Depleted uranium tests for US troops returning from Iraq

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Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:51:42 -0700 (PDT)

Depleted uranium tests for US troops returning from Iraq

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10433.htm

 

Depleted uranium tests for US troops returning from Iraq

 

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

 

09/28/05 " The Independent " -- -- US troops returning from Iraq are for

the first time to be offered state-of-the-art radiation testing to

check for contamination from depleted uranium - a controversial

substance linked by some to cancer and birth defects.

 

Campaigners say the Pentagon refuses to take seriously the issue of

poisoning from depleted uranium (DU) and offers only the most basic

checks, and only when it is specifically asked for. But state

legislators across the US are pushing ahead with laws that will

provide their National Guard troops access to the most sophisticated

tests.

 

Connecticut and Louisiana have already passed such legislation and

another 18 are said to be considering similar steps. Connecticut's new

law - pioneered by state legislator Pat Dillon - comes into effect on

Saturday.

 

" What this does is establish a standard, " said Mrs Dillon, a

Yale-trained epidemiologist. " It means that our Guardsmen will have

access to highly sensitive testing that can differentiate between

background levels of radiation. " DU - a heavy metal waste-product of

nuclear power plants - has been used by the US military since the 1991

Gulf War. It is used to tip tank shells and missiles because of its

ability to penetrate armour. On impact DU burns at an extremely high

temperature and is widely dispersed in micro particles.

 

The science surrounding DU remains hotly contested though the majority

of studies have concluded there is no genuine risk from battlefield

contamination. One 2001 study by the Royal Society, concluded: " Except

in extreme circumstances any extra risks of developing fatal cancers

as a result of radiation from internal exposure to DU arising from

battlefield conditions are likely to be so small that they would not

be detectable above the general risk of dying from cancer over a

normal lifetime. "

 

But, campaigners such as the British-based Campaign Against Depleted

Uranium (CADU), cite other studies which suggest a risk. In 2003,New

Scientist reported that a study by the Armed Forces Radiobiology

Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, found that human bone cells

could suffer genetic damage when exposed to DU, even at levels deemed

to be non-toxic.

 

Gerard Matthew has no doubts about the effect of DU. The former member

of the New York National Guard served in Iraq from April to September

2003. On his return he was not offered testing until a New York

newspaper offered to arrange it for him and some friends. " [With the

military] it never came up. They suppressed the whole DU thing, " he said.

 

Mr Matthew, who said he was found to have considerable radiation

exposure, said two years on he suffers from migraines, erectile

dysfunction and a swollen face - conditions that have developed since

he returned from Iraq. But his conviction about the dangers of DU was

fixed when his daughter, Victoria Claudette, was born with only two

digits on her right hand.

 

Whatever debate may be going on among scientists, Mr Matthew is

convinced his daughter - conceived the month after he returned from

Iraq - suffered because of his own exposure to DU.

 

" It's concealment, " he said. " We have 18 and 19-year-old coalition

forces out there fighting and they should not be exposed to this. " Dr

Doug Rokke, a health physicist who was part of a Pentagon team that

studied DU in the mid 1990s, concluded that there was no way DU

weapons could be used without the risk of contamination. He said the

Pentagon responded to his conclusions by denouncing him.

 

He told the In These Times newspaper: " DU is a war crime. It's that

simple. Once you've scattered all this stuff around and then refuse to

clean it up you've committed a war crime. "

 

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.