afghanistan will be
felt in
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China and India. Countries affected by the
use of
uranium weapons in Iraq include Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine,
Israel, Turkey, and Iran.

Veterans groups blame depleted uranium contamination as a factor in
Gulf War
syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of
vets
from that war.

"Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a
permanent
dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said
Dietz, who
retired in 1983 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the long
run ...
veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem."

Shocking report reveals local troops to be victims of America's high-
tech
weapons

Read more ...

*Troops victims of America's high-tech weapons

Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a
waste
product of uranium enrichment when some of the highly radioactive
isotopes
in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted.

In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from
exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by
shrapnel,
inhalation or handling battlefield debris.

"A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had
significant
exposure to uranium oxide dust," ... "And the health impact is
worrisome for
the future."

When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and
the
area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity.

Birth defects may stem from his father's Gulf War service. But like
many
other families, American Vets face official stonewalling--and a
frightening
future.

Read more ...

*US Veterans Face Frightening Future

The use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States, defying all
international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth
including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so
with
full knowledge of its destructive potential.

Read more ...

*Deadly Illegal American Uranium Weapons

-----

More Bombs Dropped On Iraq than were used in WW II

At least 300 million grams of depleted uranium were deposited on
central and
southern Iraq during the Gulf War and subsequent bombings, over 100
million
times the 0.023 gram maximum exposure dose permitted for workers in
nuclear
industry. Depleted uranium, because of its unique ratio of U-235 to U-
238,
can be readily identified and has been found in the urine of exposed
individuals as long as 10 years after exposure.

During the brief Gulf War, thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on
Iraq,
more than were used throughout World War II. By systematic intent, all
electric power generating facilities, water treatment and pumping
plants,
sewage treatment facilities, and communication centers were bombed.

References ...

*Is The Pentagon Giving Our Soldiers Cancer?
*Damage in Iraq during the Gulf War
*U.S. Stocking Uranium-Rich Bombs?

-----

Resources ...

*Depleted Uranium Watch
*The Doctor,Depleted Uranium, the Dying Children
*Depleted Uranium and Other Uranium Weapons
*War Crimes -- Committed
*Women for a Better World
*Peace Aware
*US use of DU in Iraq war causes cancer
*Concerns over military use of Depleted Uranium growing

Article nr. 23973 sent on 15-jun-2006 05:42 ECT








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