[ RadSafe ] Re: Bob Nichols and Depleted Uranium in General

[Roger Helbig]

Dr Phillips, 

It appears that the only article in this list by Bob Nichols is the one from DISSIDENT VOICE dated March 2004, Title: "There Are No WordsSRadiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs.  The very title of this article is misleading and false and if this is the only article for which Project Censored has given Bob Nichols an award, it should be withdrawn.

The Indian Navy Admiral who supposedly made this statement has no idea what the radiation from one Nagasaki bomb is like, let alone 250,000.  Depleted Uranium does not emit the high level gamma radiation which would require thick lead or even thicker concrete shielding that is found in the fission products resulting from a nuclear explosion.  My understanding from a member of the radsafe list is that the amount of Depleted Uranium by weight used in these conflicts is about equal to 250,000 times the weight of the Highly Enriched Uranium used to make the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.   That in no way is a radiation equivalent.

In selecting Depleted Uranium as an under-reported subject, did you or your students obtain any input from a nuclear physicist or health physicist with an intimate understanding of radiation and radioactive materials?  How did you make your selections?  Is there a written record of the candidates and the means by which selections were made, including any independent fact checking of the articles to determine if the reporting was in fact factual?  If there is, please, send me this information?

All of the articles that you have listed have serious flaws.  Nichols, though trumpets his Project Censored Award in every single one of his articles including the ones that falsely accused the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs of resigning because of a non-existent "mushrooming DU scandal" and the one that slandered me that ended up all over the world, including the voice of the Iraqi Resistance in Italy.

Please, also send me the formal notice of the award to Bob Nichols.

I am copying my reply to the Radsafe list, where there are a number of knowledgeable experts in the field of ionizing radiation.  

Thank you, for finally contacting me.

Roger W Helbig

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Phillips" <peter.phillips at sonoma.edu>
To: "Roger Helbig" <rhelbig at california.com>
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: Bob Nichols


Dear Mr. Helbig,

Below is our exact statement on DU published in our Censored 2005 
book.  What portion of this report are you concerned about?

Peter Phillips

4
High Uranium Levels Found in Troops and Civilians

URANIUM MEDICAL RESEARCH CENTER, January 2003
Title: "UMRC's Preliminary Findings from Afghanistan & Operation 
Enduring Freedom"
and
"Afghan Field Trip #2 Report: Precision Destruction- Indiscriminate Effects"
Author: Tedd Weyman, UMRC Research Team

AWAKENED WOMAN, January 2004
Title: "Scientists Uncover Radioactive Trail in Afghanistan"
Author: Stephanie Hiller

DISSIDENT VOICE, March 2004
Title: "There Are No WordsSRadiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs"
Author: Bob Nichols

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, April 5,2004
Title: "Poisoned?"
Author: Juan Gonzalez

INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, March 2004
Title: "International Criminal Tribune For Afghanistan At Tokyo, The 
People vs. George Bush"
Author: Professor Ms Niloufer Bhagwat J.

