The Depleted Uranium Scandal
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a massive cover-up to allow it to continue using a weapon that spreads radioactive contamination wherever it is used. This weapon, depleted uranium (DU), is the backbone of the U.S. military’s anti-tank arsenal, but the DOD has hidden this weapon’s true, insidious nature from the public and its own troops. Thousands of Gulf War veterans and Iraqi civilians who have been exposed to DU are suffering from damaged organs, leukemia, other cancers, neurological disorders, and birth defects. The DOD has suppressed information on DU exposure, suppresses or refuses to acknowledge the results of its own research, and continues to assert that DU is safe. Depleted uranium munitions are highly effective armor piercing weapons frequently used against tanks, reinforced bunkers, and buildings. Despite being “depleted” of much of their most radioactive isotopes, DU retains approximately 60% of the radioactivity of naturally occurring uranium. Spent DU munitions leave behind extremely minute particles of uranium dust that is a toxic heavy metal and remains radioactive for over four billion years. The DOD refuses to identify, quarantine, or clean-up DU contaminated sites.Of the nearly 700,000 troops that fought in the first Gulf War, over 120,000 signed on with the Gulf War Health Registry. Approximately 20% of these suffer from undiagnosed symptoms such as sleep problems, mood swings, short-term memory loss, chronic fatigue, rashes, aching joints, headaches, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and blurred vision and sensitivity to bright light. The Iraqi government claims that cancer and birth defect rates have increased significantly after the Gulf War I, although the Bush administration countered that this was nothing more than Saddam Hussein’s propaganda. In Afghanistan, urine samples of Afghanis living in areas where military operations have occurred contained 100-400 times higher levels of radioactive isotopes than those found in Gulf War I veterans.
Recent studies, including some by the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, are finding that DU settles in the bone, brain, lung, muscle, kidney, liver, and testicles of animals; forms tumors in animals; was found in the semen of Gulf War veterans; and was associated with neurological disorders of Gulf War veterans. Despite these findings, the DOD continues to cling to old uranium exposure and absorption studies to justify its assertion that DU weapons are safe.
Military regulations during the Gulf War required that soldiers who entered areas with known or suspected radioactive contamination have their medical records so marked. This was never done. Any soldier carrying a simple radiation detector might be shocked to see how much radioactive contamination remained on the battlefield after an armored assault. After initial refusal, the DOD eventually produced a map indicating that over 400,000 troops travelled through areas where DU munitions were fired.
In 1993, a doctor and the chief of nuclear medicine at the Wilmington, Delaware, Veterans Administration hospital, Col. Asaf Durakovic, himself a Gulf War vet, was assigned 24 patients with undiagnosed symptoms. Based on his experience, he concluded that these veterans had been exposed to radioactive contaminants. Urine samples that were sent to a U.S. Army radiological chemistry laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland, mysteriously disappeared. Col. Durakovic’s continued research into his patients’ symptoms was met with animosity from his superiors and discouragement from his colleagues. Despite wanting nothing more than to relieve the pain and suffering of brave war veterans, Col. Durakovic was fired in 1998 after eighteen years of distinguished service.
Throughout DU’s development in the 1970’s and deployment in numerous conflicts throughout the world involving the United States and its allies, the DOD has fervently proclaimed that DU is safe, relying on old studies focusing on uranium compounds found in industrial conditions and incomplete medical records to bolster its claims. Few, if any, studies sponsored by the DOD investigated DU as it is encountered in the battlefield: a fine, uranium oxide dust that is deposited after a DU penetrator impacts its target, ignites, and disintegrates.
Ironically, the DOD isolated and decontaminated 23 U.S. vehicles from Gulf War II that were hit with DU munitions from friendly fire, or had ignited and burned for other reasons while carrying DU munitions, but will not admit that DU dust is a long term health hazard to its troops or civilians, even as it cautions American soldiers to take precautions or avoid coming in contact with destroyed Iraqi tanks. After the second invasion of Iraq in 2003, American soldiers carrying Geiger counters were seen hauling the topsoil away from U.S. Army bases in Baghdad and replacing it with sand, supposedly to eliminate the hazard from unexploded ordnance such as cluster-bomb munitions, but possibly to remove any risk of radioactive contamination.
