Re: Uranium blamed for Gulf War Syndrome (BBC)

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 13:37 04.02.1999 -0600, you wrote:
>I don't intend to minimize anyone's suffering and I may be way off base -
>but I'm wondering if any information exists regarding if any uranium miner
>worker populations (since they would have been exposed to uranium dusts)
>experienced any ill effects (besides lung cancer) similar to those being
>experienced by those vets with Gulf War Syndrome ?  Could any correlation
>be drawn between uranium dust in mines and depleted uranium inhalation
>during the war?  Any thoughts or comments out there?
>
>Laurie Taylor
>laurie-taylor@uiowa.edu
>
............................


Laurie,

Thanks for your contribution, which in my opinion hits the point. I might
have missed something, but I have never heard anything about body burden of
uranium or lung burden of uranium of persons suffering from the Gulf War
Syndrome compared to other persons of the public, not to talk about uranium
miners. We know very well that uranium is much more chemotoxic than it is
radiotoxic. Depeleted uranium is to my knowledge even less radiotoxic than
natural uranium. Uranium miners are not affected by uranium but by radon
daughters.

I remember that during my military service in the Austrian Army in 1977 we
were instructed that certain types of ammunition contained depleted
uranium. Does anyone know, whether this ammunition was not used before the
Gulf War? There have enough "wars" been fought between 1977 (or before) and
the Gulf War. Has anything like the "uranium syndrome" been found before?
If yes, why has it not been reported, if no, why is the Gulf War so special?

I appreciate your comment, that you do not want to minimize anyone's
suffering. I hate the thought that people are burnt to death in an armored
vehicle, that people are killed because of some political reasons, that
large areas are contaminated by whatsoever. But I do not like to make out
of these "conventional" problems a problem of radiation protection, which
it clearly is not related to. The worst thing would be to claim effects for
which no cause can be found to "radiation".

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
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Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
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e-mail: schoenho@via.at

Office:
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Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department of Radiochemistry
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Austria
Tel.: +43-1-40 490 27820
e-mail: schoenhofer@baluf.via.at
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