Depleted Uranium and ill health in the UK and elsewhere.

http://www.llrc.org/epidemiology/subtopic/dumfriesandgalloway.htm

Depleted uranium shells have been fired from the UK's Kirkcudbright range since 1995.

A Dr Heasman told an inquiry (the Dounreay Inquiry) that the DG7.3 post code area, a little inland from Kirkcudbright, contained the highest excess leukaemia risk (age 0 - 24) of any post code in Scotland.

Depleted uranium (DU) shells were used in the Gulf War. When a DU shell hits its target, it explodes and vaporises. Uranium micro-particles are transported by the WIND and by WATER.

A 1991 United Kingdom Atomic Energy report warned that depleted uranium left on Gulf War battlefields could cause 500,00 deaths among soldiers and civilians. (See also Dan Fahey, Swords to plowshares, www.nuclearfiles.org )

The Sunday Herald 7/1/01 quotes a Ministry of Defence document which states that the inhalation of particles from DU shells is a health risk.

Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's Depleted-Uranium Project, worked in the Gulf area during the war. Rokke suffers from reactive airway disease, neurological damage and kidney problems. Rokke says, "DU is toxic, radioactive and pollutes for 4,500,000,000 years. It causes lymphoma, neuro-psychotic disorders and short term memory damage. In semen, it causes birth defects..."

In a Gulf War veterans community in Mississippi, 67% of the children were born without eyes, ears, brain and thyroid. (Source: Desert Concerns, by Daniel Robicheau, www.antenna.nl )

Shaun Rusling of the Gulf War Veterans and Families Association says that 521 British servicemen have died of Gulf War Syndrome to date.

According to Daniel Robicheau, there has been a massive rise in cancers in Saudi Arabia, and in most of the Emirates all the way to Bahrain.

In Iraq there has been a six-fold rise in cancers. Birth defects have become common.

An OFFICIAL study in Italy has found a direct connection between the deaths of six soldiers who served in the BALKANS and NATO's use of DU shells.

According to a letter from Mr Dan Kenny in the Galloway News, 30/11/00, nuclear waste lies in a field two miles from Bridge of Dee. "The field contains hundreds of tons of mud from Kirkcudbright and Palnackie harbours..." The letter suggests that the Kirkcudbright Bay area has hotspots with dangerously high levels of radiation. (Part of the blame is put on the Windscale waste pipe.)

"Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War" by Messonnier, Loore and Trilling, claims that the DU shells used in Iraq and Kosovo contained traces of elements that indicate the probable presence of PLUTONIUM.

The authors claims are based on papers that have led them to 3 nuclear plants in PADUCAH, Kentucky, PORTSMOUTH, Ohio, and OAK RIDGE, Tennessee - the main makers of DU. (Sunday Times 21 Jan 2001).

In January 2000, Bill Richardson, the then US Energy secretary, accepted that THOUSANDS of workers at PADUCAH "had been exposed to radiation and chemicals that produced cancer and early death."

Many of the victims suffer from chronic fatigue and joint pain, the same symptoms suffered by Gulf War veterans.

Documents from August 1999 show that workers at Paducah had been inhaling PLUTONIUM. (Sunday Times 21 Jan 2001). In October 1999 the US Energy Department reported that "the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant...created depleted uranium potentially containing...plutonium." (Sunday Times 21 Jan 2001)

In January 2001 United Nations officials investigating the effects of DU in kosovo confirmed they had found traces of elements indicating PLUTONIUM. (Sunday Times 21 Jan 2001.)

~~~

http://www.nuclearpress.com/view.lasso?id=0032&-token.f=3

Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now - by John Lewallen

"The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth.

"Unlike natural uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble, and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many years, causing a host of diseases.

"Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling mutation.

"Today the United States military forces are fully committed to a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure.

"To repeat: ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER THE WAR."