Depleted uranium is a by-product of uranium enrichment for nuclear fuel rods or weapons. Naturally occurring uranium consists of 99.2745 percent U238, an isotope with low radioactivity. The remaining uranium consists of highly radioactive U234 (0.0055 percent) and U235 (0.72 percent). The enrichment process removes about 60 percent of the U235 and about 80 percent of the U234 which are used for nuclear fuel. Consequently, DU is about 40 percent less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium.
The radioactivity of both naturally occurring uranium and DU consists of alpha and beta particles and gamma radiation. These constitute ionizing radiation and can damage human cells and DNA. Alpha and beta particles are relatively weak and are easily blocked by skin (alpha particles) or clothing (beta particles). However, when placed directly against living cells, they both are capable of doing damage. Gamma radiation is the most penetrating form of radiation and can be physically harmful both internally and externally, although very little of this type of radiation is emitted by DU. Uranium 238 has a half life of over four billion years and gives off primarily alpha particles. For a few months after processing, however, DU gives off more beta particles and gamma radiation as the remaining isotopes return to equilibrium.
The effects of radioactivity on the human body are well documented. Ionizing radiation can directly kill or damage cells, cell function, or DNA. Cells that reproduce rapidly such as those found in children, the testes, or in bone marrow, are the most vulnerable. Damage to the cells in the bone marrow that create white blood cells can cause leukemia. While the human body is able to repair a lot of the damage from radiation, irreparable damage from high radiation doses can lead to chronic illnesses, tumors, sterility, or birth defects. Studies on rats have found neurological effects from inhaled uranium collecting in the brain.
The World Health Organization recommends that the general public should not be exposed to more than 5 milli-Sieverts (mSv) in one year provided that the average dose over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year. A milli-Sievert is a measure of the amount of radiation absorbed by human tissue. Depleted uranium processed to military standards yields about 0.12 mSv per milligram of DU dust. Inhaling 8.3 mg of DU dust would meet the WHO exposure limit of 1 mSv per year over a five year average. A single 120 mm DU round from an M1 Abrams tank can create roughly 700,000 to 3,000,000 mg of uranium oxide dust. The United Nations Environment Program/United Nations Center for Human Settlements Balkans Task Force estimated that 100 mg of DU dust could be inhaled immediately after and within close proximity to a DU munitions impact, and produces continuous exposure within 1,000 m2 of 0.3-30 mSv annually.
Uranium is also a heavy metal, and as such exhibits chemical toxicity. Inhaled uranium dust enters the bloodstream and is excreted by the kidneys. Kidney and lung damage has been documented at high, acute doses, although some kidney damage can be reversible. Studies on the toxic effects of long term uranium exposure on humans have been inconclusive or contradictory because of poor study design, limited sample size, antiquated analysis methods, or incomplete documentation. Few studies on the effects of DU on other organs have been conducted, and the effects of DU on the human body at exposure levels that are encountered in battlefield conditions have not been investigated.
The average human body contains about 90 micrograms of naturally occurring uranium ingested from food, air, and water. Under normal conditions, the human body eliminates approximately 98 percent of the uranium it ingests via the kidneys or the digestive tract. About two-thirds of the uranium found in the human body is stored within the bones and another sixth in the liver. The World Health Organization sets the following limits for Uranium ingestion: Soluble Depleted Uranium - 0.5 ug/kg body weight Insoluble Depleted Uranium – 5 ug/kg body weight Inhaled Insoluble or Soluble Depleted Uranium – 1 ug/m3 respirable fraction or 0.05 mg/m3 over an eight hour period.
Although used in a wide array of weapons, DU rounds are most notable for their use in the A10 Warthog attack aircraft and the M1A2 Abrams tank. Both of these weapons platforms were developed during the Cold War to counter the threat of vast columns of Soviet tanks sweeping across Western Europe. American tanks needed a round capable of defeating the Soviet’s thickest, most advanced armor from great distances. The A10 Warthog carries a multi-barreled cannon whose DU rounds can penetrate the thinner armor found on the top and the rear of tanks. The A10’s ability to engage large tank formations made it a “force multiplier” in a war where the United States would be facing wave after wave of Soviet tanks.
