[OT] Tests show Gulf war victims have uranium poisoning

KaMaKaZe

New member
I'm anxious to learn of any opinion that a Gulf War veteran can share with me...

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Tests show Gulf war victims have uranium poisoning

Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier

NEW evidence that Gulf war syndrome exists and was caused by radiation poisoning will be revealed today by a former American army colonel who was at the centre of his government's attempts to diagnose the illness.
Dr Asaf Durakovic will tell a conference of eminent nuclear scientists in Paris that "tens of thousands" of British and American soldiers are dying from radiation from depleted uranium (DU) shells fired during the Gulf war.

The findings will undermine the British and American governments' claims that Gulf war syndrome does not exist and intensify pressure from veterans on both sides of the Atlantic for compensation.

Durakovic, who is professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, Washington, and the former head of nuclear medicine at the US Army's veterans' affairs medical facility in Delaware, will tell the conference that he and his team of American and Canadian scientists have discovered life-threateningly high levels of DU in Gulf veterans 10 years after the desert war.

His findings, which have been verified by four independent experts, is embarrassing for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and American Defence Department, which have consistently refused to test Gulf war veterans for DU.

Durakovic will tell the European Association of Nuclear Medicine that tests on 17 veterans have shown DU in the urine and bones of 70% of them.

Depleted uranium does not occur naturally. It is the by-product of the industrial processing of waste from nuclear reactors and is better known as weapons-grade uranium. It is used to strengthen the tips of shells to ensure that they pierce armour.

Durakovic, who left America because he was told his life was in danger if he continued his research, has concluded that troops inhaled the tiny uranium particles after American and British forces fired more than 700,000 DU shells during the conflict.

The finding begins to explain for the first time why medical orderlies and mechanics are the principal victims of Gulf war syndrome.

British Army engineers who removed tanks hit by DU shells from the battlefield and medical personnel who cut off the clothes of Iraqi casualties in field hospitals have been disproportionately affected.

Once inside the body, DU causes a slow death from cancers, irreversible kidney damage or wastage from immune deficiency disorders.

In the UK, where more than 400 veterans are estimated to have died from "Gulf war syndrome", at least 50 of those victims came from Reme (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) units. Others, such as Ray Bristow, 42, of Hull, who was a theatre technician for 32 Field Hospital, are now wheelchair-bound.

Tests carried out by Durakovic on Bristow showed that, nine years after leaving the Gulf, he had more than 100 times the safe limit of DU in his body.

Durakovic said: "I doubt whether the MoD or Pentagon will have the audacity to challenge these results. I can't say this is the solitary cause of Gulf war syndrome, but we now have clear evidence that it is a leading factor in the majority of victims.

"I hope the US and UK governments finally realise that, by continuing to use this ammunition, they are effectively poisoning their own soldiers."

An MoD spokesman said it would study any new evidence: "Our aim is to get the best care for British veterans and our views are based on the best evidence around."
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The story can be found HERE.


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God, Guns and Guts made this country a great country!

oberkommando sez:
"We lost the first and third and now they are after the Second!(no pun intended)"
 
Maybe I'm wrong, but I had the impression that the health risk from DU was heavy metal poisoning, not radiation damage. If enriched uranium was being used, I could believe tissue damage from radiation, but DU is supposed to have a rather low radiation level.

Also, I don't believe the report's claiming that DU is "weapons-grade." The usual use of that term means that the uranium has been refined or enriched to the point where it is an efficient source of fissile material for a bomb (i.e. richer than normal power plant uranium). If it were that hot, it would NEVER be tossed around the battlefield where terrorists could pick up the shards and build a bomb.

I tend to believe there is something causing "Gulf War syndrome" but I kinda figure it is something more mundane, like maybe a toxic chemical generated when various solvents, hydraulic fluids etc. are burned when a tank or bunker is hit.
 
Thanks.

I'm thinkin' some chemical/biological weapons were used here and there.

Just a personal conspiracy theory.. nothing proven.

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God, Guns and Guts made this country a great country!

oberkommando sez:
"We lost the first and third and now they are after the Second!(no pun intended)"
 
Somewhere I read something that indicated that a few grams of plutonium was a greater menace from poisoning than from fission. I.e. the tangos could use it to poison a city's water supply. Those heavy metals are bad news.