Evaluator: Jennifer Lillig, Ph.D.
Student Researcher: Kenny Crosbie

Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops 
have been contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive depleted 
and non-depleted uranium as a result of post-9/11 United States' use 
of tons of uranium munitions. Researchers say surrounding countries 
are bound to feel the effects as well.
In 2003 scientists from the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) 
studied urine samples of Afghan civilians and found that 100% of the 
samples taken had levels of non-depleted uranium (NDU) 400% to 2000% 
higher than normal levels. The UMRC research team studied six sites, 
two in Kabul and others in the Jalalabad area. The civilians were 
tested four months after the attacks in Afghanistan by the United 
States and its allies.
NDU is more radioactive than depleted uranium (DU), which itself is 
charged with causing many cancers and severe birth defects in the 
Iraqi population-especially children-over the past ten years. Four 
million pounds of radioactive uranium was dropped on Iraq in 2003 
alone. Uranium dust will be in the bodies of our returning armed 
forces. Nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police serving in Iraq 
were tested for DU contamination in December 2003. Conducted at the 
request of The News, as the U.S. government considers the cost of 
$1,000 per affected soldier prohibitive, the test found that four of 
the nine men were contaminated with high levels of DU, likely caused 
by inhaling dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops. 
Several of the men had traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that 
are produced only in a nuclear reaction process.
Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets, 
tank shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of 
radioactive uranium. Depleted or non-depleted, these types of 
weapons, on detonation, release a radioactive dust which, when 
inhaled, goes into the body and stays there. It has a half-life of 
4.5 billion years. Basically, it's a permanently available 
contaminant, distributed in the environment, where dust storms or any 
water nearby can disperse it. Once ingested, it releases subatomic 
particles that slice through DNA.
  UMRC's Field Team found several hundred Afghan civilians with acute 
symptoms of radiation poisoning along with chronic symptoms of 
internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in 
newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke 
plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by 
burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. 
Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and 
chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the 
cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower 
back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, 
headaches, memory problems and disorientation.
At the Uranium Weapons Conference held October 2003 in Hamburg, 
Germany, independent scientists from around the world testified to a 
huge increase in birth deformities and cancers wherever NDU and DU 
had been used. Professor Katsuma Yagasaki, a scientist at the Ryukyus 
University, Okinawa calculated that the 800 tons of DU used in 
Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. 
The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.
At the Uranium Weapons Conference, a demonstration by British-trained 
oncologist Dr. Jawad Al-Ali showed photographs of the kinds of birth 
deformities and tumors he had observed at the Saddam Teaching 
Hospital in Basra just before the 2003 war. Cancer rates had 
increased dramatically over the previous fifteen years. In 1989 there 
were 11 abnormalities per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 
100,000-an increase of over a thousand percent. In 1989 34 people 
died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths. The 2003 war 
has increased these figures exponentially.
At a meeting of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan 
held December 2003 in Tokyo, the U.S. was indicted for multiple war 
crimes in Afghanistan, among them the use of DU. Leuren Moret, 
President of Scientists for Indigenous People and Environmental 
Commissioner for the City of Berkeley, testified that because 
radioactive contaminants from uranium weapons travel through air, 
water, and food sources, the effects of U.S. deployment in 
Afghanistan will be felt in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, 
Uzbekistan, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China and India. 
Countries affected by the use of uranium weapons in Iraq include 
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, and Iran.

UPDATE BY BOB NICHOLS: Throughout the world people are familiar with 
the "smoking gun" solution so prized by murder mystery writers. Many 
people think that once the smoking gun in any mystery is discovered, 
it is time for the "bad guys" to give up and all will be well. Wish 
it were only so. The smoking gun in the case of the deadly uranium 
munitions so loved by the American Military comes in the form of four 
American Troopers from the 442nd Military Police Unit from New York.
  The men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin 
Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of 
inhaled uranium oxide exposure from the current Iraq conflict. Dr. 
Asaf Durokovic, professor of Nuclear Medicine and a leading expert in 
the field, leads the Uranium Medical Research Centre 
<http://www.umrc.net/> and conducted the diagnostic tests. The story 
was released in the New York Daily News on April 3, 2004 
<http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html>.
There is no treatment, no cure, and no way to remove the 
toxic, radioactive, poisonous uranium oxide from their bodies. These 
men and millions of others will carry their own personal internal 
radiation source with them to their graves. It is truly the gift that 
keeps on giving, courtesy of the American Military.
  The delusional leaders of my American government made the 
only response they knew how to make. They ordered up even more 
bullets, shells, bombs, and missiles with lots of highly radioactive 
uranium on the business end of these deadly weapons of war. Now they 
have turned to the enormous pile, 1.1 Billion Pounds, of uranium they 
used to extract a tiny amount of impurities from to make nuclear 
weapons. Radiation-Wars-R-US!
  A person's lung tissue cells will certainly react when a gram 
of uranium oxide fires 10,000 to 12,000 little "bullets" per minute 
at the cell nucleus and the precious DNA from inside the body. The 
barrage does not stop for 4.5 billion years - that's "forever" to 
most people. Obliging white blood cells, trying to kill the invader, 
cart the radioactive uranium oxide to the gonads. The reproductive 
organs are where the uranium oxide will do the most damage to the 
next generation.
  The essay "There Are No Words," asks people to come up with 
their own ending to the disaster. Of course, these leaders of my 
government must be stopped at all costs. Americans have not succeeded 
yet. For reasons having to do with the Administration's helpmates in 
the media, the November, 2004 election may not succeed.
  Patriotic Americans are doing what they can. Americans 
generally are completely uninformed about the permanent land 
contamination schemes of their government.
  Countries throughout the world can and should summon forth 
the courage to confront the un-elected government bureaucrats and 
cowboys and give rise to an Impeachment of the entire US governmental 
leadership. The United Nations General Assembly, not the Security 
Council, will probably have to intervene on the so-called "sole 
remaining super power" to stop the Radiation Wars and bring the war 
criminals to trial. There is no time like the present. You all know 
what to do.
  For more information on the American President's continuing 
campaign of genocide and contamination of the land, watch for news on 
the recent and upcoming World Uranium Weapons Conferences 
<http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/>.
Check the Uranium Medical Research Center and Dr. Asaf Durakovic at 
<http://www.umrc.net/>, and for updates on the dirty, expensive, and 
related Nuclear Power Plants see Russell Hoffman's website at: 
<http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm> .
Read what Leuren Moret, independent depleted uranium expert and 
former scientist at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab has to say in 
the San Francisco Bay View at <http://www.sfbayview.com/>.
These YahooGroups have ongoing discussions about uranium munitions:
du-list at yahoogroups.com; du-watch at yahoogroups.com; 
pandora-project at yahoogroups.com; nucnews at yahoogroups.com; 
abolition-caucus at yahoogroups.com; earthfirstalert at yahoogroups.com 
Read more from Bob Nichols at: <http://www.dissidentvoice.org/>.