After two Gulf Wars, little remains of the Soviet supplied tanks that Saddam Hussein used to intimidate his enemies. Even so there are still technicians and contractors, Geiger counter in hand, scouring the battlefield for residual DU contamination. Hordes of Soviet tanks are unlikely to magically appear in the Iraqi or Afghani deserts any time soon. The need for DU weapons is past. The time has come to replace DU with the less toxic, but more expensive tungsten rounds that preceded it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049092/trivia
EXCERPT:
Link this trivia
Filmed between mid-May and August 5, 1954, the movie premiered on February 22, 1956 in Los Angeles, then opened in Manhattan at the Criterion Theatre on March 30, 1956.
Photographs exist of John Wayne holding a Geiger counter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter
EXCERPT:
A Geiger counter, also called a Geiger-Müller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation. They are notable for being used to detect if objects emit nuclear radiation.
[edit] Description
Geiger counters are used to detect ionizing radiation (usually beta particles and gamma rays, but certain models can detect alpha particles). An inert gas-filled tube (usually helium, neon or argon with halogens added) briefly conducts electricity when a particle or photon of radiation makes the gas conductive. The tube amplifies this conduction by a cascade effect and outputs a current pulse, which is then often displayed by a needle or lamp and/or audible clicks. Modern instruments can report radioactivity over several orders of magnitude. Some Geiger counters can be used to detect gamma radiation, though sensitivity can be lower for high energy gamma radiation than with certain other types of detector, because the density of the gas in the device is usually low, allowing most high energy gamma photons to pass through undetected (lower energy photons are easier to detect, and are better absorbed by the detector. Examples of this are the X-ray Pancake Geiger Tube). A better device for detecting gamma rays is a sodium iodide scintillation counter. Good alpha and beta scintillation counters also exist, but Geiger detectors are still favored as general purpose alpha/beta/gamma portable contamination and dose rate instruments, due to their low cost and robustness. A variation of the Geiger tube is used to measure neutrons, where the gas used is boron trifluoride and a plastic moderator is used to slow the neutrons. This creates an alpha particle inside the detector and thus neutrons can be counted.http://www.democracynow.org/2003/1/30/dr_asaf_durakovic_gives_a_rare
January 30, 2003
Dr. Asaf Durakovic Gives a Rare Interview About Depleted Uranium in Iraq: He Was the First Military Doctor to Test Gulf War Veterans for Radiation Exposure and Was Terminated for His Work
As the Pentagon weighs deploying nuclear weapons in Iraq, we’re going to take a look now at another kind of radioactive weapon US troops may use: depleted uranium.
But when DU rounds punch through tanks, they create a firestorm of uranium dioxide dust. Those invisible particles are still "hot." As the Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Peterson writes, the particles make Geiger counters sing. They stick to the tanks, contaminate the soil and blow in the desert wind—as they will for the 4.5 billion years it takes for the DU to lose its radioactivity.
The public first became aware the US military was using DU weapons during the 1991 Gulf War. US gunners used 320 tons of DU to destroy 4,000 Iraqi armored vehicles.
The Pentagon deemed those vehicles a "substantial risk" and US forces buried them in Saudi Arabia and low-level radioactive waste dumps in the US. Thousands of US troops became sick after that war, afflicted with a range of mysterious symptoms that have come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.Many vets believe DU is responsible. According to Reuters, some troops are so concerned about a new Gulf War Syndrome they have begun to bank their sperm before they head to the Middle East. The sperm banks are now offering discounts to troops.
Iraqis say DU is a major cause of the severe health problems such as cancer and birth defects. The director of the cancer ward at Basra’s Saddam Teaching Hospital says pre-war cancer rates have increased eleven times.
The Pentagon and the White House deny this. Pentagon officials refer to the latest government report on the subject, which said: "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU’s chemical toxicity or low-level radiation." Just last week, the White House Office of Global Communications rolled out a new propaganda document called: "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003". The document characterized Iraq’s claims as a campaign of disinformation.
Despite repeated calls, the Pentagon refused to be interviewed for this program.
