Experts Reports on Radioactive Depleted Uranium

Doctor reports, scientific findings and truth censored by US Military.
Abstract of articles assembled by Theresa Marie K. Gandhi

DU’s exploded small particle size and crystalline structure make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard. This differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading.
Marine Mammals ingest large amounts of salt water in one form or another. Nanoparticiles of exploded DU weapons in salt water have not been tested and most likely would be absorbed into various organ systems as has been documented to humans in the following reports of studies conducted by radiation experts.
The military promotes the misleading results from large sized uranium studies.
NWTRC draft EIS/OEIS thirty-five year old reference was not conducted on the explosive nanoparticiles of current DU weapons.
“Hanson, W.C. 1974 Ecological Considerations of Depleted Uranium Munitions. Report LA-5559. Los Almos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California. Los Almos, N.M.” Using this reference combined with the experts reports to follow does not inspire trust in the only other DU reference:
“Toque, C. 2006. Marine Environmental Depleted Uranium Survey Report – Kirkcudbright Training Area – 2004, Environmental Sciences Department, Institute of Naval Medicine. Gosport, UK” – volume 2, page 8-5.
Marion Fulk, former scientist with the Manhattan Project and nuclear physical chemist at the National [nuclear weapons] Laboratory at Livermore, California. “Internalized DU particles, Fulk said, act as ‘a non-specific catalyst’ in both ‘nuclear and non-nuclear’ ways. This means that the uranium particle can affect human DNA and RNA because of both its chemical and radiological properties. This is why internalized DU particles cause ‘many, many diseases,’ this is how DU causes severe birth defects”, Fulk said.
According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. "The larger the bang" the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the "micron size" or smaller, he said.
Bombs with DU, i.e. dirty bombs are the perfect weapons for killing lots of people

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, "The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body." In 1997 he cited experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs.
At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada. (Note about Dr. Durakovic; first, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers!)
Diagnostic distinction was shown between natural uranium and DU using the technique of Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry – TIMS. Dr. Durakovic, UMRC research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 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 ultra-sensitive 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.

Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated: "Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA." "The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas."
A 2001 study of DU’s effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU’s chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone. It should be noted that her studies shows that DU is “neoplastically transforming and genotoxic” are based on in vitro cellular research.
British toxico-pathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size. A University of Rochester study exposed nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes in mice nearly all died within 4 hours.
Leuren Moret is Past President of the Association for Women Geoscientists, has a background in the Geosciences. Has conducted extensive scientific research on atmospheric dust, the transport and cycling of radionuclides through the environment and through biological systems. She is recognized as an international expert, on the impact on global public health and the health of the environment, from radiation caused by atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants and depleted uranium.
“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” Leuren Moret wrote. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.
“When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote. “Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain. “Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Hodgkin’s disease.”
THREE EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM INTERNAL EXPOSURE
1. Chemical – changes in a substance due to an alteration of its chemical composition caused by changes in its atoms or molecules;
2. Radiological – changes when the nucleus of an isotope undergoes disintegration and releases energy in the form of alpha or beta particles and/or gamma rays. About 30% of radiation damage to cells is caused by the “bullet effect” of the alpha and beta particles tearing through the cells. About 70% of the damage is caused by changes in the cells and biological molecules from the energy dissipated along the pathway of the alpha and beta particles and gamma rays;
3. Particulate – changes caused by the particle size, the most harmful being nano-particles which are defined as particles with a diameter of 0.1 micron and smaller.
The “particulate effect” of exploded Depleted Uranium creates gas and dust, formed on the battlefield. This produces large numbers of extremely fine particles. The greatest number by mass on the battlefield is formed in the nano-particle range – 0.1 microns and smaller (1). There is a particulate effect caused by these nano-particles in living tissues. There are now 16 peer-reviewed journals devoted to the new field of nano-technology.
Dr. Helen Caldicott “the two Gulf wars have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people---particularly children--- are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity." Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, "the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated," Dr. Caldicott explained.
Doug Rokke, formerly the top U.S. Army DU clean-up officer and now anti-DU crusader, says Israeli tankers fired radioactive shells during the invasion of Lebanon last year. U.S. and NATO forces also used DU ammunition in Kosovo. Rokke says he is quite ill from the effects of DU and that members of his clean-up crew have died from it.
Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization's chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report "on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust was deliberately suppressed. Dr. Keith Baverstock informed the media; Iraq's arid climate would increase exposure from its tiny particles as they are blown about and inhaled by the civilian population for years to come.