UPDATE BY TEDD WEYMAN: UMRC found artificial uranium in bomb craters, 
surrounding watercourses and the bodies of civilians exposed to US 
Coalition bombing in Afghanistan. Civilians surveyed presented with 
the classical symptoms of internal contamination by uranium, which 
began after exposure to the bombing. The presence of artificial 
uranium in environmental and biological samples indicates that the 
bunker buster warheads used in Afghanistan are made of uranium.
Uranium is a chemically and radiologically toxic element, clinically 
proven to be a cause of various types of cancer and congenital 
malformations (birth defects). Internal contamination of uranium is 
responsible for variety of systemic and organ system problems, which 
has never been considered or studied by the Defense Department or 
Veterans health programs as possible cause of Gulf War Illness. The 
symptoms of internal contamination by uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan 
civilians are identical to the symptoms of US and Coalition veterans 
complaining of Gulf War Illness.
The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its 
studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent 
misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use 
of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific 
findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff, 
physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research 
organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and 
Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following 
Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils 
and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi 
civilians.
The United States and several of its Coalition partners and NATO 
allies have been deploying in battlefield and experimenting with 
chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metals in various types of 
bullets, bombs and warheads since the early 1970s. Uranium powder is 
taken from the nuclear fuel reprocessing cycle, after it has been 
mixed with nuclear reactor waste products and spent fuel, to supply 
the non-fissile weapons' manufacturing industry.
Uranium is preferred over all other "ballistic" metals (e.g. lead, 
iron, tungsten) because it offers a set of unique metallurgical 
properties: it is extremely dense yet ductile metal (not brittle); it 
is pyrophoric (uranium dust burns spontaneously at room temperature); 
and, solid metal uranium is autoigniting at 170° F. Uranium metal has 
a very unusual property not available in any other metal; it is 
"self-sharpening", meaning that when it hits a target at high 
velocities (1 km/sec) it erodes and breaks in such a way as to 
continuously re-sharpen its point - the leading points of all other 
warhead metals flatten or mushroom under these conditions. These 
properties give uranium a superior performance as a penetrating 
warhead alloy capable of breaching the hardest and thickest armor 
plating, retaining penetration capabilities at 15 % greater distances 
and lower speeds than the most common alternative metal, tungsten. 
Burning uranium is hard to extinguish, and if doused with water, it 
will explode. Uranium used in specially designed high velocity liquid 
metal penetrators can bore through 20 feet of super-reinforced 
concrete bunkers in classified weapons called "shaped charges" and 
"explosively formed penetrators". The hard (dense), resilient 
(ductile) and heavy (sustaining momentum) characteristics of uranium 
also make its optimal in the warhead of robust earth-penetrating 
bombs to carry them into buried targets and caves.
The mainstream press in the US and Canada does not show any general 
interest in the story, let alone an investigative interest. European 
mainstream press is more interested and follows key developments. The 
NY Daily News April 5, 2004 has covered Gulf War II results by UMRC's 
studies of US veterans. DoD has lied and misled the public and the 
veterans in an attempt to undermine the significance of the story. 
There is significant alternative press and internet press coverage. 
The technique for coverage is to approach the story as a debate 
between government and independent experts in which public interest 
is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the 
scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused 
and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, 
IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons 
developers and manufacturers).