In a minute we’ll be speaking with Dr. Asaf Durakovic. In 1991, Dr. Durakovic was Chief of Nuclear Medicine at the veterans’ hospital in Wilmington Delaware. There he discovered the first gulf war veterans with symptoms of radiation exposure. The hospital terminated him after he refused to halt his research. He has pursued the research to this day He was also a former US Army Colonel. He rarely gives interviews in this country.
But first we go to Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
Guests:
- Steve Robinson, Executive Director, National Gulf War Resource Center. They monitor the current status of scientific studies.
- Dr. Asaf Durakovic, nuclear scientist and former Chief of the Nuclear Sciences Division at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute. He is currently the Medical Director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, an independent non-profit institute which studies the effects of Uranium contamination.
The UMRC recently sent a team to the Nargahar province in Afghanistan to test for uranium contamination in residents living near and around US bombing sites during Operation Enduring Freedom.
* Dr. Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary with the European Committee on Radiation Risk , a group of scientists and risk specialists within Europe who assess the risk levels of low-level radiation exposure. The ECRR has just published a report which determines that previous risk-models for depleted uranium exposure are incorrect. The report determines that depleted uranium is 100 to 1000 times more carcinogenic than the present risk model suggests. Dr. Busby is also a member of the International Society for Environment Epidemiology, and was invited to Iraq and Kosovo to investigate the health effects of depleted uranium. He has also given presentations on depleted uranium to the Royal Society and to the European Parliament. He is a member of the UK Ministry of Defense Oversight Committee on Depleted Uranium.
* Karen Parker, attorney specializing in humanitarian law. She has been working with the UN Commission on Human Rights since 1996 to expose the illegality of DU munitions under humanitarian law.
* Dr. Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary with the European Committee on Radiation Risk , a group of scientists and risk specialists within Europe who assess the risk levels of low-level radiation exposure. The ECRR has just published a report which determines that previous risk-models for depleted uranium exposure are incorrect. The report determines that depleted uranium is 100 to 1000 times more carcinogenic than the present risk model suggests. Dr. Busby is also a member of the International Society for Environment Epidemiology, and was invited to Iraq and Kosovo to investigate the health effects of depleted uranium. He has also given presentations on depleted uranium to the Royal Society and to the European Parliament. He is a member of the UK Ministry of Defense Oversight Committee on Depleted Uranium.
* Karen Parker, attorney specializing in humanitarian law. She has been working with the UN Commission on Human Rights since 1996 to expose the illegality of DU munitions under humanitarian law.
Related links:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/06/18439097.php
Despite Continuing Threats, DU Expert Pushes on with Pursuit of Truth
by Brian Covert / Independent Journalist
Monday Aug 6th, 2007 12:51 AM
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, undeterred by death threats and harassment over the past year, continues his fight to break the "conspiracy of silence" surrounding depleted uranium. (originally published at sf.indymedia.org on 12 May 2005; updated 6 August 2007)
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, right, speaking on depleted uranium to an audience of students and scholars at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, on 9 March [2005]. Other panelists are, from left, Professor Yoshihiko Wada of Doshisha University and Professor Nobuo Kazashi of Kobe University.
Despite Continuing Threats, DU Expert Pushes on with Pursuit of Truth
By Brian Covert
Independent Journalist
KYOTO, JAPAN — If it seems that Dr. Asaf Durakovic’s visits to Japan are always preceded by violent threats and harassment back home in North America, it is only because that is a constant reality for him.
Just before coming to Japan last year to appeal the deadly dangers of depleted uranium to the Japanese government and public, his family received a spate of threats by telephone back in the U.S. His latest Japan visit, his third to this country, was preceded earlier this year by the ransacking of his Washington D.C. home.
“Nothing was stolen from the house, but every single paper in my house was scrutinized,” Durakovic, 64, said in a recent interview here. “And I don’t know who did it. I have no idea. It was reported to the police [but] the police were helpless” in finding the culprits. The windows of his car, he adds, were smashed out earlier this year at his home in Canada.
And that’s not counting what Durakovic calls the “betrayal” of the organization he heads, the Toronto-based Uranium Medical Research Centre, by outside infiltrators over the past year or the mysterious hit-and-run incident in Toronto that targeted some of his colleagues in front of a church on a quiet Sunday morning.
