- BOSTON - Despite scant coverage
in the U.S. media, a controversy over depleted-uranium ammunition used
in the Gulf and Balkan wars has been raging in Europe. Several governments
that provided troops for these conflicts fear that a rash of unexplained
illnesses in veterans--including hemorrhaging, tumors and cancers--may
have been caused by ammunition fired by U.S. warplanes.
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- Germany, Italy, Norway and the European Parliament have
called for a moratorium on using the ammunition, while the World Health
Organization has announced plans for a study of civilians in Kosovo and
Iraq who may have been exposed. Last week, Pekka Haavisto, the head of
the United Nations' investigation of depleted uranium, warned of the necessity
to "closely follow the state of health" of those exposed to the
ammunition in the Balkans.
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- Questions abound: Is there a causal link between depleted
uranium and serious illnesses? What constitutes dangerous levels of exposure?
How many soldiers and civilians have been exposed? How much plutonium is
there in the ammunition?
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- One thing is certain: The Pentagon has inflamed the controversy
by withholding information and stonewalling investigations. It is likely
to remain a major headache for the Bush administration, especially for
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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- Depleted uranium is a chemically toxic heavy metal that
emits low-level alpha radiation. It is used in armor-piercing ammunition
because it is extremely dense and pyrophoric, which enables it to punch
and burn its way through hard targets such as tanks. But depleted uranium
also contaminates the impact area with a fine depleted-uranium dust that
presents a health hazard if inhaled in sufficient quantities. In the aftermath
of the Gulf War, research on rats conducted by the military's Armed Forces
Radiobiology Research Institute found that depleted uranium's chemical
toxicity--not its radioactivity--may cause immune system damage and central
nervous system problems and may contribute to the development of certain
cancers.
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- Dr. David McClain, the military's top depleted-uranium
researcher, told a presidential committee investigating Gulf War illnesses
in 1999 that "strong evidence exists to support [a] detailed study
of potential DU carcinogenicity." A separate Army-funded study conducted
by the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque, N.M., found
that depleted uranium caused cancer when implanted in laboratory animals.
While Fletcher Hahn, a senior scientist at Lovelace, cautioned about applying
the findings to human beings, he also called the study "a warning
flag that says we shouldn't ignore this."
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- Despite the military's own research, however, in recent
weeks Pentagon spokesmen have dismissed concerns about depleted uranium
as unscientific hysteria and propaganda. For example, Army Col. Eric Daxon
recently attributed concerns about depleted uranium to "a purposeful
disinformation campaign" by the Iraqi government. Yet, the Army anticipated
the current controversy even before the war against Iraq. A July 1990 report
from the U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command predicted that,
"Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term
health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability
of the continued use of DU [ammunition] for military applications."
The report added that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures
are internal."
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- Six months after the Army's prescient report, U.S. and
coalition fighting forces charged into Kuwait and Iraq, oblivious to the
hazards of the 320 tons of depleted-uranium ammunition shot by U.S. tanks
and aircraft. When thousands of veterans reported myriad health problems
after the war, a series of federal investigations queried the Defense Department
about its use of depleted uranium. In each case, the Army Surgeon General's
office asserted that only 35 veterans had been exposed, a number so small
that it did not justify further research.
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- Through Congressional inquiry and the determined work
of Gulf War veterans' advocates, however, the Pentagon was forced to dramatically
increase its estimates of the number of veterans exposed to depleted uranium.
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- In January 1998, the Pentagon's Office of the Special
Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses made a long-overdue admission: "Combat
troops or those carrying out support functions generally did not know that
DU contaminated equipment such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds required
special handling. The failure to properly disseminate such information
to troops at all levels may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures."
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- The Pentagon's figure of "thousands" tells
us little about the effects of depleted uranium on these veterans. Unfortunately,
until 1998 the Department of Veterans Affairs accepted the Pentagon's original
number and examined only 33 veterans exposed to depleted uranium. Some
of these veterans continued to excrete depleted uranium in their semen
and urine six years after the war. Several have mild central nervous system
problems. The VA removed a bone tumor from one veteran who was wounded
by DU shrapnel.
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- In the absence of an epidemiological study of a larger
number of exposed veterans, however, no firm conclusions about the role
of depleted uranium can be drawn. Unfortunately, the lack of candor has
continued even after Kosovo. When the war ended, a United Nations task
force asked NATO to identify areas contaminated with depleted uranium so
that peacekeepers, civilians and relief workers might be warned about the
potential hazard. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization inexplicably refused
to comply with the request. In February 2000, eight months after the war,
NATO finally confirmed that U.S. jets had released the equivalent of 10
tons of depleted uranium in Kosovo and Serbia. Another seven months passed
before NATO disclosed the 112 locations of contamination. But it wasn't
until last month--19 months after the bombing stopped--that NATO finally
posted warning signs at the sites.
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- From all accounts, peacekeepers, civilians and relief
workers in Kosovo were surprised to learn about depleted-uranium contamination
in their midst. There, as in Iraq, children had long been playing on destroyed
equipment. In addition, adults had scavenged destroyed equipment for usable
parts and scrap metal.
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- European outrage increased when the U.N. disclosed that
some depleted-uranium ammunition used in Kosovo contains plutonium and
other highly radioactive elements. Pentagon spokesmen asserted that the
amounts of plutonium in the ammunition are extremely low, but they have
failed to publicly disclose the levels of plutonium in ammunition shot
in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and Kuwait and on training ranges in Japan, Germany,
Puerto Rico and the United States.
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- The Pentagon's history of withholding information about
depleted uranium has fueled suspicions among many of our allies. Rumsfeld
should try a new approach: ordering full disclosure of all information
and complete cooperation with international investigations.
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- - - -
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- Dan Fahey, Who Attends the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, Is a Navy Veteran and Former Board Member
of the National Gulf War Resource Center
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- Comment
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- From Jim Phelps Magnu96196@aol.com
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- The Pentagon's Daxon is the one on a misinformation campaign.
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- There is a mechanism that fully explains why DU is a
factor in GWI type health effects. For insoluble DU particulate in
lung the immune system is activated by both the alpha radiation and toxic
metal effect and this causes the macrophages to scoop up entire particles
and bioconcentrate them into the lymph nodes where this high concentration
sets of superoxygen and NO effects damaging the mitochondria of stationary
and fixed macrophage cells which impairs the destruction of biological
DNA.
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- Urinalysis for insoluble DU in lung is totally ineffective
at identifing or protecting the lymph nodes from this type damage. Reason
is the DU has to be chemically dissolved to be removed via the kidney and
with the lymph pathway the insoluble particulate doesn't have to be.
This is the critical factor oversite in the protection from DU dust contamination
via lung. It is also well known since the 1980's at ORNL that this was
a problem and that it would cause illness connected with heavy metal type
injury of the immune system via this pathway and mechanism.
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- Other toxic materials released from infrastructure targetting
also add to the lungs toxic mix and set off a similar process to bioconcentrate
other toxic chemicals into the lymph nodes and cause additive chemical
harm. Worst offender is typically fluorides and chemicals that have long
term retention in the body so the exposures integrate with low level long
term chronic exposure.
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