LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. Winner 2013 Webby Awards for Best Political Website
May 18, 2013

 Choose a size
Text Size

Trending:     chris hedges     economy     elizabeth warren     politics     robert scheer
Most Read

The History That Birthed the Tsarnaev Boys

Jerry Brown: California's Mystery Man

'The Daily Show': Stewart Slams Hypocrites Cheney and Rumsfeld

This Is Water: Fishy Advice From David Foster Wallace

How the IRS' Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
 * NEW! * Arctic Tundra ‘Will Turn to Forest’
How the IRS’ Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional
Recurring Nightmares? Wake Up and Take Action

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
Act of Congress
Daily Rituals
The Girls of Atomic City

Digs

Truthdig Bazaar more items

 
Ear to the Ground

Soldiers Sue Army Over Mysterious Illness

Email this item Email    Print this item Print    Share this item... Share

Posted on Aug 13, 2006

A number of American troops from the same unit in Iraq recently discovered they were all suffering from a mysterious set of illnesses.  Though their doctors couldn?t determine the source of the sickness, the soldiers came to believe their exposure to depleted uranium munitions was to blame, and decided to sue the U.S. Army.


Wired News:

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon’s arsenal of it—thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The United States has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

Link

More Below the Ad

Advertisement


New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

By Dusty R, August 15, 2006 at 2:00 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Well, as i’ve shown, the evidence from the objecitve research facilities shows it is -NOT- an issue.

Debate IAEA, NATO, etc.

Report this

By Mystified, August 14, 2006 at 4:12 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I don’t know what kind of propaganda some people read but DU has been proven to be quite hazardous a very long time ago. If DU really were harmless, do you seriously think it would need special storages?

Report this

By Dusty R, August 14, 2006 at 2:57 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Lets get real: time and time again DU has been found to not be an issue. DU in Kuwait? no issue. In Kosovo? no issue. Used in Chechnya by Russian forces? no issue. But why is there an issue in Iraq, and Iraq only? Simply enough: The environment has been badly scared, chemically, by enormous amounts of sarin and mustard gas exposure during Iraq’s brutal years with Saddam.

To Further prove DU isnt’ an issue, I post:
http://www.nato.int/du/ - To date, the scientific and medical research continues to disprove any link between Depleted Uranium and the reported negative health effects.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/b04151999_bt170-99.htm - RAND REVIEW INDICATES NO EVIDENCE OF HARMFUL HEALTH EFFECTS FROM DEPLETED URANIUM

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2003/13-571089.shtml - An IAEA investigation in Kuwait has found that depleted uranium (DU) from munitions used in the 1991 Gulf War does not pose a radiological hazard to the people of Kuwait.

http://www.vethealth.cio.med.va.gov/Pubs/1303.4hk 9-02-04.pdf - While no clinically significant adverse effects of DU have been evident to date in this group, some abnormalities have been detected on specialized testing.

And, a good overview: http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_library/balkans.shtml - None of the investigations and assessments has found widespread DU contamination, elevated uranium in the urine of veterans, or a significant health risk to deployed forces or to the public.

Dusty R

Report this

By Spinoza, August 13, 2006 at 9:47 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

DU might become a major problem. Something has to explain all of the birth defects and infant cancers in southern Iraq.

Report this

By Frank Delgado, August 13, 2006 at 9:41 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

be all you can in the us army including radioactive.

  Ten years from now the govt will acknowledge exposure and will start paying out ten years after that when 90% of those expose are dead.

Report this
Newsletter

sign up to get updates


 
 
 
 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.