These anonymous acts of violence over the past year, he says, are the kind of unfortunate price that all conscientious scientists throughout history have had to pay in trying to get the truth out — in his case, the truth about depleted uranium (DU), a lethal waste product of the uranium enrichment process that has become a critical part of modern-day warfare. Many doctors and scientists have joined the soup kitchen because of speaking up against the obvious injustices that are going on in the world,” Durakovic said. He says he intends to keep on talking publicly about DU despite the ongoing pressures to quit.
He was recently in Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital, to do just that before an audience of a couple hundred students and scholars at the prestigious Doshisha University. His speaking appearances are generally warmly received by the public in Japan, if not ignored by the Japanese government and mainstream media.
Durakovic’s troubles, of course, date back far beyond this year or last: As a military insider, he had served at the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the 1990-91 “Operation Desert Shield” phase of the Persian Gulf War attack on Iraqi military forces. Upon returning to the States, he was appointed chief of nuclear medicine at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. He recalls that a group of American veterans who had served in Iraq were referred to him with apparent traces of uranium in their bodies. Durakovic ordered diagnoses on the soldiers and the tests, he says, came back positive.
The test records later were supposedly lost somewhere along the line by U.S. military officials; Durakovic then did more tests and came up with the same positive results. “So it was obvious the [U.S.] government lied,” Durakovic told this writer in an interview in Osaka, Japan last year.
The pressure on Durakovic to immediately cease his testing of American veterans for depleted uranium poisoning in their bodies was steadily raised, including from the chief of the military hospital where he worked. Durakovic was fired from the hospital in February 1997. He never got his job back. He went on that year to found the nonprofit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Toronto to continue testing for depleted uranium and to challenge official claims of DU’s minimal risks to humans and the environment. His team has since gone to Afghanistan and Iraq to collect and test DU samples directly from civilians, as well as from U.S. military veterans who are now Stateside.
Over the past year, Durakovic and his colleagues have continued presenting their findings at scientific gatherings and public forums around the world. Durakovic himself last year won the “2004 Nuclear-Free Future Education Award” in India in recognition of his work.
His team’s tests for DU contamination continue to come up positive, he says. The evidence has hit especially close to home for Durakovic: Two of his UMRC field staff members fell ill after spending a few days in Samawah, Iraq, collecting DU samples in 2003. One of them, Tedd Weyman, remains nearly incapacitated to this day with severe respiratory problems. “It is alarming because he [Weyman] only stayed in the area for eight days,” Durakovic said. “Now, I’m asking everybody to use their common sense and think of what might have happened to people who were stationed there for three, four, six months.”
That includes the hundreds of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers still stationed in Samawah, the same area in Iraq where Durakovic’s team had confirmed DU contamination. An estimated 500 Japanese soldiers recently departed for Samawah with great fanfare from an SDF base in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan. How DU will affect those and other Japanese soldiers now based in Iraq — ostensibly to help shore up the U.S. occupation — remains to be seen, as the Japanese press and even opposition political parties are mostly mute on the subject of depleted uranium. But Durakovic says he would “very much appreciate an opportunity to be introduced to some of those [Japanese] veterans” and hopefully test them for DU someday.
His fight to reveal the truth about DU, he maintains, is not about merely confronting the Pentagon or the U.S. Department of Defense, but also standing up to what he calls the “political-industrial complex” of other countries — such as Britain and Canada — that he sees as stonewalling or trying to whitewash the facts and data surrounding depleted uranium.
“The Department of National Defence of Canada conducted a worthless study [of DU] in which millions of dollars were spent, using the wrong population, the wrong methodology and wrong specimens to come to the wrong conclusions,” Durakovic said. “And their wrong conclusions were that there is no risk of DU because they found nothing. But our team found DU, our team found sick people, our team found catastrophic dimensions of radioactive warfare. …And I asked the people from Canada: ‘Why didn’t you use a washing machine to measure uranium isotopes? Because your methodology is as equally insensitive as a washing machine’.”
