Depleted Uranium today

[whatever4]

This issue messes me up. Please, folks, get on here and tell me how stupid I am to worry about this so much. Tell me, really, insults would be fine. Just tell me how this isn't the scariest thing we've faced yet, bar none, even nukes; this is a nuke.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/

Radioactive Wounds of War
Tests on returning troops suggest serious health consequences of depleted uranium use in Iraq

By Dave Lindorff
Gerard Matthew thought he was lucky. He returned from his Iraq tour a year and a half ago alive and in one piece. But after the New York State National Guardsman got home, he learned that a bunkmate, Sgt. Ray Ramos, and a group of N.Y. Guard members from another unit had accepted an offer by the New York Daily News and reporter Juan Gonzalez to be tested for depleted uranium (DU) contamination, and had tested positive.

Matthew, 31, decided that since he’d spent much of his time in Iraq lugging around DU-damaged equipment, he’d better get tested too. It turned out he was the most contaminated of them all.

Matthew immediately urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits.


So far Victoria Claudette, now 13 months old, shows no other genetic disorders and is healthy, but Matthew feels guilty for causing her deformity and angry at a government that never warned him about DU’s dangers.

U.S. forces first used DU in the 1991 Gulf War, when some 300 tons of depleted uranium—the waste product of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities—were used in tank shells and shells fired by A-10 jets. A lesser amount was deployed by U.S. and NATO forces during the Balkans conflict. But in the current wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq, DU has become the weapon of choice, with more than 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan and more than 3,000 tons used in Iraq. And while DU was fired mostly in the desert during the Gulf War, in the current war in Iraq, most of DU munitions are exploding in populated urban areas.

The Pentagon has expanded DU beyond tank and A-10 shells, for use in bunker-busting bombs, which can spew out more than half a ton of DU in one explosion, in anti-personnel bomblets, and even in M-16 and pistol shells. The military loves DU for its unique penetration capability—it cuts through steel or concrete like they’re butter.

The problem is that when DU hits its target, it burns at a high temperature, throwing off clouds of microscopic particles that poison a wide area and remain radioactive for billions of years. If inhaled, these particles can lodge in lungs, other organs or bones, irradiating tissue and causing cancers.

Worse yet, uranium is also a highly toxic heavy metal.

read the rest - http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/

[MadHound]

1. You're not stupid at all, the use of DU is an ongoing atrocity

And it is going to be an ongoing disaster, especially in Iraq, for generations to come. DU is truly a WMD, one that our government has not only unleashed against Iraq, but also against our own soldiers.

[whatever4]

4. and there's no way to clean it up either

That gets me too, for all this, what I understand is that there just isn't any way to clean it up. The particles are too small, and in an arid climate, it's in the air. In particles small enough to pass through any gas mask.

Against our soldiers, against all neighboring countries, and after a period of time (which no one actually knows) against the entire world, because up in the jet stream, it won't stay in the Middle East at all. It's against life, all life. Not just human life, not just human chromosomal permanent damage.

My question now, and it sounds silly even to me, is how much should we, perhaps, focus on reducing exposure to materials (and people?) coming back from that area. Laundries on military bases? Entire military bases? It sounds not only extreme, and even cold hearted. But is it inaccurate to believe we should take those measures? I really wonder.

How could I POSSIBLY look a soldier in the face, one who was exposed to du (depleted uranium), and say anything like that? Like, hey, the laundries, where all the uniforms are washed just might be a fine source of du? And the vehicles. And their equipment, books and papers and...everything. How can that discussion even take place? "Hey guys, love how hard you fought for us, but hey, could you step outside so you don't contaminate us?" God, in some ways, I'd rather take the contamination than do that, go down that road, tell someone something like that, one of my own...but is it unreasonable? What about my kids?

This is just too awful for me to think about without getting a little wigged out and a lot ranty, because it's so sad, and probably too late. Thanks for commenting

[MadHound]

9. Well, there isn't much that you have to worry about from

Returning, exposed soldiers. If you don't swap bodily fluids with them, then you aren't at risk. Their clothing has probably already been washed by the time they return home, and the danger of radioactivity from them is nil.

What the deal with DU is is that it's a pretty weak alpha and beta emitter, and this radiation cannot penertrate your skin. However when a particle of DU is inhaled or ingested, you have no skin protection, and thus the particle lodges somewhere in the body and that's when the problem starts. Combine the radioactivity with the heavy metal poisoning, and this poor soldier has got problems.

So don't worry, welcome your soldier home, give them a big hug. But for their sake and their future children's sake, urge them to get checked out for DU, whether they think they've been exposed or not.

[whatever4]

13. Thanks, and I'm sure you're right

I think what I worry about is their stuff, rather than their own bodies. The dust on anything they have has some level of du, just because it was there, and it's not a danger from the outside, but inhaling it, even in small quantities, could cause the same internal radiation source conditions.

I know it's not much, exposure, individually, but it could be, for anyone in regular contact with them. it could add up, and if they expose themselves, it will add up. Looking at mementos and pictures, trinkets or anything and any equipment they bring back. Unless that stuff is cleaned off, and flushed down someone else's water system, it's here, on everything brought back.

