Regarding the media and reporting of DU

["JOHN JACOBUS" <JENDAY1@email.msn.com>]

I saw this in the SLATE, and thought it was good.

-- John

John Jacobus, MS, CHP
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
jenday1@email.msn.com (H)


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explainer

What Are Depleted Uranium Weapons?

By Emily Yoffe

Europeans are worried that soldiers who served in the Balkans, and
residents of the area themselves, may have been exposed to
dangerous levels of contamination from mostly U.S-manufactured
depleted uranium weapons. What is depleted uranium, and how is it
used in weapons?

Uranium ore contains three major isotopes (or types) of uranium:
uranium 234, uranium 235, and uranium 238. At the refinery, the ore
is "depleted" of its highly fissionable U-235, which is used in
bombs and reactors. About 99 percent of the remaining uranium is of
the U-238 variety. U-238 is the stuff used in DU weapons.

DU weapons come in two types: armor and projectile. Because of DU's
extreme density it has been used since the Gulf War as tank
shielding. (It has a similar civilian use as a medical radiation
shield.) The weapons that have come under the greatest scrutiny,
however, are the DU-enhanced projectiles first used in the Gulf War
and then in great numbers in the Balkans. DU-tipped bullets have
not only tremendous penetrating capacity but two bonus qualities:
Instead of flattening out when striking a target, the bullet
resharpens itself, and particles of DU released during impact
spontaneously combust.

Now health questions are arising about exposure to DU weapons
because a number of European veterans of the Balkans have died of
leukemia. The U.S. Department of Defense says the primary risk to
exposure to DU is not its radioactivity, which is low, but the
toxic effects it shares with its fellow heavy metals, mercury and
lead. Soldiers can get DU fragments imbedded in their bodies and
also inhale DU particles if close to an impact. The department says
studies of Gulf War veterans, some with DU shrapnel still in their
bodies, have not shown increased kidney damage--a known side-effect
of high exposure to uranium--or birth defects in the soldiers'
children. Not surprisingly, this kind of reassurance is not
reassuring the Europeans. Both NATO and the European Union have
ordered investigations into the health effects of exposure to DU.


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(The following comment was submitted to the above article -- John)

Reader Comment From The Fray:


The real environmental exposure threat from service in the Balkans comes
from the indifference to pollution of the former government of the former
Yugoslavia. The original UNPROFOR peacekeepers set up cantonments in several
sites later found to have serious heavy metal and radioactive contamination
problems. A Belgian battalion had to evacuate several soldiers with lead
poisoning, and another had two near misses on contamination from distinctly
non-depleted Uranium. By the time the U.S. and NATO sent in troops, we were
forewarned and carefully screened or cleaned all prospective cantonment
areas. Depleted Uranium is simply a politically convenient target.

--Glen Tomkins
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