Depleted Uranium "Smuggling" Story Rehash

[Stewart Farber <farbersa@optonline.net>]

Radsafe:

The recent thread on Radsafe about a new ABC "news" story regarding the supposed 

smuggling of DU into the US reminded me that this same example of "agenda 

journalism" was reported by ABC News in Sept. 2002. It appears ABC News has just 

dusted off an earlier piece of worthless sensationalism and agenda journalism and 

tried to get a bit more milage out of it in scaring a confused and anxious 

American public.



Nice of ABC news to give the American people such a thoughtful Holiday present. 

It is worth noting that the medical/science Editor for ABC News' 20/20 is Brenda 

Breslauser who worked closely with ABC's 20/20 talking head Brian Ross on stories 

like the DU threat in ABC's original report on this story in September 2002. Ms. 

Breslauer, ABC's "Medical and Science Editor" was an English major in college, so 

perhaps it is understandable that ABC cannot get a science story told without 

sensationalizing, or misrepresenting it.



For the record, copied below is a letter I sent to Brian Ross on Sept. 10, 2002 

about the first DU scare story  run by ABC news about DU "smuggling". As 

expected, Brian Ross and ABC news did not respond in any way to their fabricating 

a worthless and sensationalistic story about DU smuggling.



What is mildly surprising is that ABC appears to have the journalistic lack of 

integrity to just rerun the same story theme 15 months later as if it were 

"news".



Oh well. In any case, best Holiday wishes to all Radsafers and hope everyone has 

a healthy, productive New Year despite DU being "smuggled" into the US. Perhaps 

we can derive some small bit of comic relief in recognizing that the major risk 

of DU in these quantities being carried into the US is to the "smuggler" should 

they have the misfortune to drop a few kg of it on their toes.



Stewart Farber, MS Public Health

Consulting Scientist

[203] 367-0791



========================

COPY OF SEPT. 10, 2002 LETTER TO ABC'S BRIAN ROSS [20/20 Reporter] AND BRENDA 

BRESLAUER [Medical/Science Editor ABC News]:



From: Stewart Farber <farbersa@optonline.net>

To: brian.ross@abc.news.com

Cc: brenda.s.breslauer@abc.com

Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 05:03:45 -0700



Subject: Re: ABC Tests U.S. Border Security ["DU Smuggling"]



Dear Brian:



You may recall you contacted me in late 2000 about the health risks posed by 

Nasal Radium Irradiation [NRI], an ill-advised radiation therapy used on no fewer 

than 500,000 Americans from post WWII into the 1970s. I had been involved for 

some time in trying to force government and medical institutional  response

to this issue. Children who received NRI are now at greatly increased risk of 

head and neck cancer  [more than double], malignant and benign brain tumors [30 

times higher than control group], and thyroid  disease [9 times higher than 

control group] according to epidemiological studies conducted as several Ph.D  

theses at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health which I had shared with an ABC 

[Note: medical/science] producer Brenda Breslauer  during a time when ABC was 

investigating the details of this important issue as a future 20/20 news report.



In early 2001 just after a peer reviewed journal article was published in 

Epidemiology by Jessica Yeh on April 15, 2001] which reported a 2,990 percent 

increase in benign and maligant brain tumors in  children treated with NRI [vs. 

the control group of untreated children at the same hearing loss clinic run by

Johns Hopkins in Hagerstown, MD], ABC decided to drop a news story on NRI because 

Ms. Breslauer told me she "couldn't see a news hook".



I am writing you at this time because I have just read of ABC's decision to run a 

sensationalistic  story on ABC's supposedly "smuggling" a small quantity of 

depeleted uranium into the US. From what has been reported in the AP story link 

below, the only news value of this depleted uranium story is it displays

the scientific illiteracy of ABC news and its willingness to terrorize average 

Americans over something as benign as depleted uranium just because it is a 

"radioactive" material. U-238's half life is 4.5 billion years which makes it 

essentialy stable. That's why it can be used as a shield against radiation 

exposure. ......

