[ RadSafe ] Yet another purported spewer of radiation truth

[Roger Helbig]

I just found this blog.  I like the way that Word Press allows bloggers to
hide their identity and lets them post with no one having any ability to
tell the world about all the lies that are contained on the site.

http://www.radiationtruth.org/blog/

Truth is the farthest from this person's mind.  I chewed into the opening
paragraphs on his (or her, but more than likely his) depleted uranium page
- there are numerous lies on those.  I invite others to read and comment
back to this unknown blogger on the false statements contained in the
blog.  The News page is also full of interesting and more than likely
untrue comments including one from NIRS about women getting more radiation
caused cancers than men.


My comments were as follows



Your page about DU opens with lie upon lie.



Depleted Uranium’s Tragic Legacy – A 21st century Agent Orange



<DU is nothing like Agent Orange - DU was used in bullets and was not
sprayed or wide spread.  It also is not like Agent Orange in terms of
effect either.>



Depleted Uranium (DU) is a waste product of the nuclear power and nuclear
weapons industry.



<DU is not a waste product.  DU is naturally occuring Uranium-238 in more
concentrated and metallic form.  U-238 is the least active radiologically
of all natural elemental isotopes.  U-238 has always been found world wide.
All living beings ingest, inhale or drink in a fraction of a microgram of
U-238 every day of their lives.>



 It has 75% of the radioactivity of natural uranium and is about 1.7 times
as dense as lead. DU alloys are very hard and pyrophoric, which for
armour-piercing munitions makes them superior  to tungsten armour-piercing
munitions. DU is also used for armour-plating. DU munitions were first used
extensively in the First Gulf War (1991), in Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999),



<the above is reasonably factual - the following is not.  First, DU is not
used for armour plating, DU is used for armor plate that is welded inside
steel armor plates and is not directly exposed to the environment.  The
term plaing makes one think that DU is plated on something.  It is not, it
probably is not even capable of being plated on anything since it is
extremely difficult to work with and machine.>



Iraq since 2003, Afghanistan since 2002, and now in Libya.



<DU was used in Iraq in 2003.  It has not been used in Afghanistan or Libya.
Where did you get those lies?  Who did you copy for this?  It is obviously
some UK source given the spelling of armour.>



After the Gulf War, the British government, which also used DU weapons,
asserted that it should help clean up the radioactive mess that it created.



<Did they really?  They really have not created that great of a radioactive
mess, but the real problem after the Gulf War was that Saddam Hussein's
government would not let the international organizations in to do any field
research or sampling.  That would have interferred with the Saddam regime's
campaign of lies that you are still carrying on.>



Unfortunately the US government felt no such responsibility.



<No government has felt any such responsiblity because UNEP and IAEA
findings are such that there really is no signficant problem.>



The US government and other governments are covering up the cancers, birth
defects and other illnesses that have skyrocketed in places where depleted
uranium has been used.



<The entire paragraph is false.  There never has been any coverup.  There
has been a campaign of lies by professional liars and scientific charlatans
hoping to make a quick buck or get a nice trip, decent lodging and a fine
dinner for free and you are continuing that campaign.> - I neglected to add
that they have "been claimed to have skyrocketed in places like Fallujah
where it is well documented that DU never was used".



Pros (from the military/US government's point of view)

 •DU tipping of weapons allow greater penetration of tanks and armor



<There is no such thing as a DU-tipped anything.  DU is not used to tip
things.  A DU pentrator round is a thin pointed cylinder of hard metal that
kills tanks.>



•Making use of DU is a way for governments involved in uranium enrichment
to deal with a serious waste problem (every year an additional 35,000
metric tons of DU are stockpiled)



<This is completely false.  DU penetrators were developed because the
Soviet Bloc had thousands of tanks and the US and NATO had no way of
stopping them with a tank fired cannon round.  Modern Soviet armor in the
70's could not be pierced by armor piercing ammunition.  Tests revealed
that DU alloyed with Titanium rounds penetrated modern Soviet armor and
nothing else worked.  It had nothing to do with using up the supply of DUF6
- (that is the material that resulted from uranium enrichment, not DU
metal) and a very small fraction of the total supply of DUF6 has ever been
used for DU penetrators or heavy armor plate.>  I neglected to add that
they were used in the Gulf War and the Balkans because the Gulf War was the
first time that US armored forces had faced a large enemy armored
force that used Soviet Bloc built tanks that the DU penetrator was designed
to kill and the Balkans was another instance where the targets were Soviet
Bloc built tanks.



Roger Helbig