Iraq: Depleted Uranium aka Baghdad Boils?! (cover up)

[donsu]

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18948&hd=0&size=1&l=x


December 23, 2005
There’s a possibility that the US Department of Defense (DoD) is hiding the US casualties under a disguise of 'Baghdad Boils’, a disease plaguing the US troops in Iraq, claimed to be caused by the sand fly bites, but possibly by depleted uranium (DU) radiation. To explore this issue I’ve forwarded the following article to DU experts in the world to have it checked and I’m now publishing it as a preliminary announcement here in iraq-war.ru. I’ll keep you updated on this as soon as I hear of them (if confirmed you can’t miss the fat mainstream Headlining.

-snip- containing info on what DU does to the body and info on what sand fleas do to the body

Having recognized the previous facts we are left with the following consequences:


(1) Depleted uranium explains the changes in the Master Code in the DNA caused by Baghdad Boils much better than the 'sand flies’ (if the sand flies are not simply considered as an army code word for 'uranium particles’ or alike). In fact, the diagnosis of Baghdad Boils as 'leishmaniasis’ put forth in several connections by Dr. Roger Bate is itself highly suspicious as Dr. Bate is a visiting fellow at American Enterprise Institute, a front for international armed looting around the world.

(2) As the United States treats the cancer developing multiple malignancies of its tank crews with Pentostam (and not Miltefosine), this shows that the US Armed Forces and the Pentagon are indeed aware of the effects of the depleted uranium, which again shows that they are lying in their denials of its cancer-producing effect, thus giving a direct answer to "QUESTION 11. WHAT DOES THE U.S. GOVT. KNOW ABOUT DU?"
in http://traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf. They know everything, even how to slow down the mutations caused by DU

-snip- this list goes to #6
-------------------------------------

the Pentagon bushgang is indeed hiding something

[Clara T]

1. Interesting possibility- There are problems with the article but..

Admittedly so by authors but consider this from article:

"The idea with the article is not only to breach the Pentagon lies just here (as this might be wrong alert), but to make the present situation of the US Armed Forces better illuminated:
1) practically all the US troops deployed in the first Gulf War are either dead or disabled very soon, by DU (shown now to be cause of the Gulf syndrome).
2) As the US troops in this war are taking longer tours and more combats in Iraq than those in the first Gulf War, they’re also contaminated, but even worse than the troops in the 1. war.
3) Whether the hidden casualties are found or not by this, the fact is that whAT the US has now in Iraq as its Armed Forces is a Zombie Army of living dead driving around Iraq in dead man’s chests. Not very happy piece of info to your morale, should you be in their boots, especially when the people behind this deception are your own commanders and the Pentagon.
4) I’m also wondering whether this DU factor is the true reason of Murtha demanding immediate withdrawal from Iraq: perhaps the US troops cannot take much more DU radiation, without the epidemy becoming really serious. So keep eye on US troops health announcements (i.e. flu etc., since the radiation certainly draws down your resistance levels) "

[pocket]

2. it's leshmaniasis

very nasty parasite spread by sand fleas

http://sprojects.mmi.mcgill.ca/tropmed/disease/leish/summary.htm

[GrpCaptMandrake]

5. And leishmaniasis is clearly diagnosible

with a distinct parasitic etiology from DU poisoning.

I fear we run a definite risk of doing harm to the DU issue by trying to make other illnesses into DU issues.

Leishmaniasis is a separate screw-up. We sent troops in, knowing it was there, but with our military medical staff unprepared to confront it. That is a big enough screw up all by itself.

[donsu]

3. maybe Cindy and the vet's wives/girlfrinds can add info?

nt

[joannc]

4. In the town I live in,2 have now died from depleted uranium

The first one died about 2 years before the second one,the first family fought the government and won,the second widow did not fight the government because her husband who was a lifer ask her not to but his systems we the same as the other one who had died.He had eruptions all over his body also and was ate up with cancer.

[DemInDistress]

7. joannc.....

Welcome to DU !! I was told/urged when I first joined DU to welcome newbies to the forum so again,,

Welcome.:hi: :hi: :dem:

I'm sure we'll be hearing of more soldiers sickened and dying due to Depleted Uranium....

[philarq]

6. any actual scientific proof?

I have yet to see any about Depleted Uranium....

[FtWayneBlue]

8. check out

www.beyondtreason.com/
and
www.iacenter.org/poison-dust.htm

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. Links

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du.htm

Tests point to health damage of DU in Iraq

Originally posted at: http://www.vermontguardian.com/
Sept. 6, 2005

NEW YORK -- After National Guardsman Gerard Matthew returned home from his Iraq tour a year and a half ago, he learned that members of another unit, who accepted an offer by the New York Daily News, had tested positive for depleted uranium (DU) contamination. Since he had spent much of his time lugging around DU-damaged equipment, Matthew also decided to get tested, and it turned out he was the most contaminated of them all.

