Re: Depleted Uranium and Leukemia

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

>IS DU REALLY THE CAUSE?
>There have been several recent postings on the subject of possible excess 
>of cancers including leukaemia in military personnel who have served in the 
>20 Gulf war or most recently in peace keeping operations in the Balkans.
------------------------------
There was, according to my opinion, a quite biased news coverage in our 
major TV news channel ("TV2 Rapport") on this two evenings ago. The 
reporters had mixed interviews with various representatives of the military 
Kosovo personnel with a geiger measurement (very suggestive sound) of a 
piece of material (DU?) and others - one was a key representative from the 
Swedish SSI. He said that this was like the background (I wonder if the 
broader public understands the word "background") and if I recall correctly 
that this was not a radiological problem (and also that there instead was a 
toxicity aspect - I am not sure about this). There were also some statements 
about leukemias/cancers (one or two names of nations were mentioned). I 
missed parts of this because when this news reporting came on I was 
originally focused on some other work and wasn't watching - the TV was just 
running. Therefore what I am writing here reflects the parts I grasped.

One of the last interviews was with some Swedish higher officer who 
essentially said "we have not been in the area so we are not worried". (and 
then the listener may think - "but if they had been in the area they would 
have been irradiated and got leukemias/cancers").

I asked myself right afterwards: "how does the general public perceive this 
from a radiological view?" My answer is that all this on TV probably seemed 
like a radiological risk to the non-specialist. The next day I checked my 
idea about this with two collegues who also had seen it and they came to the 
same conclusion.

This is according to my personal ideas (that happen to be shared by at least 
two others),

Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com

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