I sound like I'm whining a little bit, even to me, because obviously it's much worse for those that were there than it will be for anyone they might "infect" with materials from the area. Just going by concentration levels. I realize I'm talking about minute particles in tiny amounts of dust. I just worry that, for people in regular contact, it could add up to something. The internal radiation dangers they they don't only deny, but refuse to even acknowledge. Water from the laundries where they wash those uniforms, stuff like that.

[MadHound]

18. Well, if you're that worried, here is what you can do

First off, all of the troops returning home will have their clothes washed before they even get on the plane to go home. As far as other items, if you know somebody with a geiger or swipe counter, you can swipe down these items and take them in to be counted. If you don't have access to a such detection means, and are still worried, dust the objects with an absorbent material to take the dust off. And don't worry about throwing the cloth in the trash. It will be buried and any radiation that is emitting will not go through the earth and other material on top.

I really can't emphasize enough how weak an emitter DU is. Generally DU clocks in at .01-.1 millirems. While I wouldn't carry a chunk of it around with me 24/7, people can and do work around it all the time with no ill effects. Remember, it is an alpha and beta emitter, radiation that is blocked by your skin, and by things as thin as your shirt. It is only truly dangerous once you get it inside you.

So as I said, if you're really worried, dust off everything that comes home, and other than that, you should be fine. But please, please, get any returning soldier you know to go in and get tested for DU. It is a simple pee test, nothing more. It is better for somebody to know sooner than later.

[whatever4]

19. I agree with you about the testing

But if they want to rely on the urine test, they need to get it within a month of exposure, else it can be passed out of the urine. Radioactive particles can lodge in the lungs and bones, which the urine test, from what's I've read, will not detect. So unless they get tested soon after they return, that test can be misleading.

I like your advice on the possibly dangerous items. Wish we could tell everyone. But you're more casual about handling it that I would be; the small particles may not pose a danger externally, but if they're detectable, than it's just as likely particles can be inhaled. They're microns small and pass through gas masks. It's too terribly easy to send them airborn, and nothing to be done once they are. Small deposits of dust, slowly adding up, as dust will do, are what worry me, for other people. We don't live on a base anymore.

[sam sarrha]

2. check out the link.....this is their legicay of 1000 TONs of DU......LINK>

address means what it says...:cry: :grouphug:

http://www.firethistime.org/extremedeformitivesintro.htm

well this will take you to the home sight

scroll down 6 grey bars...THE HUMAN COST...
top subject extreme deformatives

look around this is a EXCELENT RESOURCE of the cost of what our

wet brain alcoholic village idiot in Chief has done.

[whatever4]

7. Thank you, it looks like a good site nm

[BikeWriter]

3. The deformed child is collateral damage of a needless war.

[whatever4]

6. But it's worse, because of how many children it might be nm

[BikeWriter]

14. Yes, and the nation of Iraq is a nuclear waste dumping ground.

[mnhtnbb]

5. DU ignored by MSM

This is another story being ignored by the MSM. I had a letter to the editor (Raleigh NC News & Observer) published not too long ago, in which they edited out a sentence I'd included which said:

We have littered their countryside with DU (depleted uranium) weapons that have a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years, for which the true health and environmental effects will be largely unknown for years to come.

I wrote to the editor complaining about the editing, and received a "thank you for your e-mail" in return. I told him that he was ignoring a huge story, which if told, might earn the paper a Pulitzer. I still have the editor's e-mail address and I'm going to forward this story on to him.

Thanks for posting.

[whatever4]

8. That's great you're getting on them about it, thanks for YOUR post :) nm

[firefox]

10. It proves a powerful force is controlling the media

Depleted uranium is absolutely forbidden as a topic in the controlled media. It is an absolutely monstrous part of Bu$h's War and shows very plainly we do not give a damn about the Iraqi people, both living and yet to come. You can cite the absense of discussion of DU by the media and pretty well win the argument that we have a controlled media with that example alone.

[mnhtnbb]

11. nor do we give a damn about the health of our soldiers

and their unborn children.

[whatever4]

12. Hard to say what's worse, isn't it? nm

[BikeWriter]

16. It was years before Agent Orange's toxicity was admitted...

after VietNam.

[ArkDem]

15. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a belief in pseudo

science.

[hiley]

17. You've got the whole toxic wasteland

Gulf War Syndrome, The Sequel

'People Are Sick Over There Already'
Steven Rosenfeld is a senior editor for TomPaine.com.

Soldiers now fighting in Iraq are being exposed to battlefield hazards that have been associated with the Gulf War Syndrome that afflicts a quarter-million veterans of the 1991 war, said a former Central Command Army officer in Operation Desert Storm.

Part of the threat today includes greater exposure to battlefield byproducts of depleted uranium munitions used in combat, said the former officer and other Desert Storm veterans trained in battlefield health and safety.Their concern comes as troops are engaged in the most intensive fighting of the Iraq War.

Complicating efforts to understand any potential health impacts is the Pentagon's failure, acknowleged in House hearings on March 25, to follow a 1997 law requiring baseline medical screening of troops before and after deployment.

"People are sick over there already," said Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of the Army's depleted uranium (DU)project. "It's not just uranium. You've got all the complex organics and inorganics that are released in those fires and detonations. And they're sucking this in.... You've got the whole toxic wasteland."
snip---
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7570

[BikeWriter]

20. Kicking a vital topic!