FW: UN on DU...

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

----------
> From: Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>
> Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 20:08:06 -0500
> To: <ans-pie@nuke-ans.org>, <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
> Subject: UN on DU...
> 
> ...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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