[ RadSafe ] False Information on Depleted Uranium

[Roger Helbig]

Professor Cole, 

 

The following post to your page is false information.  Will you remove this
paragraph?  If not, will you advise the writer of this challenge to the
veracity of this specific paragraph.  I have written VA for more conclusive
proof that the additional paragraph is also false.

 

"The most complicated and frightening "wound,"however, is result of the use
of depleted uranium bombs and artillery shells.   - there is no complicated
or frightening wound caused by use of DU."  DU is not used to manufacture
bombs or artillery shells.  DU is strictly used to manufacture kinetic
energy penetrator munitions and they are not fired by artillery, nor do they
explode.  They are a solid sharp pointed rod fired at high velocity from
either a tank gun or an aircraft.

 

"We used them because uranium is a very heavy metal and is better at
penetrating armor. In itself, depleted uranium is not much more dangerous
than steel."  - this is true.

 

"But upon impact, a shell generates intense heat which causes the depleted
uranium to mutate into an aerosol of uranium oxide, U3 08." - this is not
true - it does form Uranium Oxide, but does not form a lasting aerosol -
Uranium Oxide condenses out of the air at about 3000 degrees Centrigrade.

 

"As Dr. Hans Noll American Cancer Society Professor of Biology has written
to me, "It settles as a fine dust, which enters the body in a variety of
ways."  - Dr Noll is incorrect.  It does settle as dust.  It only enters the
body through ingestion or inhalation and neither of these is a likely means
of ingress to most veterans.  It is only likely to enter the body of someone
who crawls around inside a destroyed tank without a face mask or who was in
the immediate vicinity or in the armored target and survived the attack.
Most people in the targeted tank or armored vehicle will die as a result of
the resultant explosions (of ammunition and fuel, not the DU penetrator)

 

"Uranium oxide is an extremely potent neurotoxin with a high affinity for
DNA." - this is pure speculation - DU Oxide is not soluble so how does it
get to DNA?

 

f"This DNA fragmentation results in genetic defects like cancer and
malformation in developing fetuses." - birth defects are part of the
mythology of DU started by the Saddam Hussein regime in its efforts to
escape the "crippling" UN Sanctions that ended the Gulf War which was
gobbled up by US/UK/European "peace activists" who easily fell for
scientific mumbo jumbo



 Inhaled as dust, uranium oxide accumulates in the lungs, liver and kidneys
and affects the nervous system."  -- Uranium does accumulate first in the
kidneys and if the patient has no DU accumulation in the kidneys with
resultant kidney disease, they have no DU in their bodies of any significant
nature.  Every single human being on earth ingests and inhales uranium,
natural uranium from the soils around their home, and has some
infintessimally small quantity that will be excreted in the urine.

 

It is inevitable that we face thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of cases
of cancer as a result of the use of this weapon.  - this is pure unfounded
speculation and this Doctor is supposedly a cancer expert.

 

As General Brent Scowcroft laconically put it, "Depleted uranium is more of
a problem than we thought when it was developed." It certainly is.  - I
rather doubt that General Scowcroft said this.  Where is the proof?

 

I have also challenged the following by inquiring with the VA.  

These "wounds" add up to very large numbers. We should not be surprised
since 169 thousand of the 580,400 men and women who fought in the first Gulf
War are on permanent medical disability at a cost of $2 billion a year. For
this, the second Gulf War, the estimated medical costs equal the combat
costs or roughly half a trillion dollars

 

>From 

 <http://www.juancole.com/> Informed Comment 

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and <http://www.juancole.com>
Religion 

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute 


Tuesday, March 11, 2008


Guest Editorial: Polk: 
The Iraq War and the Presidential Election 


William R. Polk