This is an extended version of the eight categories of the Basic Human Dignity Needs Holistic Index, with over 600 sub-categories.
Basic Human Dignity Needs include:
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - Defense - Environmental Damage From Wars
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From:
http://www.mothersalert.org/du3.html
Subject: [du-list] Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 10:34:56 -0800
From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>
To: <du-list@yahoogroups.com>
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles
north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel
carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.
They also are radiating nuclear energy.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her
mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently
diagnosed with leukemia.
In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the
vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the
first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis
retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its
name.
Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was
credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield
remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions
remain a mystery.
Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of
depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a
significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many
researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations,
agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War
Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of
thousands of Gulf War veterans.
Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well.
Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia
resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in
1995.
With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are
concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a
major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths
in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.
THE DANGERS
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the
byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to
manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural
uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.
Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and
water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest
it daily in minute quantities.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a radiation expert,
holds a Geiger counter next to a hole in an Iraqi tank destroyed by
depleted uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The shell
holes show 1,000 times the normal background radiation level.
DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000
times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger
counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak
Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of
Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.
The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than
background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles
away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.
But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.
A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round
hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on
impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue
of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be
spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and
absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and
create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water,
according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.
The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it
requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated
equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states
that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."
Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU
predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers
and civilians during and after combat.
Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures,
and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.
The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and
environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban
DU munitions.
But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries
on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last
updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive
than natural uranium."
The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have
not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable
to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . ."
In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S.
Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality
against armor and other hard targets."
It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for
combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU
munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.
In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and
Serbia in 1999.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Hamdin and his brother Amhid are receiving
follow-up treatment after being treated successfully for leukemia two
years ago at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children.
Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous
enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The
initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United
States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International
Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative
status at the United Nations.
Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996,
contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."
She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law
regarding weapons:
•Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal
military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse
effect off the legal field of battle.
•Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A
weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates
this criterion.
•Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.
•Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural
environment.
"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.
On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill
calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production,
testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of
certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."
More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal
Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich,
D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in
committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.
THE STUDIES
Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials
during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides,
pesticides, vaccinations and DU.
Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase
(1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA
medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded
service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for
health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I The woman in the foreground shares a room with
four other cancer patients at the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra. The
patient lying on the bed behind died earlier in the day on which this
photograph was taken.
There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as
well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have
been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU,
conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health
Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress,
weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical
Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research
associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in
the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.
The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf
War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization
mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between
natural uranium and DU.
The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all
suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years
after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also
was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.
That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a
massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.
THE ACTIVIST
Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the
command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army
Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years
after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of
Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the
DU cleanup operation.
Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of
DU munitions.
"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive
airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and
receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames
his health problems on exposure to DU.
Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task
without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said,
at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others --
including Rokke -- have serious health problems.
Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience,
physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU
exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities,
kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and
night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer,
neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and
birth defects in offspring.
"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."
Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute
high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we
were all really healthy, and we got trashed."
Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the
right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on
DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears
likely.
"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that
the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We
warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues,
they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the
military, developing DU training and management procedures. The
procedures were ignored, he said.
"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread
radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to
people . . . it's all arrogance.
"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."
BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a
British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo
albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares.
The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11
per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that
even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making
comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.
There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal
organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and
the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer
patients.
Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people
died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603
cancer deaths.
On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and
girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the
doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their
treatment.
There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to
buy the expensive drugs on the black market.
Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the
Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with
children in southern Iraq.
"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical
because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with
the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we
can't get the equipment we need."
Iraqi doctors in Tokyo accuse U.S. of Gulf War 'crime'
Nov. 28, 2002
<http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20021128p2a00m0fp026000c.html>
The likelihood of people developing cancer increased 10 times in the
southern Iraqi city of Basra because of the depleted uranium bullets that the
U.S. military dropped during the Gulf War, two Iraqi doctors claimed in
Tokyo Thursday.
Jawad Kadhim Al-Ali and Husam Al-Din Said-Jormakly, both university
doctors in Iraq, are visiting Japan to study methods of treating cancer
caused by radioactivity.
In Basra, with its population of some 1.7 million, the probability of
developing cancer increased 10 times from 1988, a year before the 1991
Gulf War, to 2001, Al-Ali said at the Japan National Press Club.
The doctors claimed that children were most susceptible to cancer and
deformity as they were apparently exposed to radioactivity during the war as
embryos and fetuses inside their mothers' bodies.
