WHO asks more detail on uranium arms health effect

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

WHO asks more detail on uranium arms health effect

GENEVA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation is seeking 
more details on the effects of depleted uranium munitions used in the 
Balkans and Middle East, the U.N. agency's chief Gro Harlem 
Brundtland said on Monday. 

The former Norwegian prime minister told a meeting of the WHO 
executive board that more information was needed because individual 
countries and the Western NATO alliance were looking to the United 
Nations for guidance on the issue. 

They were asking "what evidence there exists on the health effects of 
depleted uranium," she said. 

Brundtland was speaking after the rapid spread of concern across NATO 
countries in recent weeks over the possible harm from DU to troops 
who had served in Bosnia and Kosovo over the past decade and in 
Kuwait and Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. 

A senior WHO official said last week there was no clear proof that DU 
could cause leukaemia, or cancer of the blood, and that preliminary 
checks in Kosovo hospitals had shown no increase in the disease among 
civilians. 

But Brundtland said despite these checks, "we cannot determine the 
real risk to the health of the population associated with exposure to 
depleted uranium radiation without additional in-depth 
investigation." 

AGENCIES PREPARE REPORT 

WHO was working with the International Agency for Research on Cancer 
and the U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP) to gather more 
information, and would report in the spring, she said. UNEP head 
Klaus Toepfer also said last week further facts were needed. 

Depleted uranium munitions were used, mainly by U.S. forces, by NATO 
against Bosnian Serb targets in Bosnia in 1994-95, and in 1999 
against Yugoslav military targets in Kosovo, a Serbian province now 
under U.N. administration. 

They were first used by the United States against Iraqi troops and 
hardware during the Gulf conflict which followed Iraq's occupation of 
Kuwait in 1990. 

Since that war, Iraq has frequently declared that thousands of its 
civilians had contracted various forms of cancer and babies been born 
deformed from the effects of radiation from the dust left when the 
munitions explode. 

Brundtland said that, apart from UNEP and the cancer research body 
"WHO works in collaboration with those who have been directly 
involved." 

A senior WHO official said last week the agency was sending a task 
force to Iraq this month to look into the claims. 

Brundtland, a medical doctor, said the WHO was looking for more 
information "on the incidence of neoplasia (tumour growth) and other 
possible adverse health impacts" among civilians in the Balkans and 
the Middle East. 

It was also looking for more detail on possible effects among 
humanitarian workers and military personnel -- "particularly those 
known to have handled depleted uranium," she added. 

"This information will need analysis in a way that demonstrates the 
relative risk of leukaemia and other health outcomes associated with 
different exposure patterns," the WHO Director-General declared. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
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Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net
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