If Durakovic has faith in anything, it is in the power of science to rise above all forms of politics. “Eventually, the truth of scientific information will prevail. Political parties rise and fall. Governments and kingdoms rise and fall. Swords and crowns can be dug [from] the mud of dirty rivers. But scientific facts will always remain unchallenged.”
“That is what we have to encounter today,” he adds. “In the unpleasant reality of radioactive warfare, somebody has to be taking the consequences for the work that is not according to the tastes of the current political opinions.” His plans for the coming year include continued testing of the remaining 120-plus DU samples his team has taken from people in Iraq, as well as DU testing of civilians in Port Hope, Canada and Padukah, Kentucky in the U.S. — places in North America with their own histories of nuclear contamination and cover-up.
So for now, despite all the threats and harassment, Dr. Asaf Durakovic pushes on with his DU research, undeterred by the ideological winds of time: “We were not afraid of the communist secret police. I lived in communist Yugoslavia and I was not afraid of that. So I’m not going to be afraid of free countries either.”
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/06/18439097.php
Despite Continuing Threats, DU Expert Pushes on with Pursuit of Truth
by Brian Covert / Independent Journalist
Monday Aug 6th, 2007 12:51 AM
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, undeterred by death threats and harassment over the past year, continues his fight to break the "conspiracy of silence" surrounding depleted uranium. (originally published at sf.indymedia.org on 12 May 2005; updated 6 August 2007)
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, right, speaking on depleted uranium to an audience of students and scholars at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, on 9 March [2005]. Other panelists are, from left, Professor Yoshihiko Wada of Doshisha University and Professor Nobuo Kazashi of Kobe University.
Despite Continuing Threats, DU Expert Pushes on with Pursuit of Truth
By Brian Covert
Independent Journalist
KYOTO, JAPAN — If it seems that Dr. Asaf Durakovic’s visits to Japan are always preceded by violent threats and harassment back home in North America, it is only because that is a constant reality for him.
Just before coming to Japan last year to appeal the deadly dangers of depleted uranium to the Japanese government and public, his family received a spate of threats by telephone back in the U.S. His latest Japan visit, his third to this country, was preceded earlier this year by the ransacking of his Washington D.C. home.
“Nothing was stolen from the house, but every single paper in my house was scrutinized,” Durakovic, 64, said in a recent interview here. “And I don’t know who did it. I have no idea. It was reported to the police [but] the police were helpless” in finding the culprits. The windows of his car, he adds, were smashed out earlier this year at his home in Canada.
And that’s not counting what Durakovic calls the “betrayal” of the organization he heads, the Toronto-based Uranium Medical Research Centre, by outside infiltrators over the past year or the mysterious hit-and-run incident in Toronto that targeted some of his colleagues in front of a church on a quiet Sunday morning.
These anonymous acts of violence over the past year, he says, are the kind of unfortunate price that all conscientious scientists throughout history have had to pay in trying to get the truth out — in his case, the truth about depleted uranium (DU), a lethal waste product of the uranium enrichment process that has become a critical part of modern-day warfare. Many doctors and scientists have joined the soup kitchen because of speaking up against the obvious injustices that are going on in the world,” Durakovic said. He says he intends to keep on talking publicly about DU despite the ongoing pressures to quit.
He was recently in Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital, to do just that before an audience of a couple hundred students and scholars at the prestigious Doshisha University. His speaking appearances are generally warmly received by the public in Japan, if not ignored by the Japanese government and mainstream media.
Durakovic’s troubles, of course, date back far beyond this year or last: As a military insider, he had served at the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the 1990-91 “Operation Desert Shield” phase of the Persian Gulf War attack on Iraqi military forces. Upon returning to the States, he was appointed chief of nuclear medicine at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. He recalls that a group of American veterans who had served in Iraq were referred to him with apparent traces of uranium in their bodies. Durakovic ordered diagnoses on the soldiers and the tests, he says, came back positive.
The test records later were supposedly lost somewhere along the line by U.S. military officials; Durakovic then did more tests and came up with the same positive results. “So it was obvious the [U.S.] government lied,” Durakovic told this writer in an interview in Osaka, Japan last year.
