This is very disturbing:
By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.
So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed."
"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.
Moret is an independent U.S. scientist formerly employed for five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both of California.
Adds Arthur Bernklau, of Veterans For Constitutional Law, "The long- term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence. Iraq is a toxic wasteland. Anyone who is there stands a good chance of coming down with cancer and leukemia. In Iraq, the birth rate of mutations is totally out of control."
Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, "For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed."
She adds, "the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive." Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: "Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned- out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground."
"Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults," Caldicott wrote. "My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities," she wrote in her book, "Nuclear Power is not the Answer"(The New Press).
Caldicott goes on to say the two Gulf wars "have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people---particularly children--- are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity."
Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, "the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated," Caldicott explained.
Uranium is a heavy metal that enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney, where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure or kidney cancer. It also lodges in the bones where it causes bone cancer and leukemia, and it is excreted in the semen, where it mutates genes in the sperm, leading to birth deformities.
Nuclear contamination is spreading around the world, Caldicott adds, with heaviest concentrations in regions within a 1,000-mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan.
These are, notably, northern India, southern Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Gulf emirates, and Jordan.
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There are many, many Americans - of Muslim spirituality and otherwise, who believe that the use of toxic and radioactive Uranium aerosols - a true poison gas that harms all forms of life for an eternity - is morally and legally wrong.
We can not simply sit by, in good conscience, and allow such massive devastation to continue without standing up in opposition to it.
The United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights agrees with us on the illegality of the use of "Depleted" (misnomer) Uranium in combat: See
http://tinyurl.com/25jy73
or
http://prop1.org/2000/du/resource/000310un.htm
Many Americans believe that our fellow citizens will be more likely to demand that the US Military stop using these genocidal weapons overseas (such as in the Middle East, Somalia, etc.) if Americans first come to realize that Depleted Uranium is being used on *them* - inside their *own* country, the US(!)at: national nuclear weapons laboratories sites, military proving grounds, and "training" and "test" sites throughout the United States.
To learn more, please visit our web group, American DUST.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AmericanDUST/
Cathy Garger
www.mytown.ca/garger
Roger Helbig Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Cathy Garger is another know nothing publicist whose number one subject to publicize is herself. Read about the other one that Sherwood Ross quoted in his first article. Don't let these know nothings inflame the Arab world about nothing.
Isn’t it about time that people began questioning Leuren Moret? She has made a fool of you because she is a con artist. Nothing that she says about DU or radiation has much basis in truth. She is an accomplished publicist and the number one thing that she publicizes is herself. She claims to be a nuclear scientist who has seen the light — well, first, you actually have to be a scientist. Does a Bachelor’s degree in Geology with no real work (or academic) experience count? Then you actually have to have some expertise in radiation and nuclear physics - does being a lab tech in the computer lab of a place that employs nuclear physicists count? Can you learn nuclear physics by osmosis? If not, then the real Leuren Moret as opposed to the one who enjoys living off the largess of those who believe in her changing politics (her current thing is that she is an expert about 9/11 — they apparently pay their lecturers better. Maybe the chicken is less rubber. Go to DUStory (see the website link) and see the letter I got from Livermore, read about how she pulled off a total hoax in Hawaii, learn about the con artist Leuren Moret. She is charming, but is she believable. Don’t believe me, go to your local diabetes association or your doctor and ask if DU has caused a world-wide epidemic of diabetes. Moret has made that claim among others in her disease of the week approach to misinforming the world about DU.
Garger gets her information from Bob Nichols who is her co-moderator of AmericanDUST. Want to see how fast you get bounced from AmericanDUST, just ask them a question of disagree with their poison gas theory. To be a poison gas, first you must be a gas - uranium is gaseous at something like 3000 degrees Centigrade. Now, that means it is a solid at even the 100 plus degrees Fahrenheit that it gets to be in Iraq. Now, does that mean that there is a uranium gas?
radioactive Uranium aerosols - a true poison gas that harms all forms of life for an eternity - is morally and legally wrong.
Actually, I have respect for both Leuren Moret and Bob Nichols, but I do not get much information from them as I do my own reading and research.
I am not a scientist, but do hold a B.S. with a 3.9 GPA from the University of Maryland. I do study all I can about the effects of radiation on the human body.
I read the works of Epidemiologist Sister (a nun)Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D. and she has something to tell us about Uranium oxides. Yes, DU does disperse a radioactive aerosol when burned or exploded or is fired from a cannon or tank.
Here is what Dr. Bertell says about weaponized Uranium:
THE HAZARD:
When a depleted uranium penetrator hits a hardened target, there is an extreme temperature increase, in the range of 5000 degrees Centigrade. The melting points of uranium metal, 1132 degrees Centigrade and uranium oxide, which is 2865 degrees Centigrade, are exceeded. At this extreme heat, a ceramic (glass) form of uranium oxide is created, which is highly insoluble in human body tissue.