Planes fly into NYCity every day with depleted uranium as counterweights. 

Elevators use depleted  uranium as counterweights. ABC's willingness to stir up 

confusion and fear at this time of national anxiety  over potential terror 

threats, with such a non-issue, is reprehensible.



ABC's willingness to do what its doing on the depleted uranium "smuggling" theme 

while ignoring the NRI issue story which could have helped more than 500,000 

Americans by prompting medical notice and  followup recommendations is doubly 

worthy of censure.  ABC has ignored a real radiation risk story with NRI

affecting no fewer than 500,000 Americans who are part of a special population at 

risk of a variety of health problems from NRI received in their childhood years, 

in favor of a story which you've basically fabricated with some anti-nuclear 

activists who supplied you 15 pounds of depleted uranium whose main

value is as an anchor.



You should truly be ashamed of yourself.



Eventually when the full NRI story is told [as it will, by me or someone else who 

finally writes the book], ABC and its inept treatment of radiation risks and 

scientific issues will be seen as part of the problem in our society's ability to 

deal with real radiation and health risks to real people.



I don't really expect any reply from you, but wanted to let you know that from a 

public health perspective you have done the American people a great disservice.



FYI, there was also a book just published a few weeks ago: "The Nose" - A Profile 

of Sex, Beauty, and Survival [Atria Books] written by Gabrielle Glaser. This new 

book has an 18 page  chapter summarizing some aspects of the  Nasal  Radium 

Irradiation issue based on my earlier efforts and several interviews by Glaser 

with me here in CT before she and her husband Stephen Engelberg, a Sr. 

Investigative Editor with the NYT [and co-author of "Germs" with Judith  Miller]

moved to Oregon after 9/11. The chapter on NRI is titled "Nagasaki Up the Nose" 

[ a "hook" title I used on a press release I prepared for a W.W.II Submariners 

group, many members of which received the radium treatment on entering the 

submarine service, which led to national news coverage and a US Senate  hearing

on this issue in 1994]. 



The "Nagasaki up the Nose" phrase is not just  rhetoric.



The risk of brain cancer death alone in a group of children treated with NRI, 

exceeds all excess cancer deaths in an equal size population of survivors  of 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically, 76 thousand Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors 

were carefully followed since the end of WWII. A certain number of excess

cancers have occured in the survivors of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, mostly leukemias 

within 5 to 10 years but  a number of other tumors of various  sites in the body.  

Based on present epidemiological evidence, if we were to track 76,000 children 

treated  with NRI and looking just at brain cancer mortality found by

studies conducted  by Hopkins, more children treated with NRI will have died than 

all cancers at Hiroshima/Nagasaki.



However, this isn't enough of a news "hook" for ABC despite the CDC and Johns 

Hopkins sweeping this  issue under the run, and  falsely claiming there is "no 

significant neoplastic or other disease risk from NRI", a position contradicted 

by Hopkins' own epidemiological studies. Hmmm. Apparently, NRI is  only

significant if a cancer or  anotherhealth problem happen to the person making the 

statement of no harm.



Agenda science. Agenda journalism. A sorry state of affairs.



Most disgustedly yours,



Stewart Farber, MS Public Health

Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project

1285 Wood Ave.

Bridgeport, CT 06604

[203] 367-0791



=======

9/10/02 6:46:46 AM, Todd Brautigam <brautt@myapc.com> wrote:



>

>

>ABC Tests U.S. Border Security

>Fri Sep 6,10:18 PM ET

>By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

>

>NEW YORK (AP) - While some news organizations have tried to sneak material 

through airport screeners,

ABC News thought bigger: the network smuggled depleted uranium into New York.

>

>For the full story:

>

<url: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=529&ncid=529&e=1

&u=/ap/20020907/ap_en_tv/tv_smuggled_uranium>

>

>







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