Another counter-argument for the radiation claim; at low levels, radiation would take awhile to generate noticible symptoms. GWS started showing up rather quickly.

I don't doubt the Iraqis had some chemical weapons, and you have to figure some of it got blown into the atmosphere when bunkers were taken out. But the reports seem to indicate that folks who were never around the Iraqi lines were affected. Maybe there is more than one thing going on?
 
Ivanhoe...I had the same problems with that article. Seem to be a lot of errors, definately not well edited. Almost as if random statements from assorted articles were put together to make this one. Without regard to context.

Sam
 
I can't believe this is even a real artical. I was a nuke in the navy for 6 years. Even if you don't want to believe the miltary, then the real world chemistry and physics teachers are wrong according to this artical. First of all, of course depleted uranium exists in the real world. All of it is uranium that has undergone fisson, which occurs in nature. Now the concentrations are lower, but it still exists. Next enriched uranium, is actually just a lot of natural uranium that has been sorted so there is more u-235 than u-238. The u-235 being more fissinable than u-238(which has to under go a neutron capture, then decay to become plutonium, which is then fissionable.)
And I thought they decided the Anti=nerve gas agents and the ddt in the anti bug spray was the cause.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Depleted uranium does not occur naturally. It is the by-product of the industrial processing of waste from nuclear reactors and is better known as weapons-grade uranium. It is used to strengthen the tips of shells to ensure that they pierce armour.

Durakovic, who left America because he was told his life was in danger if he continued his research, has concluded that troops inhaled the tiny uranium particles after American and British forces fired more than 700,000 DU shells during the conflict.
[/quote]

So wait a sec, we fired 700,000 rounds into enemy territory containing weapons grade heavy metal? hmmm, do you think Sadam has guys out picking DU out of blasted tanks?

They say weapons grade heavy metals are some of the hardest things to obtain when trying to build bombs. Maybe the whole war was just a ploy to get DU, lol His tanks were just DU collectors. It's far fetched I know, but the Iraqi government is nuts enough it's possible, albeit really really unlikely and far fetched :D

(btw, I refuse to refer to the Iraqi government as Sadam, just like I won't refer to the serbs as Milosovich. The media creates individuals to allow us to hate nations, I won't play that game.)

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The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me
 
All DU does is make the projectile denser and heavier,enabling it to penetrate further. More radiation can be found on an old Timex watch with the glow in the dark dial.

Heavy metal poisoning is another kettle of fish. However, minimal exposure means a long time for symptoms to appear. My guess is there's several factors here, and it's going to take much more research and pressure on the Govt to find the real answers.
 
UT Southwestern researcher finds genetic cause for Gulf War syndrome
Contact: Mindy Warren
(214)648-3404
or e-mail: melinda.warren@email.swmed.edu

DALLAS - June 16, 1999 - A genetic trait can predispose people to Gulf War syndrome, a new study has found.

In an article published in today's issue of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, a

UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researcher shows why some veterans of the Gulf War may have gotten ill from certain chemical exposures while others did not.

Dr. Robert Haley, UT Southwestern's chief of epidemiology, led the study with assistance from Dr. Bert La Du and Scott Billecke from the University of Michigan Medical School.

"One of the biggest questions about Gulf War syndrome has been why one person got sick when the person next to him didn't," Haley said. "That is one of the major puzzles that made many people think the symptoms were just due to stress.

"But now we know that there appears to be a genetic reason why some people got sick and others didn't, and this genetic difference links the illness to damage from certain chemicals."

Haley's study showed that people with a gene that causes them to produce high amounts of a particular enzyme did not get sick after exposure to certain chemicals in Operation Desert Storm, while others who produce low amounts of the same enzyme did get sick.

The culprit gene is the one that controls production of type Q paraoxonase, or PON-Q, an enzyme that allows the body to fight off chemical toxins by destroying them. This particular enzyme is highly specific for the chemical nerve agents sarin and soman as well as for the common pesticide diazinon.

In some people, the gene causes the body to produce high levels of PON-Q, allowing their bodies to fight off toxins like nerve gas. But in others the gene directs the production of low levels of PON-Q, meaning a person cannot fight off even low levels of these toxic chemicals well.

