[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
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."
>
>
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html