Kosovo Soldiers and Leukemia

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

>
>Tom, you are correct. This is simply a form of "mass hysteria" where
>a govt. wants to make it apparent to their populace that they are
>"doing something" and assessing blame for ailments. Radiation has
>been, and will always be, the "causal factor". In my opinion,
>radiation is actually the "victim" in all of this.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Sandy Perle Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100


I am watching the news on Austrian TV. Just three minutes ago the first and
obviously most important news stated that there is a dramatically high
number of soldiers in Kosovo, who have fallen ill with leukemia. Many of
them have died from it already - 7 Italians, a few Belgians and some from
other nations (I do not remember). The "weakly radioactive" uranium might be
the reason. No increased radiation levels have been found. None of the 400
Austrians have been affected (-comment: probably we are much more resistant
to the deadly uranium.....-), no rise of leukemia in the local population
has been observed (-comment: they are resistent too!-).  And it must be a
very special leukemia, which develops within a few months.......

But, what can we expect? People are fed almost every day with news about
accidents in nuclear power plants - from the hammer which fell on the toe of
a worker to an automatic shutdown after some malfunction (which would
normally be an argument, how safe the NPP is!) - about the dreadful danger
of a transport of vitrified waste by ship and that the radionuclides would
be liberated if the ship sank (Greenpeace statement, quoted from Sandies
message) etc. etc. - well, we read on RADSAFE daily about it. And, finally,
if there is a "Gulf War Syndrome" caused by depleted uranium (yes, I know
that it does not exist, but for the mass media it does), why should there
not be a "Kosovo Syndrome"? This is the reasoning of the people affected by
illness. Since they are not scientists and have no access to the scientific
literature and reports, and even if they had the reports they would not be
able to understand it, I suppose that  t h e y  cannot be blamed. It is the
mass media, who have to be blamed.

Franz



Franz
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