[ RadSafe ] Al Jazeera English - Cancer in Southern Iraq andDepleted Uranium

[Roger Helbig]

Franz,

Thank you, Franz.  I agree with you, except that this is what our kids are
eating up.  Most of them know absolutely nothing on the subject beyond what
YouTube feeds them and this is getting wide YouTube airing.  Al Jazeera
English also poses itself as being a genuine news channel, not a propaganda
feed, so I would think that if they are told that they have been used for
that purpose that they will make amends.  The cancer and birth defect claims
originated in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine; they have been
continually repeated by the US/European/Japanese peace/anti-nuclear
activists and they are widely available on the internet.  If these claims
are not opposed, they become fact in the eyes of those who make them and
those who they influence, including various legislative bodies around the
world.

Roger Helbig

-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schönhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer at chello.at] 
Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 8:12 AM
To: 'Roger Helbig'; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [SPAM]AW: [ RadSafe ] Al Jazeera English - Cancer in Southern Iraq
andDepleted Uranium

Roger, Ahmad, Steven and Marshall,

Dear all (RADSAFErs),

Roger, I will sure not join you in "complaining", because if I would do this
for everything ridiculous and silly messages in Austrian press and TV I
would have to work 49 hours a day. Sdo, how many hours do you think it would
take to comment and protest all the nonsense which is presented all over the
world? We all at RADSAFE should know, what to think of newspaper and other
massmedia news and it seems that the consumers of these news know it as
well. 

One should not forget that all these horror stories of cancer incidence
rising in Iraq, Kuwait, former Yugoslavia were raised by outspoken
anti-nuclear groups from "the West"! There is enough research not only in
Europe regarding "former Yugoslavia", and international organisations in the
near east to clearly denounce the news on those cancer incidences as
blantant propaganda. 

I fully understand Ahmads reasoning. Where are the hard facts? That uranium
as an element is chemotoxic and much less radiotoxic I had thought was
evident within the RADSAFE community. I cannot find any difference between
DU and Unat, except that Unat is slightly more radiotoxic. This fact is
expressed clearly in the WHO recommendations for drinking water. One can
always construct pathways from simple accidents to the doom of the universe.

To blame a muslim TV-station for falsifying data and conclusions is in my
opinion (not being a muslim) totally incorrect, because in our western
countries the same falsifications and deliberate incorrect information is a
standard situation. You are welcome to disagree. 

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im Auftrag
von Roger Helbig
Gesendet: Samstag, 17. Oktober 2009 13:36
An: radsafe at radlab.nl
Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Al Jazeera English - Cancer in Southern Iraq
andDepleted Uranium

Please, join me in complaining to Al Jazeera for the extremely poor quality
of their reporting in this now widely circulating piece.
Press.int at aljazeera.net

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091012122745236765.ht
ml

Doctors in Iraq are recording a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims
south of Baghdad. Sufferers in the province of Babil have risen almost
tenfold in just three years.

Locals blame depleted uranium from US military equipment used in the 2003
invasion. Some 500 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2004 alone. That figure
rose to almost 1,000 two years later.

	
	

In 2008, the number of cases increased sevenfold to 7,000 diagnoses. This
year, there have so far been more than 9,000 new cases, and the number is
rising.

Mosab Jasim reports that Iraqi researchers believe radiation is responsible
for the increase in cancer and birth defects in the country, but he says the
US and British militaries have sent mixed signals about the effects of
depleted uranium. 

However, Christopher Busby, a British scientist and activist who has carried
out research into the risks of radioactive pollution, said there is proof of
a definitive link between cancer and depleted uranium.

"I made this link to a coroner's inquest in the West Midlands into the death
of a Gulf War One veteran ... and a coroner's jury accepted my evidence," he
told Al Jazeera.

"It's been found by a coroner's court that cancer was caused by an exposure
to depleted uranium.

"In the last ten years, research has emerged that has made it quite clear
that uranium is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, certainly
in the form that it takes when used in these wars.

Includes interview: Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of Uranium in Iraq.