According to a story by Dave Lindorff for In These Times magazine, Matthew next urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered that the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits. Now Matthew is angry at a government that never warned him about DU’s dangers.

No one knows how many U.S. soldiers have been contaminated. Despite regulations authorizing DU tests for anyone who suspects exposure, the military avoids doing them—or delays until they are meaningless, Lindorff writes.

http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_book.html

[NNadir]

12. The toxicity of depleted uranium is covered in Chem Rev, 2003 103 4207-82

Every few weeks some commentary on uranium toxicity involving complete ignorance of what a radiological toxin is, surfaces on the internet.

It is pure nonsense. Uranium is a common naturally occurring element, about as common as tin. There are 3 to 4 billion tons of uranium in seawater alone.

It is not as if the scientific community has not taken the risk of uranium tank shells seriously, but irrespective of science, you will have a subset of people who know nothing of science running around claiming that the problem with the war in Iraq is uranium shells and radioactivity, irrespective of what the scientific literature reports. Some will go so far as interpret the Iraq war as a "nuclear war" showing that they not only have are lacking the remotest fucking clue about what radiation is and is not, but they also have no fucking clue what nuclear war is and is not.

Depleted uranium has been used in heavy armor for tanks as well as in kinetic energy ammunition. The great density of uranium confers DU munitions with better armor-piercing capabilities. On impact, the uranium fragments into many tiny particles that can then ignite. These fragments, whether caused by the impact and subsequent explosion, by damage to armor on vehicles, or by vehicles and munitions damaged by fire, can form a particulate dust that can be inhaled or contaminate wounds.449,450

The role of DU in the development of illnesses in veterans of the Persian Gulf conflict has recently
been discounted, as the soldiers most directly in contact with dust, namely those in or near explosions of DU ordinance or armored vehicles or others who treated or rescued the wounded, do not exhibit any increase in the symptoms expected in those with more direct exposure.449,450 Depleted uranium has 40% less specific activity than naturally occurring uranium, but as a heavy metal, it is still chemically toxic.450 Thus, it follows that the kidney should be the first organ directly affected by poisoning with uranium, and yet these soldiers were not found to have suffered any impairment of renal function.449 Studies seeking to establish a connection between uranium exposure and bone cancers are inconclusive. 449 The potential for kidney damage or increased bone cancer is still being followed in these patients, and chelating ligands could be useful in reducing the potential effects of uranium in wounds.

Now get this right: Tank shells are meant to kill people. Tank shells do not protect people. They do not save people. They are tank shells. They are weapons. The war is not wrong because uranium is used in war, any more than commercial aircraft are wrong because uranium is used in commercial aircraft. War is wrong because it is war. Tank shells are wrong whether they are made from uranium, steel, or hardened green melted plastic army men from the 1950's. They are wrong because they are meant to kill.

The last thing we need in the antiwar movement is for people to be able to point to us and say we are full of shit. In fact though, the uranium game is full of shit. I say this every time this dumb stuff surfaces, carrying on about depleted uranium does not enhance our credibility; it diminishes it. If we want to focus on uranium stupidity, it is best to focus on the forged Niger uranium documents, which like the tank shell hysteria, relied on public mysticism about all things radioactive. I, like Elbaradei, knew that the Bush-Cheney nonsense about Saddam Hussein in Africa was nonsense, because I understand chemistry and physics.

[philarq]

13. Thank You

I too am a little sick of the DU nonsense--but as with the right there are also people on the left that science cannot reach.

[Gregorian]

10. A couple of short links to Helen Caldicott's comments on this.

How Dangerous Is Depleted Uranium?
Some Say Radioactive Arms Cause Gulf War Syndrome

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1211-22.htm



Medical Consequences of Depleted Uranium


http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/caldicott/medico.htm

Uranium 238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, while neptunium 237 and plutonium 239 which are many times more carcinogenic than uranium, have half lives of some hundreds of thousands of years. Therefore, Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo are contaminated with carcinogenic radioactive elements forever. And because the latent period of carcinogenesis – the incubation time for malignancy, ranges from 5 to 60 years, it is almost certain that malignancies reported in the NATO troops and peacekeepers who served in the Balkans and the American soldiers and their allies who served in the Gulf, as well as civilians who live in these countries, are just the tip of the iceberg.

[philarq]

11. I have yet to see any actual scientific proof

I see that the regular website links have been posted. But no one can produce peer reviewed, non-politically motivated, scientific research on this subject. I believe that what we see are left-wing fringe groups no less rabid than the ones on the right, but no one actually can point to proof and say there, that is reproducable research. ---Anecdotal evidence is not actual evidence. and links to some of these fringe web sites really neither help this "cause" nor do they provide information.

Ask yoursef if you would be willing to drop the crusade against DU if no scientific evidence can be found to support your claims, and if you would be unwilling, then you are no better than the other side. Cold hard facts should be able to support you, and if you are unable or unwilling to produce these facts, then you have nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence