RE: Servicemen's health in danger By DAVID WEINTRAUB

[BobCherry@AOL.COM]

FYI, another letter to the editor.

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Dear Editor, Miami Herald:


I must respond to the column you published Monday, "Servicemen's health in danger," by David Weintraub. It is full of inaccuracies. I have two main points to make.


First, depleted uranium is a heavy metal, much like lead. Its radioactivity is very low and its primary hazard to health is due to its chemical toxicity, similar to that of lead and tungsten. It is incapable of causing the so-called Gulf War Syndrome. In sufficient quantities inside the body (that is, only above a certain threshold), it causes kidney failure. Gulf War veterans and soldiers currently in Iraq have no possibility of taking in enough depleted uranium to evidence this effect. Iraqi claims to the contrary for their own citizens are false propaganda. 


A casual review of the scientific literature published well before depleted uranium munitions were ever used in combat will support what I have written. Soldiers, victims of friendly fire incidents, with depleted uranium fragments still in their bodies since the Gulf War have shown no ill effects from it, even though they continue to excrete well-above average amounts of uranium.


Second, you give Dr. Rokke much more credit than he deserves or has earned. He was not director of any Pentagon project. He worked briefly at the US Army Chemical School Redstone Arsenal before being released. His scientific credentials are weak. He has a bachelor's degree in physics. His doctorate is in some sort of educational field. He was a non-tenured professor of "environmental science" for two years at a small university in Alabama. Following the Gulf War, he was a bit player supporting a large team of mostly civilians who attempted to recover US armored vehicles hit by "friendly" depleted uranium fire. The civilians were the experts, not Rokke. Rokke was in-country liaison for them. Apparently, he is currently making a living on the activist lecture circuit as a shill for antiwar and antinuclear groups.


The results of Rokke's "research" to which Mr. Weintraub refers are not supported by the peer-reviewed scientific literature, to which, by the way, Rokke has not contributed in this area.


Rokke had no one working under him, much less the 100 men Mr. Weintraub mentions, so how 30 of them could have died is a mystery (or maybe something else?). Research into this allegation will show that no such 100 or 30 men ever existed. If they did exist, how could they have had cancers in the 1990s caused by depleted uranium exposure in the Gulf War when it is well known that radiation-induced cancer, except for leukemia, has a latency of well above ten years?


Rokke's rants fool some journalists, presumably because, as an amateur actor, he can be dramatic and convincing. Rokke does not trick responsible journalists who do a minimum of research on him. Use of depleted uranium in combat is no more illegal than the use of lead and tungsten. That is, it is not illegal. Its use causes no more environmental damage than does the use of lead and tungsten. It is no more hazardous to health than are lead and tungsten.


Sincerely,



Robert N. Cherry, Jr., Ph.D. (physics), CHP (certified health physicist)

Colonel, US Army (retired)