As a result, the probability of pregnant women giving birth to deformed
children tripled since before the Gulf War.
Al-Ali said the use of depleted uranium bullets was a crime ranking closely
behind the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Said-Jormakly called on the Japanese public for help as he said that the
Iraqi medical world now had trouble obtaining medical supplies and devices
because of the economic sanctions against Baghdad.
During their stay here until early December, both doctors will talk with
Japanese experts about cancer treatment. They are also set to visit the
Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima. (Mainichi Shimbun,
Nov. 28, 2002)
To learn more ...
•For earlier stories on the P-I's trip to Iraq, go to
seattlepi.nwsource.com/iraq2002/
OTHER LINKS
•U.S. Department of Defense: www.defenselink.mil/
•The National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc.: www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/du_link.htm
•Uranium Medical Research Centre: www.umrc.net/
Dr. Doug Rokke, a U.S. Army health physicist assigned to help clean up
depleted uranium after the Persian Gulf War, will speak in Seattle on
Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at University Baptist Church, Northeast 47th
Street and 12th Avenue Northeast. Rokke is on a six-state speaking tour
sponsored by The Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq,
and co-sponsored by the Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield, Mass.
P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson can be reached at 206-448-8035 or
larryjohnson@seattlepi.com
Subject: [du-list] Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 21:39:34 -0800
From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>
To: <larryjohnson@seattlepi.com>
CC: <du-list@yahoogroups.com>, <du-watch@yahoogroups.com>
Vancouver, November 12, 2002
Mr. Larry Johnson
Foreign Desk Editor
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Re: Article "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium"
Congratulations on an informative article. It is not easy to write about a
complex subject for the average public. But without accurate information the
public will remain vulnerable to propaganda.
A few comments in priority order:
1. DU anti-armour munitions familiar from the Gulf and Balkan wars would not
be the prime weapon in an air attack on Iraq. Hardened and deeply buried
targets (command centres, missile launchers, supply depots, production and
storage of weapons of mass destruction) call for bunker-busters and earth
penetrators. Over 20 weapon systems in this family are currently stocked in
Western countries in sufficient quantities for a major offensive.
These weapons had been kept secret, but some information leaked out. Most
likely they contain large quantities of uranium metal (depleted or not),
since an extremely dense material is needed in a bomb shield to penetrate
earth or concrete. Uranium could also be used in multiple warheads stacked
one after another within the uranium shield. The warhead would survive
partial penetration into a target thanks to the shield, and then detonate
one penetrator at a time, making further advance into the target, concluded
with a charge that destroys the inside contents of the target with help of
uranium powder, since the metal ignites easily.
However effective they might be in destroying enemy's capability in weapons
of mass destruction, the bunker busters and earth penetrators would have
very severe health effects. Compared to DU ammunition which contains between
0.3 kg (30 mm caliber) to several kg (120 mm caliber) of uranium metal per
bullet, each bomb or guided missile against buried and hardened targets may
contain tens to thousands times more uranium.
The contamination by uranium dust and fine particles produced from
explosions of these weapons would also be up to thousands times more severe.
When used near troops (own, allied or enemy's) or population centres, these
weapons would become weapons of mass destruction. In any case, they would be
weapons of indiscriminate effects, since the contamination stays practically
indefinitely and also spreads out into the environs.
Why would a civilized country use weapons that contravene the customs, laws
and conventions on war? Because the uranium in them does the job as well or
better than more expensive materials like tungsten, and would be difficult
to detect, if formulated in proportions (99.3% U238, 0.7% U235) resembling
omnipresent natural uranium.
The weapons have been tested on ranges and in wars, and were very likely
used in bombing of Iraq to date, and recently in Afghanistan. Reports on the
uranium weapons by an independent UK researcher Dai Williams are at
www.eoslifework.co.uk/
Recent measurements of uranium levels in Afghan environment by Dr. Asaf
Djurakovic (www.umrc.net/ in your footnotes) indicate that these weapons
must have been used there.
2. Your article gives an impression that the authorities do not have
conclusive proofs of the hazards of conventional uranium weapons (depleted
or not). At the bottom is a digest of a sample of such official documents.
3. The article states that radioactivity is one kind of hazard from DU, and
uranium oxide dust is another, implying that the latter is not radioactive.
