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FW: DU -- FYI



the following press article was sent to me this morning.  
Paul A. Charp, (pac4@cdc.gov)

> Sci/Tech
> 
>              Pentagon's man in uranium
>              warning 
> 
>              A-10 tankbuster: They are now firing DU weapons over Kosovo 
> 
>              By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby 
> 
>              As debate intensifies over the use of depleted uranium
>              (DU) weapons in the Balkan conflict, a former Pentagon
>              adviser has come out against them. 
> 
>              He is Dr Doug Rokke, a US health physicist who led the
>              DU clean-up in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq
>              immediately after the Gulf War. 
> 
>              In 1994, Dr Rokke, an Army Reserve captain, was
>              appointed director of the Pentagon's DU project, a job he
>              left in 1997. 
> 
>                            He helped develop an education and
>                            training programme, and conducted
>                            tests on DU explosives in the
>                            Nevada desert. 
> 
>                            The Pentagon has confirmed that
>                            A-10 aircraft are using DU rounds in
>                            the war with Serbia. They are
>                            extremely heavy, and are used for
>                            their armour-piercing capability.
>                            Veterans from the 1991 conflict
>              believe DU, which is both radioactive and toxic, may help
>              to explain the existence of Gulf War Syndrome. 
> 
>              Levels of radioactivity 
> 
>              They point to reports from southern Iraq of much higher
>              levels of stillbirths, birth defects, leukaemia and other
>              child cancers. 
> 
> 
>                                  But Nato says DU is no more
>                                  dangerous than any other
>                                  heavy metal. Its spokesman,
>                                  Major Dan Baggio, says a
>                                  DU round contained about as
>                                  much uranium as would go
>                                  into "a glow-in-the-dark type
>                                  of watch". 
> 
>                                  And the Rand Corporation
>                                  says its study of DU "found
>                                  little documented evidence of
>                                  adverse effects", from either
>                                  radiation or toxicity. 
> 
>              It points out that DU is much less radioactive than
>              natural uranium. 
> 
>              'Burning dust' 
> 
>              But Dr Rokke told BBC News Online it had been mislead
>              by Major Baggio. 
> 
> 
>                                  He believes that Pentagon
>                                  officials have made "a
>                                  political decision and are
>                                  totally unwilling to recognise
>                                  that there are health
>                                  consequences of the use of
>                                  DU". 
> 
>                                  Dr Rokke says the force of
>                                  the impact of a DU round
>                                  converts much of it into a
>                                  spray of burning uranium
>                                  dust. "Consequently, we
>                                  have DU dust which is a
>              radioactive, heavy, metal poison on or within the
>              equipment", and it is scattered up to 25 or 50 metres
>              away. 
> 
>              He says anyone who has inhaled or ingested this dust,
>              or who has let it enter a wound, will need immediate
>              medical treatment. 
> 
>              A senior officer of the US Defense Nuclear Agency said
>              in 1991 that radiation from fragments and intact DU
>              rounds was "a serious health threat". He said there was
>              "a possible exposure rate of 200 millirems per hour on
>              contact". 
> 
>              "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's maximum limit
>              ... is 100 millirems per year." 
> 
>               
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