[ RadSafe ] CNN Gives Asaf Durakovic Star Billing

Blaine Howard blainehoward at yahoo.com
Wed Feb 7 16:46:59 CST 2007


Thank you, Roger, for calling attention to this CNN
broadcast.  I watched it and was exremely upset about
the comments by Durakovic.  I sent my comment to CNN
as follows:
TO: CNN News 

	I just listened to a news broadcast from CNN about
“the dangers of depleted uranium”.
This story featured Asaf Durakovic speaking about
these dangers as if he were an expert.  
If he is an expert, he told the most atrocious lie
about radiation dangers I have ever heard.  
He said that inhalation of uranium dust is harmful
“even in the amount of one atom”.   Even the most
elementary knowledge of physics reveals the extreme
falsity of this statement.  Let me lead you through a
simple calculation to demonstrate this.  

Avogadro's number is the number of atoms in a gram
atomic weight of an element and is equal to 6.022 x
10exp23 or 6 followed by 23 zero's.  

Uranium is fairly common in the environment and some
is naturally found in the human body.  From the
Radiological Health Handbook (1970 edition) the amount
of uranium is given for a “standard man” weighing 70
kilograms or 154 pounds  as 0.0007 grams.  

Now let's convert this to the number of atoms.  Since
there are 238 grams of uranium 238 in one gram atomic
weight of uranium 238 (depleted uranium), we divide
0.0007 by 238 and multiply by 6.022 x 10exp23 and get
1.77 x 10exp18 atoms of depleted uranium in a normal
154 pound man.  Since 10exp6 is one million, 10exp18
is one million million million atoms of uranium.

Now you decide whether just one atom of uranium can be
considered dangerous or whether Asaf Durakovic is
telling a very bad lie.

I suggest that you be very much more discriminating in
selecting someone to comment on such  an inflammatory
subject as the dangers of depleted uranium on your
official news broadcast.  Since this is a subject
which could cause serious concern and worry,
needlessly, to many of your viewers, I also  suggest
that you broadcast a correction to this serious
misunderstanding at sufficient frequency to reach the
victims of this atrocious hoax.

If you have any questions or concerns you wish to
discuss with me, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely yours,
Blaine N. Howard, Health Physicist (retired)
745 East 100 South
Hyrum, UT 84319
(435) 245-4336
--- Roger Helbig <rhelbig at california.com> wrote:

>
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1935309271
> 
> In this video, he claims that even one atom of
> Depleted Uranium remains a threat to the soldier for
> life // one atom. 
> Durakovic is clearly not what CNN believes him to
> be, but he has been introduced to them by Herbert
> Reed and Gerard Matthew, two of the seven soldiers
> who sense that there is gold in uranium, or who have
> been pushed to that point by misinformation from the
> NoMoreDU group in New York and Durakovic with
> Gerdes.  If you want to comment on this video,
> please, do so and let CNN know that they need to dig
> a lot deeper about the people that they let star in
> this little caper.  
> 
> Roger Helbig
> 
> _______________________________________________
> You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing
> list
> 
> Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have
> read and understood the RadSafe rules. These can be
> found at: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html
> 
> For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe
> and other settings visit: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/
> 




More information about the RadSafe mailing list