UN on DU...

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

...no problem, need to do more work - surprise.

Regards, Jim
============

February 1, 2001 

U.N. Doesn't Find Uranium - Ill Link
 
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 1:17 p.m. ET

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Scientific studies have not proven a link
between exposure to depleted uranium used in NATO weapons and the onset of
cancer or other illnesses, a team of U.N. experts said Thursday.

The four-member team of experts from the World Health Organization traveled
to the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo after reports that soldiers
serving with NATO-led peacekeepers in the Balkans had become ill. The former
top U.N. administrator in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, requested the study.

NATO's use of ammunition containing armor-piercing depleted uranium in
bombing campaigns in Bosnia in 1995 and in Yugoslavia in 1999 has sparked
fear across Europe that it may have caused serious illnesses in peacekeeping
troops. NATO has repeatedly denied that the ammunition could cause cancer or
other ailments.

The WHO team told reporters in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, that they found
no firm evidence ``to link individual medical cases in Kosovo to exposure to
depleted uranium.'' They acknowledged, however, that much more analysis was
needed.

The team looked at data from hospitals and spoke with local groups and
non-governmental organizations working on the issue in Kosovo. They also
traveled to a handful of sites throughout the province where such ammunition
was used, but did not say how many sites were checked or exactly where they
were.

The team also concluded that currently the greater danger to health in
Kosovo comes from exposure to other pollutants such as lead in the air and
from an alarmingly high rate of traffic-related deaths.

The team's final report will be released at WHO headquarters next week.

So far neither German nor Portuguese experts have found enhanced levels of
radiation or any link of the ammunition to diseases.

Also Thursday, some 40 Italian experts started checking Italian peacekeepers
stationed in Bosnia and their quarters for possible health hazards related
to depleted uranium.

The experts from the Institute for Radiobiology in Rome, hired by the
Italian military, started working in two groups, said Lt. Colonel Claudio
Linda, a spokesman for the 1,600-strong Italian contingent. One group was to
perform medical checks on troops while the other was measuring the level of
radiation in the facilities they use.

No danger of radioactivity was found in five locations inspected earlier in
the day, Linda said. He did not say how long the probe would take.

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