Blood levels of a genetically similar enzyme PON-R, which destroys other chemicals more effectively than nerve agents, were no different in the sick and well Gulf War veterans.

"In our earlier studies when we found strong statistical links between Gulf War syndrome and veterans' reports of exposure to combinations of chemicals like pesticides and low-level chemical nerve agents, we predicted it might be due to a PON-Q deficiency, and now that's what we have found," Haley said. "The sick veterans in our study have low PON-Q levels in their blood, and the well ones have high PON-Q levels."

"We have found a genetic marker that appears to explain what made many of these veterans sick."

In 1997, Haley and a group of other UT Southwestern researchers published a set of three scientific papers in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that some veterans suffer from brain damage caused by exposure to various combinations of chemicals during the Gulf War.

They linked three different neurological syndromes to the use of pesticide-containing flea collars, highly concentrated insect repellant and pyridostigmime bromide anti-nerve gas tablets, as well as exposure to low-level chemical nerve agents.

The current study examined the same group of men, members of the 24th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion, used in the 1997 studies. Because these studies were conducted in a single battalion of naval reservists, Haley and colleagues have planned a nationwide survey to see how strongly the new neurotoxicity syndromes are associated with low-level PON-Q enzyme levels in a random sample of Gulf War-era veterans.

Haley, who has been researching Gulf War syndrome since 1994, has published more than 100 scientific papers. He is an associate professor of internal medicine with a specialty in epidemiological research.

La Du, a professor of pharmacology and anesthesiology, is an expert on the genetics of enzymes that destroy chemical toxins, including the PON family of enzymes. Billecke performed the laboratory work.

The Department of Defense and the Perot Foundation provided funding for the study.

The content of this press release, and of the scientific paper described, does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the U.S. government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.


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© 2000 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
 
The plot thickens.

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God, Guns and Guts made this country a great country!

oberkommando sez:
"We lost the first and third and now they are after the Second!(no pun intended)"
 
There may be some merit to the claim that depleted uranium projectiles caused health problems. First, one needs to understand the different types of radiation given off by radioactive substances. There are four basic types of radiation.

The first is alpha particle radiation. The alpha particle is same as a helium nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons. The alpha particle will only travel about one inch in air before free electrons are found which causes the alpha particle to become a helium atom. Pretty much anything will stop a alpha particle including dead skin. So it's pretty much harmless if the radiation source is external.

Beta radiation consists of high speed electrons. The range here is about one meter before the electron is incorporated into some atom or molecule. External exposure within this one meter may cause burns, but should be stopped by the first layer of skin.

Gamma radiation, which is the same as x rays and cosmic rays, consists of electromagnetic radiation, with a wavelength range below ultraviolet radiation. This form of radiation has unlimited range, and will cause cancer if external exposure is in high enough doses. Dense materials like concrete and soil can stop the radiation, if the material is thick enough.

Finally, we have neutron radiation. This consists of neutrons traveling through the air. This is the only form of radiation that will cause objects exposed to this type of radiation, to become radioactive themselves. This form of radiation is also quite harmful if doses are high enough.

All forms of radiation will be harmful if the source of the radiation is taken internally, since there is no protective layer of skin to sheild against the radiation.

Depleted uranium has basically the same isotope as naturally occuring uranium. Depleted uranium does give off alpha radiation. This is usually not a problem since this type of radiation is so weak. In fact, you could probably sleep with a d.u. projectile and never have any health problems. However, when the d.u. projectile hits an object, it tends to fragment, causing some of the depleted uranium to become airborne. This airborne d.u. can then be inhaled. Once the uranium is inside your body, there is nothing to defend against the alpha radiation, which can then lead to cancer.

Most of this is from what I remember from a high school physics class. I may be a little off on few things but I believe the majority of the above science lesson is accurate. If anything is in error hopefully someone here can point it out.
 
I find it hard to believe that depleted uranium is a radiation hazzard. On several aerospace projects I have worked on DU was used for radiation SHIELDING!
I was also project engineer on one of the first US programs to build and test depleted uranium cnnon projectiles for the armed forces. After each test round was fired the test area was swept with radiation detectors to detect any radiation resulting from the shot. None was ever detected.
 
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