Radioactive Wounds of War

[donsu]

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


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




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.
-snip-
---------------------------------


Clinton made it a mandate

edited to add the last paragraph:

One way or another, the Pentagon will pay a price. “DU is a war crime. It’s that simple,” Rokke says. “Once you’ve scattered all this stuff around, and then refuse to clean it up, you’ve committed a war crime.”

[FtWayneBlue]

1. all Uranium munititions are "dirty"

and should be banned, as well as the new napalm they are using. It is horrific to use this stuff on living breathing human beings. It certainly is not a "Christian" thing to do.

[immoderate]

2. One of the problems....

Is that the many articles available form the scientific establishment point out the supposed low risk because of depleted uranium's low radioactivity. They ignore its deadly chemical toxicity and that it is easily aerosolized, which optimizes the effects of its radioactivity.

--IMM

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Previous thread about this topic (chemical toxicity of DU)

Thread contains a presentation by Thomas Fasy MD PhD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

By the early 1900s, uranium was well recognized to be a kidney toxin. By the mid-1940s, uranium was known to be a neurotoxin. By the early 1970s, uranium was recognized to be a carcinogen based on mortality studies of uranium workers and on experiments with dogs and monkeys. The first evidence that uranyl ions bind to DNA was reported in 1949 and by the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a mutagen. Also, in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4124449

[immoderate]

4. Thanks for the reminder.

Coincidentally, I have this thread bookmarked, I have sent it to several people who told me that depleted uranium is not harmful. Until recently, googling depleted uranium brought up pages that were produced by industry or academia that professed this same view. I see that it's getting better now.

The general public is still uninformed about this. They do not know that now we all carry some uranium from the middle east.

--IMM