http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/dura-a21.shtmlSend in the flag wavers first!
"A group of American soldiers suffering from unexplained illnesses due to service in the Iraqi war have been diagnosed with radiation contamination likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by US troops.
An investigation funded by the New York Daily News found that several members of the 442nd Military Police Company, based in Orangeburg, New York, “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium (DU).
A nuclear medicine expert and former Army doctor, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, tested nine men who had been battling serious physical problems that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers. The men—Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone—are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the war, according to the Daily News report. The soldiers contacted the newspaper after six of them were denied testing for DU by Army doctors and the three who were tested waited months for results. Two in the latter group suspiciously tested negative.
Dispatched to Iraq a year ago, the unit, made up for the most part of New York policemen, firefighters and correction officers, has been providing security for convoys, operating jails and training Iraqi police.
“These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle. Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure,” Durakovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, told the Daily News. Dr. Durakovic is affiliated to the Uranium Medical Research Centre, an international association of scientists and physicians—the first study organization to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in the first Gulf War."