[ RadSafe ] Tucson, Arizona Daily Star Reporter

[Roger Helbig]

If any of you are near or in Tucson, you might contact Ms McClain and offer to teach her a bit about uranium and its cancer risk.  You might also educate the Congressman who seems to only know what the activists tell him.

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/198240.php

Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure
By Carla McClain
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.26.2007

After serving in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago and receiving 
the  Bronze Star for it the Tucson soldier was called back to 
active duty  in Iraq.

While there, he awoke one morning with a sore throat. Eighteen
months later, Army Sgt. James Lauderdale was dead, of a bizarrely
aggressive cancer rarely seen by the doctors who tried to treat it.
As a result, his stunned and heartbroken family has joined 
growing  ranks of sickened and dying Iraq war vets and their families who
believe exposures to toxic poisons in the war zone are behind their
illnesses mostly cancers, striking the young, taking them down 
with alarming speed.

The number of these cancers remains undisclosed, with military
officials citing patient privacy issues, as well as lack of  evidence
the cases are linked to conditions in the war zone. The U.S. 
Congress has ordered a probe of suspect toxins and may soon begin widespread
testing of our armed forces.

"He got so sick, so fast"

Jim Lauderdale was 58 when his National Guard unit was deployed 
to  the Iraq-Kuwait border, where he helped transport arriving soldiers
and Marines into combat areas.  He was a strong man, say relatives, 
who can't remember him ever missing a day of work for illness. 
And he developed a cancer of the mouth, which overwhelmingly strikes 
smokers, drinkers and tobacco chewers. He was none of those.
"Jim's doctors didn't know why he would get this kind of cancer 
 they had no answers for us," said his wife, Dixie.  "He got so sick, so fast. 
We really think it had to be something he was exposed to over there. 
So many of the soldiers we met with cancer at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center)
 complained about the polluted air they lived in, the brown water they had
 to use, the dust they breathed from exploded munitions. It was very toxic."

As a mining engineer, Lauderdale knew exactly what it meant when 
he saw the thick black smoke pouring nonstop out of the smokestacks 
that line the Iraq/Kuwait border area where he was stationed for three
months in 2005.   "He wrote to me that everyone was complaining about their 
stinging eyes and sore throats and headaches," Dixie said. "For Jim to say
something like that, to complain, was very unusual.

"One of the mothers on the cancer ward had pictures of her son
bathing in the brown water," she said. "He died of kidney cancer."
Stationed in roughly the same area as Lauderdale, yet another
soldier  now fighting terminal colon cancer  described the scene
there, of oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and 
a sulfuric acid factory, all spewing unfiltered and uncontrolled
substances into the air.  "One day, we were walking toward the port and they had sulfuric 
acid exploding out of the stacks. We were covered with it, everything 
was burning on us, and we had to turn around and get to the medics," 
said Army Staff Sgt. Frank Valentin, 35.
  
Not long after, he developed intense rectal pain, which doctors 
told him for months was hemorrhoids. Finally diagnosed with aggressive
colorectal cancer  requiring extensive surgery, resulting in a colostomy bag
 he was given fewer than two years to live by his Walter Reed physicians.
He is now a couple of months past that death sentence, but his 
chemo drugs are starting to fail, and the cancer is eating into his liver
 and lungs. He spends his days with his wife and three children at
 their Florida home.  

  "I don't know how much time I have," he said.  
  
Suspect: depleted uranium

None of these soldiers know for sure what's killing them. But 
they suspect it's a cascade of multiple toxic exposures, coupled with 
the intense stress of daily life in a war zone weakening their immune 
systems.  "There's so much pollution from so many sources, your body 
can't fight what's coming at it," Valentin said. "And you don't eat well 
or sleep well, ever. That weakens you, too. There's no chance to 
gather your strength. These are kids 19, 20 and 21 getting all kinds of
 cancers. The Walter Reed cancer ward is packed full with them."
The prime suspect in all this, in the minds of many victims and
some scientists  is what's known as depleted uranium  the  radioactive 
chemical prized by the military for its ability to  penetrate armored vehicles. 
When munitions explode, the substance hits the air as fine dust, easily inhaled.
Last month, the Iraqi environment minister blamed the tons of the 
chemical dropped during the war's "shock and awe" campaign for a 
surge of cancer cases across the country.
However, the Pentagon and U.S. State Department strongly deny 
this, citing four studies, including one by the World Health 
Organization, that found levels in war zones not harmful to civilians or 
soldiers. A U.N. Environmental Program study concurs, but only if spent 
munitions are cleared away.

Returning solders have said that isn't happening.  "When tanks exploded,
 I would handle those tanks, and there was DU  everywhere," said Valentin. 
"This is a big issue."  The fierce Iraq winds carry desert sand and dust for miles, 
said  Dixie Lauderdale, who suspects her husband was exposed to at least
some depleted uranium. Many vets from the Gulf War blame the 
chemical  used in that conflict for their Gulf War syndrome illnesses.
 
Congress orders study
  
As the controversy rages, Congress has ordered a comprehensive
 independent study, due in October, of the health effects of depleted
 uranium exposure on U.S. soldiers and their children. And a "DU 
bill" ordering all members of the U.S. military exposed to it be
identified and tested  is working its way through Congress.  
"Basically, we want to get ahead of this curve, and not go through 
the years of painful denial we went through with Agent Orange that 
was  the legacy of Vietnam," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
(Congressman Raul M Grijalva - www.house.gov 810 E 22nd St, Tucson
 - (520) 622-6788)), a co-sponsor  of the bill.  "We want an independent 
agency to do independent testing of our soldiers, and find out what's really 
going on. These incidents of cancer and illness that all of us are hearing 
about back in our districts are not just anecdotal  there is a pattern here. 
And yes, I  do suspect DU may be at the bottom of it."