RE: More on DU

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

> keith bradshaw[SMTP:Keith.G.Bradshaw@soc.soton.ac.uk]
wrote on Tuesday, June 08, 1999 5:52 AM

> it might be possible to inhale 2mg uranium oxide whilst you are
> cleaning out tanks if you're not careful. 
<><><><><><><><>

comment:
how about "if you're determined to be a guinea pig ?"
...seems that's what Dr. Rokke was trying to do:

posted at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_362000/362543.stm
Monday, June 7, 1999 Published at 09:19 GMT 10:19 UK 
BBC Sci/Tech
 <<...>> Depleted uranium: a soldier's experience 
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby 
As debate continues over Nato's use in Kosovo of depleted uranium munitions,
one US Gulf veteran has recalled his experiences eight years ago. 
Dr Doug Rokke is assistant professor of environmental science at
Jacksonville State University, Alabama. He is also a major in the US Army
Reserve, and in 1991 he served in the Gulf. 
His work involved helping casualties and cleaning equipment contaminated
with depleted uranium (DU), used in the war in tank-busting weapons because
of its high density. 
"The shell would hit an armoured vehicle", Dr Rokke told BBC Radio 4's
Costing the Earth programme. "The uranium would catch fire and split into
burning fragments". 
About 70% of the round vaporised into dust, as fine as talcum powder. 
"When we climbed into vehicles after they'd been hit, no matter what time of
day or night it was, you couldn't see three feet in front of you. You
breathed in that dust." 
<><><><><><><><><>
comment: curious the health physicists (??) didn't use even your basic
respiratory mask, like my dentist does ! (and I'm generally in much better
shape than the occupants of a tank wrecked by DU ammunition !!)
According to the U.K. Ministry of Defence posting at URL
http://www.mod.uk/policy/gulfwar/info/du.htm
"In a post combat zone personnel working around a battle damaged tank could
inhale up to 0.3mg of DU.
In the unlikely event of personnel in a vehicle surviving the impact of a DU
round it is calculated that they could possibly inhale larger quantities of
DU particulate, in the order of 3mg per second. However, the exposure to
heat, shrapnel and blast would be more serious and could be fatal. .....The
inhalation of 80mg of insoluble DU would result in the dose limit to the
whole body being exceeded. "
<><><><><><><><><> 
Although the British Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon insist that DU
weapons pose no special risk, Dr Rokke and some other veterans believe the
munitions have made them ill, and that they also threaten civilians. 
Two of Dr Rokke's clean-up team of about 15 people are now dead, he said. 
'You're trashed with uranium' 
"It's very hard to look back at all those years of recommending medical
care, and yet two of your best friends are dead because you assigned them to
do a job." 
He was tested for uranium poisoning while working as head of a Pentagon
project on DU in late 1994. 
"In September 1996 I was at the Pentagon, briefing on DU contamination and
management. 
"An individual walked up to me and said: 'Dr Rokke, you're trashed with
uranium'. I said: 'Thank you. I'd like some medical care'. Nothing happened.

"Finally, in July 1997, I received a letter from the Department of Energy
stating my own internal uranium contamination was 5,000 times that
permissible. 
"My lungs are trashed, I've got rashes, neurological problems. And I'm not
the only one - this is what's happened to everybody else. 
"If they didn't provide any medical care for the project director, guess
what they did for the average soldier. 
"And guess what they're going to do for all the civilians exposed in Kosovo
and Serbia." 
Dr Rokke thinks he knows why neither the USA nor the UK, the two Nato
members which used DU munitions in the Gulf, is providing medical care
routinely to all veterans who may have been exposed. 
"They don't want to acknowledge the health effects, because they don't want
to be accountable for the illnesses of the troops, or of the civilians in
Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia." 
DU munitions 'too effective' 
But he says many Nato governments tell their troops involved in cleaning
vehicles and equipment contaminated with DU to wear full respiratory and
skin protection. 
"They acknowledge the risk. But they don't want to be held accountable," he
said. 
In Dr Rokke's view, DU munitions are too effective for their owners to
surrender them. He cites a 1992 letter from the assistant secretary for the
US Army. 
It says: "DU is fully supported by the Army as an item that gives the
American soldier the winning edge on the modern battlefield". 
"No matter what we found and what we wrote", he said, "we could not disrupt
the decision to use DU munitions in combat." US aircraft have been firing DU
rounds over Kosovo. 
Costing the Earth is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2100 BST on 7 June. 



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