An element remains radioactive in chemical compunds and regardless of the
physical form. Thus metallic fine particles (as from chiseling a chunk of DU
metal) pose the same hazards as the fine oxide dust. The fine dust's
radioactive hazard inside the body is the alpha radiation. Alpha radiation
is stopped by clothing and skin, so it can not harm from the outside of the
body.
Inside the body, the particles act as toxic AND radioactive substance -- a
fact conveniently omitted by the pro-DU propaganda.
The DU dust created on impact or at high temperature is a mix of soluble and
insoluble uranium oxide particles, including ceramic. The latter ones are
particularly harmful, because they do not break down into soluble compounds.
They also have sharp edges that catch onto the tissue.
4. DU is not a pure Uranium 238 (U238) that would be "only" 60% as
radioactive as enriched uranium (Uranium 235). It contains 99.8% of U238,
0.2% of U235 and small amounts of other highly radioactive and toxic
elements, such as plutonium that should not be in DU at all, according to
industry and military specifications. The trace components of DU are so
powerful that their joint effects on health are comparable to the effects of
U238 in DU metal. That the US authorities allowed these elements to enter
the DU metal in ammunition (and other weapons and uses?) is a crime by
itself.
5. The map is incomplete. Another category are civilian airplane crashes in
which DU counterweights burned and contaminated the sites with DU dust. The
most famous airplane crashes involving release of DU are Lockerbie (in UK)
and El-Al (in Holland). At least two accidental releases from DU weapon
manufacturing happened in England. If an "accidental use" in Germany
(presumably the American A-10 crash in a residential area) is shown, then
all the other known releases should be noted. Of course nobody knows how
many accidents remain covered up.
DU ammunition was used on military ranges in Scotland and Wales, and in the
Middle East in the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt. DU weapons were
used on US military ranges on Viesques Island (Puerto Rico) and Okinawa
Island (Japan), which are marked "accidental use" on your map. Over 30 other
countries produce and use DU weapons, so there must be more dots, circles
and triangles on the map. NATO has admitted to using DU ammunition in
Southern Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro, but not in Macedonia.
6. "20,6861" should read 206,861.
Let's hope that you will soon be able to produce a sequel on hazards of the
other uranium weapons. Not only the health of own troops and local
populations are at stake, but also human health worldwide, as the uranium
particles travel indiscriminately, driven by winds, water movements and
electromagnetic fields.
I would be pleased to assist you in identifying sources of information for
your research.
Yours sincerely,
Piotr Bein, PhD, PEng
Vancouver, Canada
Member, Institute for Risk Research, University of Waterloo, Canada
===========================================================================
Excerpt from a paper "Propaganda for DU -- a Crime against Humankind" by
Piotr Bein and Pedja Zoric to "Facts about DU" conference, Prague, Czech
Republic, November 2001,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/files/DUPraha.doc; revised for a
monograph "Environmental Politics of the 21st Century" being prepared by
Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade.
{Copyright Piotr Bein and Pedja Zoric, 2002}
For years, standard textbooks on radioactivity state that a thin piece of
paper or the skin can stop alpha particles - the main radioactivity of DU,
emitted by uranium 238 atoms. So they are not dangerous to the body as long
they remain external. However, if they are inhaled or enter the body with
food or through open wounds, they become exceptionally dangerous, since they
emit much energy to each cell, seriously damaging it. Although beta
particles penetrate tissue to the depth of several centimetres, the
resulting biological damage is significantly smaller compared to that of
alpha particles. Gamma and X-ray radiation is weakened by the tissue only to
a small degree. The biological effect of one absorbed quantum of this
radiation in the tissue is the same as from one quantum of beta radiation.
The standard texts are also clear that long-term effects of accumulated
small exposures transfer to future generations. Every dose is harmful and
can cause cancer or genetic changes after years, therefore one must always
avoid unnecessary exposure and maintain doses in smallest quantities
possible.
The risks posed by depleted uranium (U238) and a mix of uranium isotopes
with majority U238 are similar. Official US and UK government documents have
been warning about toxic-radioactive risks of depleted uranium, as follows,
- A 1983 literature study by the Batelle Pacific Nothwest Laboratory for the
US Department of the Army, clearly discerns the two types of DU risk: "The
chemical toxicity is the critical limit for soluble uranium compounds, and
the critical organ is the kidney. Insoluble compounds present a
[radiological] hazard primarily to the lungs [...] The exposure limits for
toxicity are more conservative than most of the radiological limits and thus
protect from either type of insult."
- In 1984, US Federal Aviation Agency document cautions the investigators of
aircraft crashes against the hazard from DU in counterweights of civilian
airplanes: particles inhaled or ingested are toxic and can cause long-term
irradiation of the internal tissue.