Therefore exposure to DUM (depleted uranium munition) is likely to include uranium oxide dust as well as ceramic uranium oxide aerosol in unknown proportions.
Any aerosol of this ceramic DUM which is smaller than 10 micron can be inhaled, and it can damage the respiratory system. The very small particles, less than 2.5 micron, can penetrate to the lower lung area, while the larger particles will affect the nose and trachea-bronchial tissue.. The particles can be rough, and the mechanical body motion will tend to knock off the protrusions first. These particles may be small enough to pass the lung-blood barrier and be scavenged by blood cells and deposited (permanently) in the thoracic lymph nodes. While this will be a very small amount, uranium is an alpha particle emitter and can damage the lymph tissue which travels throughout the body.
Gradually, with a probable half life of two years in the lung, these ceramic aerosol particles will be washed through the lung into the blood stream. (After two years 50% remains; after 4 years 25% remains; after 6 years 12.5% remains, after 8 years 6.25% remains in the lungs).
PROBABLE ORGANS AFFECTED BY THIS INTERNAL CONTAMINATION WITH DUM:
According to the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, in Bethesda Maryland, the uranium oxide which moves into the blood from the lungs will accumulate in the kidney, tibia bone (the inner and larger bone of the leg below the knee) and the skull. They add that there will also be significant concentration in muscle, spleen, liver, heart, lung and brain.
WHAT DAMAGE CAN BE CAUSED BY THIS INTERNAL CONTAMINATION WITH DUM:
DUM contains a mixture of four radioisotopes: U 238, Th 234, Pa 234 and U234. The predominant isotope is U 238, but the two decay products, Th 234 and Pa 234 are more radioactive than uranium. This means they are subject to more frequent atomic level "explosions" or nuclear transformations than uranium. The sphere of greatest influence around an internal particle of DUM about 2 microns in size, is about 30 microns in radius. The energy released by U 238 (half life of 4.51X10E9 years) in each transformation is a 4.2 MeV (million electron volts) alpha particle; that released by Th 234 (half life of 24.1 days) is 0.191 MeV beta particles; that released by Pa 234 (half life 6.75 hours) is 0.568 MeV beta particles and some 0.31 gamma rays; U 234 (half life of 2.47 X 10E5 years) releases 4.82 MeV alpha particles. It is not likely that any other radionuclides will be present. However, it should be noted that the diameter of the average human living cell is about 5 microns, and it only requires 6 to 10 eV to b reak the DNA. Therefore there is no level of DUM contamination which one could consider "safe" or "harmless".
The practice of averaging this damage over the whole body, and then declaring it "trivial" would like averaging the force of a bullet over a whole company of soldiers, and declaring that there was not enough energy to do damage to the company!
The picture one needs to form is that the human body has trillions of cells, and perhaps a few hundred are affected in the immediate vicinity of wherever these particles happen to be lodged. When a cell is damaged, is may die (which causes no further problem), be repaired, or continue to live and reproduce itself in the damaged state. It is this latter case which causes chronic illness, premature aging effects and can ultimately cause cancer.
www.iicph.org/docs/Annual_Gulf_War_Illness_Conference.htm
Here is what the US government has to say about "Depleted" Uranium. This is taken from the website for the National Institutes of Health:
As a projectile, a DU penetrator ignites on impact under high temperature; it has a low melting point. Further, DU sharpens as it melts making it easier to pierce heavy armor. As the projectile pierces, it leaves behind its jacket dispersing DU dust into the environment during impact. The quantity of aerosol production is directly proportional to the hardness of the armor. Normally 10–35% and up to 70% of the DU is estimated to be aerosolized on impact or when DU catches fire [2]. Most of the dust particles are reported to be smaller than 5 μm in size, i.e., of a size to be inhaled or ingested by humans [3,4]. They usually remain windborne for an extended time. There is empirical documentation that DU aerosols can travel up to 26 miles and theoretical documentation that they can travel further [5]. Once deposited on the ground the aerosols settle as partially oxidized DU dust. Potential contamination of ground water is another possibility – weathering could mobilize the metal into additional media.
U238 decays primarily by alpha emission. Alpha particles rapidly lose their kinetic energy and have little penetrating power. In the decay process beta and gamma particles are emitted which are more penetrating. Alpha radiation is only hazardous when internalized in the body, but once deposited in living tissue it releases its energy in a concentrated area causing greater damage than beta or gamma radiation.
Still, large quantities of DU and/or radioactive decay products and other radioactive impurities can lead to substantial external exposure. A Geiger counter measurement by a correspondent in the recent Iraq war show that radiation emitting from a DU bullet fragment registered nearly 1000 – 1900 times the normal background radiation level. A three-foot long DU fragment from a 12 mm tank shell registered radiation 1300 times the background level. A DU tank found by the U.S Army radiological team emitted 260 – 270 millirads of radiation per hour compared to the safety limit of 100 millirads per year. A pile of jet-black dust registered a count of 9839 emissions in one minute, a level more than 300 times the average background level [6].
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1242351
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