As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002. "American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Baghdad alone during the recent invasion. With over 250,000 Nagasaki bombs used that works out to over one million pounds of radioactive dust scattered throughout Iraq.
Dr. Hardan also states: "I arranged for a delegation from Japan's Hiroshima Hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq."
Not only are we poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other countries that can help. The U.S. Military doesn't want the rest of the world to find out what we have done.
The Japanese began studying DU effects in southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit, a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer an early and painful death?
Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said: "I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals," Fujita said. "As a result of the Iraq wars, the situation will be even more desperate starting in five to 10 years and beyond."
The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen's Tribunal that "convicted" President Bush of war crimes gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen's court with no binding legal authority)
1. Their use has indiscriminate effects;
2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;
3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;
4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. (To enemies, civilians, troops and American weapons makers.)
Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, writes in his "The Sorrows of Empire"(Henry Holt and Co.) that, given the abnormal clusters of childhood cancers and deformities in Iraq as well as Kosovo, the evidence points "toward a significant role for DU."
"Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1000 times the damage of an X-ray", said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C.

Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion.

In the fall of 2002, the Uranium Medical Research Center -UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill. In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of Non-depleted Uranium, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of "bunker buster" bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys.
It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children.

The Pentagon/Department of Defense have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed "studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless." The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers).

In Kosovo, similar spikes in cancer and birth defects were noticed by numerous international experts, although the quantity of DU weapons used was only a small fraction of what was used in Iraq.

Conclusions
If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breathe, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place.

Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.
DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law. By insisting on its use, Johnson adds, "the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction."
By insisting on its use, Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute said, "the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction."
Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August 2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.
In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects - missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.
Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is the size of a period in this sentence and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second.
What we can do to halt the use of genocidal DU weapons.
Because DU weapons violate the 1925 Geneva Protocol that prohibits “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of all analogous liquids, material or devices”. DU weapons in nano-particle form are a “poisonous gas”.
Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois and author of The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence thinks so. He has launched a campaign for a global pact against uranium weapons. The Government of France is the official depository for the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Boyle contends every state submit a letter to the French government to enforce a ban. “All that needs to be done is for anti-DU citizens, activists and NGO's in every country to pressure their Foreign Minister to write to their French counterpart, drawing attention to the “Protocol for the Prohibition of the use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”, of 17th June 1925, prohibiting uses as above. The letter should add that this Protocol is believed to: “already prohibit the use in war of depleted uranium ammunition, uranium Armour plate and all other uranium weapons”. Belgium, last month, outlawed uranium weapons.
A request should be made that the letter is circulated to all other High Contracting Parties to the 1925 Protocol and addressed to: His Excellency, The Foreign Minister, Republic of France, 37, Quai d'Orsay, 75351 Paris, France. Or Fax: 33-1-43-17-4275
1. “Characteristics of Particles and Particle Dispersoids”, HANDBOOK OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 53rd Edition (1961).
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Particle-Dispersoids-TableSep61.htm
USA weapons designed, manufacture and sold to Israel two new categories of genocidal weapons. Hundreds of children have lost their legs and soon after their lives from: DIME bombs-Dense Inert Metal Explosives: are genotoxic, 100% carcinogenic bomb, developed and manufactured by the USA. The undetectable shrapnel from this highly-developed explosive attacks the immune system, and causes thousands of amputations, which only stave off the spread of cancer in its victims for 4 to 6 months. In other words, while the fighting may end with a death count of several hundred, months later the numbers will be ten times higher, when the focus is no longer Israel's attacks on Gaza. Essentially, with the tax dollar support and assistance from the United States, Israel is committing genocide and so are we.
White phosphorous was used in Lebanon and Gaza and made in the USA for Israel.
The burns, blackish in color, reached deep into the muscles and bones. Even after treatment was begun, the blackish color returned. When autopsies were done, reports showed that the cause of death was poisoning from elements of white phosphorous that had entered their systems, causing cardiac arrests. If they didn’t did die from burning to death down to bone and teeth. "You know, the most important thing you can tell people in your country is that U.S. taxpayers paid for many of the weapons used to kill people in Gaza," said Dr. Saeed Abuhassan. "And this, also, is why it's worse than an earthquake."
http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2006/03/20060312.php