- Six months before the Gulf War, a Science Applications International
Corporation report wrote, "Short-term effects of high doses can result in
death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."
- Shortly after the Gulf War in March 1991, a memo from US Defence Nuclear
Agency stated that alpha particles emitted from DU dust created from
exploded DU ammunition pose a health risk, but beta particles from DU
shrapnel and from intact DU bullets are a serious hazard to health.
- In the early nineties, UK Atomic Energy Authority warned that if all of
the DU fired by tanks in the Gulf War was inhaled, "there could be half a
million deaths as a result by 2000." Tanks fired only about 8% of all DU
used in that war.
- 1993 US General Accounting Office report GAO/NSIAD-93-90 stated, "Inhaled
insoluble [uranium] oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential
cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a
radioactive and toxicity risk."
- 1995 US Army Environmental Policy Institute report warned,
"Toxicologically, DU poses a health risk when internalized. Radiologically,
the radiation emitted by DU results in health risks from both external and
internal exposures [...] If DU enters the body, it has the potential to
generate significant medical consequences."
- An incident involving pulverization of metallic DU occurred at the Robins
Air Force Base, Georgia, in in 1999. The following note was sent to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "At 1000 on 07/26/99, USAF personnel were
performing maintenance on a C-141 cargo aircraft aileron. A technician was
found using a hammer and chisel to remove installed depleted uranium
counterweights from the aileron. This process produced dust and debris which
was scattered by a nearby fan. The technician using a hammer and chisel on
the depleted uranium was in violation of several rules. Upon discovery of
this activity, the technician was told to immediately stop work. The area
has been secured and decontamination procedures initiated."
- January 2001, leak: UK Ministry of Defense was secretly testing for
radiation poisoning among British soldiers just months before it sent troops
to Kosovo. At the time the ministry was refusing screening for Gulf War
veterans. The disclosure went much further than an earlier leak that showed
only that officers knew 4 years earlier about the risk of developing lung,
lymph and brain cancers from DU shells.
The industry is also well aware of the risks from airborne contamination by
DU. Paul Loewenstein, vice president of Nuclear Metals Inc. (now Starmet
Corporation, the prime US supplier of DU metal and related products) wrote:
"The main hazard to health occurs in those fabrication steps where finely
divided particles (dust or oxides) can become airborne. In operations such
as melting and casting, machining, grinding, pickling and heating without
using a protective atmosphere or vacuum, it is essential to provide
extensive ventilation and to monitor worker's breathing zones. Vents and
fume hoods that protect workers are exhausted through carefully monitored
filter systems. Workers must change footwear and clothing when leaving areas
where finely divided uranium is present."
Boeing Corporation safety guide for DU counterweights in aircraft and
missiles advises:
"4.1.2 Most heavy metals, such as uranium, are toxic to humans depending on
the amount introduced into the body. For short-term (acute) exposures, the
toxicological effects are the primary concern, and acute exposures to
significant amounts of uranium may result in kidney damage.
4.1.3 The principal radiological hazard associated with uranium is due to
high linear energy transfer of the alpha particles its radionuclides and
daughters emit. A chronic exposure to these radionuclides result in an
increased risk of cancer, typically in the bones, kidney, and lungs, since
these are the organs where uranium is deposited.
[...]
6.2.5 Airborne Contamination
[I]t is possible for significant levels of airborne contamination to result
from activity that vigorously disturbs the surface, such as vigorous floor
sweeping in a contaminated area or a direct, high-volume airflow across such
an area. Failure to control airborne contamination could result in
inhalation of the contamination and spread of contamination to other areas.
[...]
12.2.3 Wear a respirator [...] whenever entering areas with airborne DU dust
particles."
==========================================
-----Original Message-----
From: MTap706180@aol.com [mailto:MTap706180@aol.com]
Sent: November 12, 2002 5:18 AM
To: du-watch@yahoogroups.com; du-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [DU-WATCH] Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted
uranium
Great photos and a graphic in the online story.
met
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
The VISIE Foundation
Links :
· Dutch: depleted uranium in Amsterdam
· The Major Cause of Cancer
· Depleted Uranium Watch
· A Cancerous Web of Deception
· Gulf War Veterans Resource Links - DU LINK
· DU: Cancer as a Weapon
· Campaign Against Depleted Uranium CADU
· <a href="http://www.llrc.org/wingre
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