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- PARIS (AFP) - The use of
armour-piercing depleted uranium ammunition in the Gulf War may be having
long-term health effects on veterans from that conflict, according to research
presented to a nuclear medical conference in Paris on Sunday.
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- Sixteen veterans -- eight Britons, six Americans and
two Canadians -- suffering disorders have traces of uranium 234, 235, 236
and 238 in urine and skeletal samples analysed by spectrometry nine years
after 1991 war, professor Asaph Durakovic, a US specialist in nuclear medicine
and former Pentagon expert, told the conference.
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- It appeared the subjects, all of whom were treated by
Durakovic in a veterans' hospital in Wilmington, in the US state of Delaware,
had breathed in the isotopes, he said.
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- The professor -- who says he has been subject to pressure
from the US government following his research and now works in Saudia Arabia
-- added he would give figures on his conclusions at a congress to be held
in Chicago in November.
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- "My only statement is that uranium is present in
the Gulf war patients, that's all. I am not saying this is the cause of
the Gulf War Syndrome," he cautioned the conference.
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- The Pentagon has dismissed claims that there are health
consequences in using depleted uranium rounds, which are so dense that
they slice through armour plating impervious to traditional rounds.
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- Medical experts say the low level of radiation left in
depleted uranium shells is unlikely to pose a hazard, although breathing
the airborne dust left over from a shell impact could be harmful.
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- Critics have pointed to the ammunition -- which was also
used in the Kosovo conflict -- as one of the possible sources of Gulf War
Syndrome, which is characterised by dizziness, loss of memory, diarrhoea,
occasional high levels of aggression, muscular and articular pains, insomnia
and mental problems.
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- More than 100,000 US, Canadian and British servicemen
have complained of nervous disorders, muscular pains and generalised fatigue
after taking part in the reconquest of Kuwait in 1991 after its invasion
by Iraq.
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- Camouflage paint and multiple vaccinations or antidotes
against toxic gases have also been considered as possible causes of the
condition.
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- The US army used some 320 tonnes of depleted uranium
in the Gulf, particularly in the A-10 "tank killer" planes.
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- Durakovic's statement caused a stir at the conference
of the European Association of nuclear medicine.
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- French expert Dr Michel Bourguignon at an organisation
for protection against ionising radiation (OPRI) said: "Everything
is toxic, it depends on the quantity. You demonstrated that uranium 236
is present, that's all.
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- "Everything depends on the total amount in the body,
not on the percentage with other isotopes. No significant values were given,"
he said.
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- The congress' president and head of nuclear medicine
at Paris' Saint-Antoine hospital, professor Serge Askienazy, said major
elements were missing from Durakovic's report.
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