[ RadSafe ] Letter to the Muskegon Chronicle

[James Salsman]

Robert N. Cherry, Jr., wrote in a Letter to the Editor
of the Muskegon Chronicle:

>... To help you get started on your research, ask some folks
> in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University
> of Michigan (for example, Dr. Kearfott) or UM’s Radiation
> Safety Service (for example, Dr. Mark Driscoll) for an
> educated opinion on the potential biological effects of DU.

The chemical toxicity resulting from depleted uranium
inhalation exposure is several orders of magnitude more
hazardous than its radiological effects, so I recommend
that you also contact a toxicologist familiar with heavy
metal catalytic damage to DNA, and show them these
publications from the peer-reviewed medical literature:

http://www.bovik.org/du/Miller-DNA-damage.pdf
http://www.bovik.org/du/chromosome-abberations.pdf
http://www.bovik.org/du/devtox-mice.pdf
http://www.bovik.org/du/du-on-rats.pdf
http://www.bovik.org/du/inhalation-est.pdf *
http://www.bovik.org/du/5_Durakovic.pdf *
http://www.bovik.org/du/4_Durakovic.pdf *
http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/33/1/74 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12854660&dopt=Abstract

* I especially recommend the publications by Asaf Durakovic,
M.D., a former colleague of Dr. Cherry, and also a retired Army
Colonel, but a medical doctor with toxicology training who
commanded a Medical Detachment Unit in the first Gulf War,
serving as a Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and
the Chief of the Nuclear Medicine Service at the Wilmington, DE
Veteran's Administration Medical Center, who was fired in 1997
after speaking out against the dangers of DU inhalation.

Dr. Cherry is not a medical doctor, but was merely a Radiation
Safety Officer and Health Physicist, and as such has no training
in reproductive toxicology or heavy metal toxicity.  The Army
assigned him in 2000 to reply to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
petition on DU munitions from Doug Rokke, another Army officer
who was fired after speaking out against the dangers of depleted
uranium, so it is unsurprising that Dr. Cherry ignores depleted
uranium's heavy metal toxicity and catalytic chromosome damage,
focusing on its minor radiological hazard instead.

And that certainly proves that the Muskegon Chronicle was correct
in questioning the truthfulness of Dr. Cherry and his superiors.

Sincerely,
James Salsman
Mountain View, CA