[ RadSafe ] uranium birth defect causation details

[James Salsman]

Julian Ginniver wrote:

> James I would like to draw you attention to the following statements 
> issued by the Royal Society in the UK.  A well respected, independent, 
> scientific body. Between 2000 and 2003 they instigated an independent 
> review of the potential health effects of DU....

Firstly, please note that the U.K. Pension Appeal Tribunal Service
tribunal in Edinburgh, February, 2004 rejected the claims of that
Royal Society report in the case of Kenny Duncan, of Clackmannan,
who has Gulf War syndrome and two children both with birth defects.
The tribunal reported that chromosome damage studies performed by
Dr. Albrecht Schott of Germany clearly indicated the same kind of
genetic damage reported by the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology
Research Institute:

"Dr Schott's research formed part of a study of 16 British veterans
of conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which found that they
had 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their
genes, raising fears that they will pass cancers and genetic
illnesses to their offspring."

That Royal Society report also led to the establishment of the
Depleted Uranium Oversight Board -- www.duob.org.uk -- which has
published considerably more specific findings, and promises even
more detail when their urine studies are completed; soon I hope.

>... As you can see, they concluded that the health effects from 
> exposure to DU would not be significant for the majority of exposure 
> situations.

-- without having taken birth defect incidence rates into account.

>... D. Rourke (sp?)

Rokke.  http://www.bovik.org/du/rokke-2000-petition/

>...  Ingestion of DU in contaminated water and food, and from soil, 
> will be highly variable and may be significant in some cases, eg 
> children playing in areas where DU penetrators have impacted, ingestion 
> of heavily contaminated soil, or where a buried penetrator feeds uranium 
> directly into a well. Environmental movement of DU from buried 
> penetrators into local water supplies is likely to be very slow and over 
> a period of decades levels of uranium could increase in some local water 
> supplies....

Sadly, the uranium contamination in Iraqi groundwater is already far
in excess of what we in the West consider safe levels.  The contaminated
areas in the Balkans have much lower water tables, so it hasn't shown up
there, yet.

Sincerely,
James Salsman