The pressure on Durakovic to immediately cease his testing of American veterans for depleted uranium poisoning in their bodies was steadily raised, including from the chief of the military hospital where he worked. Durakovic was fired from the hospital in February 1997. He never got his job back. He went on that year to found the nonprofit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Toronto to continue testing for depleted uranium and to challenge official claims of DU’s minimal risks to humans and the environment. His team has since gone to Afghanistan and Iraq to collect and test DU samples directly from civilians, as well as from U.S. military veterans who are now Stateside.
Over the past year, Durakovic and his colleagues have continued presenting their findings at scientific gatherings and public forums around the world. Durakovic himself last year won the “2004 Nuclear-Free Future Education Award” in India in recognition of his work.
His team’s tests for DU contamination continue to come up positive, he says. The evidence has hit especially close to home for Durakovic: Two of his UMRC field staff members fell ill after spending a few days in Samawah, Iraq, collecting DU samples in 2003. One of them, Tedd Weyman, remains nearly incapacitated to this day with severe respiratory problems. “It is alarming because he [Weyman] only stayed in the area for eight days,” Durakovic said. “Now, I’m asking everybody to use their common sense and think of what might have happened to people who were stationed there for three, four, six months.”
That includes the hundreds of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers still stationed in Samawah, the same area in Iraq where Durakovic’s team had confirmed DU contamination. An estimated 500 Japanese soldiers recently departed for Samawah with great fanfare from an SDF base in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan. How DU will affect those and other Japanese soldiers now based in Iraq — ostensibly to help shore up the U.S. occupation — remains to be seen, as the Japanese press and even opposition political parties are mostly mute on the subject of depleted uranium. But Durakovic says he would “very much appreciate an opportunity to be introduced to some of those [Japanese] veterans” and hopefully test them for DU someday.
His fight to reveal the truth about DU, he maintains, is not about merely confronting the Pentagon or the U.S. Department of Defense, but also standing up to what he calls the “political-industrial complex” of other countries — such as Britain and Canada — that he sees as stonewalling or trying to whitewash the facts and data surrounding depleted uranium.
“The Department of National Defence of Canada conducted a worthless study [of DU] in which millions of dollars were spent, using the wrong population, the wrong methodology and wrong specimens to come to the wrong conclusions,” Durakovic said. “And their wrong conclusions were that there is no risk of DU because they found nothing. But our team found DU, our team found sick people, our team found catastrophic dimensions of radioactive warfare. …And I asked the people from Canada: ‘Why didn’t you use a washing machine to measure uranium isotopes? Because your methodology is as equally insensitive as a washing machine’.”
If Durakovic has faith in anything, it is in the power of science to rise above all forms of politics. “Eventually, the truth of scientific information will prevail. Political parties rise and fall. Governments and kingdoms rise and fall. Swords and crowns can be dug [from] the mud of dirty rivers. But scientific facts will always remain unchallenged.”
“That is what we have to encounter today,” he adds. “In the unpleasant reality of radioactive warfare, somebody has to be taking the consequences for the work that is not according to the tastes of the current political opinions.” His plans for the coming year include continued testing of the remaining 120-plus DU samples his team has taken from people in Iraq, as well as DU testing of civilians in Port Hope, Canada and Padukah, Kentucky in the U.S. — places in North America with their own histories of nuclear contamination and cover-up.
So for now, despite all the threats and harassment, Dr. Asaf Durakovic pushes on with his DU research, undeterred by the ideological winds of time: “We were not afraid of the communist secret police. I lived in communist Yugoslavia and I was not afraid of that. So I’m not going to be afraid of free countries either.”
You must click to view. .....cal
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3577916
http://www.rense.com/general56/dep.htm
EXCERPT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_David_Kelly
EXCERPT:
David Christopher Kelly, CMG (14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a British scientist and expert on biological warfare, employed by the British Ministry of Defence, and formerly a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He came to public attention in July 2003 when an unauthorised discussion he had off the record with a BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan—about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq— was cited by the journalist and led to a major controversy. Kelly's name became known to the media as Gilligan's source, and he was called to appear on 15 July before the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee, which was investigating the issues Gilligan had reported. Kelly was questioned aggressively about his actions. He was found dead two days later.[2]
