Truthout: Depleted Uranium: Pernicious Killer Keeps on Killing

[marmar]

Depleted Uranium: Pernicious Killer Keeps on Killing
By Craig Etchison, Ph.D.
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Monday 19 February 2007

The Questions

I live a few miles from an ATK (Alliant Tech) plant that produces depleted uranium (DU) tank shells for the military. Tank shells destroy and kill, and they, along with all military hardware, are a constant reminder of our failure as a civilization. But DU weapons and tank shells are only two of many items that raise questions that even our violence prone society needs to address. Since shortly after Gulf War I, soldiers and civilians have been questioning the safety of these weapons which are made of radioactive material. The more questions raised, the more the military-industrial complex has hauled out studies showing the safety of DU munitions. One CEO called DU the "skim milk" of uranium in an article penned for my local paper. An Air Force officer is even stalking the internet, trying to intimidate anyone who suggests DU is anything but benign.

Yet the numbers suggested that something insidious happens when DU munitions are used. How to explain the exploding rates of cancer, birth defects, and radiation poisoning among Iraqis in the Basra region? How to explain a Department of Veterans Affairs study of 21,000 veterans of the Gulf War that found rates of birth defects were twice as great for male vets and three times as great for female vets who served in the Gulf War compared to vets who did not? How to explain a Washington Post report in January of 2006 that 518,00 of the 580,000 Gulf War veterans were on disability, over half on permanent disability. How to explain over 13,000 dead Gulf War veterans when only 250 were killed and 7,000 injured in the war itself?

Finally, through the work of internationally recognized research scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, we may have an answer to these questions. The answer has to do with using an analytical methodology appropriate to low level radiation, as opposed to inappropriate methodologies used to date that show DU is harmless, and, equally important, understanding that DU has both a radiological component as well as a heavy metal component, and the two in combination are far more toxic than either is singly.

What is DU and Why Is It a Problem?

Depleted Uranium (DU) is the waste left after the isotope uranium-235 (used for bombs and nuclear reactors) has been removed. DU (mostly U-238) makes up the largest amount of radioactive waste other than uranium mining waste worldwide and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. In the United States, DU can only be handled by persons trained in radiation safety procedures. DU must also be isolated from the environment. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021907G.shtml

[TheWraith]

1. Not this again.

Moving right past the fact that this is Truthout, obligating me to make some "24 business hours" joke, it's just pathetic that people are still running this story without bothering to do actual research.

"Since shortly after Gulf War I, soldiers and civilians have been questioning the safety of these weapons which are made of radioactive material."

The phrase "radioactive material" is highly deceptive. Depleted uranium releases only alpha particles, which are so low-power and short range as to be completely harmless unless you literally ingest an alpha emitting substance. Given that depleted uranium is also chemically poisonous in at least a half a dozen ways, if you do ingest or inhale it, you've then got even bigger problems than alpha particles.

"An Air Force officer is even stalking the internet, trying to intimidate anyone who suggests DU is anything but benign."

Right. Got proof of that? 'Cause it sounds suspiciously like hearsay.

"Yet the numbers suggested that something insidious happens when DU munitions are used. How to explain the exploding rates of cancer, birth defects, and radiation poisoning among Iraqis in the Basra region?"

For starters, this is the worst kind of shoddy "journalism." Show me, please, the evidence for "radiation poisoning" among the people of Basra. This is literally just making up facts to fit the narrative.

And God forbid that those birth defects maybe having something to do with the extremely questionable anthrax vaccines we required for our troops; the chemical weapons stores that we bombed and left to burn; the oil well fires raging all over the region and dropping massive clouds of toxins on everyone within hundreds of miles; and yes, the exposure to toxic chemicals used in our own munitions. No, better to forget about all that, and focus on this strawman of radiation.

Furthermore, there's never been significant reports of Gulf War Syndrome-like sicknesses or increased cancers in Bosnia or Kosovo, where depleted uranium munitions were also used.

"How to explain a Washington Post report in January of 2006 that 518,00 of the 580,000 Gulf War veterans were on disability,"

Credible news agencies are spinning in their graves right now.

"Finally, through the work of internationally recognized research scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell,"

It's worth noting that Ms. Bertell is one of those people who beleives that the HAARP research station in Alaska is actually a giant particle gun which, in combination with Spacelab, can deliver a nuclear weapon-like attack anywhere on Earth. She's also directly attributed obesity in the United States to iodine from nuclear testing.

"If the government ever admitted what it has done in Iraq-between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of DU ordnance expended according to most estimates"

Again, real numbers are something that journalists are supposed to use. This figure is a ten-fold exaggeration. A total of 200 tons of DU-bearing weapons were used in the first Gulf War, and ten percent of THAT figure used in the current war. It's really easy to find these things out.

Any kind of heavy metal, particularly one that's radioactive (even if it's only alpha particles) is dangerous, but the kind of ridiculous scaremongering that so many of these articles indulge in is simply shameful. A perfect example is the claim toward the end of the article that depleted uranium will singlehandedly kill three million Iraqis, which is just silly. If you can't make your case without such blatant fabrications, it completely undermines the whole issue of non-toxic munitions and only gives more ammunition to defense contractors.