UPDATE BY STEPHANIE HILLER:  This is a shocking story since it 
suggests that experimental nuclear bombs were dropped around Kabul at 
the end of the war Operation Enduring Freedom. (Did they mean 
enduring radiation?)  And what have they dropped on Iraq?
Continued research shows that we have all been irradiated here in the 
United States, at an enormous cost to the public health. Cancer rates 
alone show that genetic mutation has been rapidly increasing since 
the first bomb was tested in Almorgordo, NM in 1945. But the effects 
of low-level radiation have been systematically hidden from public 
view!
In April after sick vets from the current war got no help from the 
Pentagon, the mother of one of the soldiers went to the papers. Juan 
Gonzalez of the New York Daily News launched an investigation. The 
News paid for nine men to be tested by Asaf Durakovic. He found that 
four of them were contaminated with uranium. The News got the 
attention of New York Senator Hilary Clinton. She held a 
teleconference- but  Durakovic was not allowed to participate!
Amy Goodman interviewed Durakovic later the same month on Democracy 
Now!- don't know if it was thanks to my story. AlterNet rejected the 
story because their source on depleted uranium, John Fahey, did not 
agree with it.
I don't know of any mainstream media that has picked up the story, 
and I don't find any references to the Gonzalez piece either. The BBC 
and the Seattle Post Intelligencer covered it before me.
To learn more about uranium weapons search the web! It's a huge 
topic. Start with the world Uranium Weapons Conference held last 
October in Hamburg: <http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de> The 
Power Point by Dr. Ali shows the most excruciating consequences of 
Persian Gulf One -- deformed babies. Also, Join WBW! Women for a 
Better World has begun an information campaign to educate the public 
about depleted uranium, especially young people who might be called 
to join the military and their families, regarding the contamination 
of Central Eurasia. Come to our web site for more information, 
flyers, and to sign a petition opposing the draft for the same 
reason. <http://www.awakenedwoman.com/wbw.htm>






>Thank you, Dr Arminana.  I have asked for additional information 
>from your Public Affairs office regarding the actual award to Bob 
>Nichols from Project Censored.  I presume that Dr Phillips will now 
>be in touch with me.  I understand that Bob Nichols never had any 
>direct connection with Sonoma State University other than receiving 
>the Project Censored Award.  If the article that he wrote which 
>received the award is as accurate as the articles that he wrote 
>about me and the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Mr Nichols 
>should not have received the award.
>
>Roger W Helbig
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Ruben Arminana" <Ruben.Arminana at sonoma.edu>
>To: <rhelbig at california.com>
>Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 9:41 PM
>Subject: Fw: Bob Nichols
>
>
>I apologize for misspelling your name. It should have been Mr. Helbig.
>ra
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Ruben Arminana
>To: rhelbing at california.com
>Cc: Charles Reed ; Elaine Leeder ; peter.phillips at sonoma.edu
>Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 9:37 PM
>Subject: Bob Nichols
>
>
>Mr. Helbing:
>
>I have received a copy of an e-mail that you sent  on April 17, 2005 
>to publicaffairs at calstate.edu demanding that Bob Nichols retract a 
>story that you considered "false, malicious and slanderous." I do 
>not have any power or influence over Mr. Nichols who does not work 
>for Sonoma State University.Further, it is my understading that Mr. 
>Nichols reported this story in media outlets that are not a part of 
>Sonoma State University. I recommend that you may consider taking 
>this the matter directly with him and  with the media outlets that 
>carried the story.
>
>Project Censored is an academic project which resides in the 
>Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at Sonoma State 
>University and which has been in operation for over 30 years. While 
>I personally do not always share or agree with their interpretation 
>of the news stories that they critique or the awards that they may 
>give, they have the academic freedom to do so. For your information, 
>in a former life I was a reporter for a television station and have 
>been on both sides of the issues of freedom of the press and 
>academic freedom.
>
>The award you mentioned was given by Project Censored and not by 
>Sonoma State University. Again, if you feel that Mr. Nichols should 
>not have received whatever award he received from Project Censored, 
>you may express your concerns to Project Censored through its 
>director, Dr. Peter Phillips at peter.phillips at sonoma.edu. I do not 
>intend to pursuit this matter any further.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Ruben Arminana
>President


-- 
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/