Depleted Uranium Munitions and Cancer Rates

[Oxymoron]

Little is heard about DU and cancer. This issue affects not only 'the enemy', but also front line soldiers and 'support' as well as civilian populations going through generations of birth defects and extraordinarily high cancer incidences.

Not according to WHO... they say it is safe. Is this a conspiracy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

The actual level of acute and chronic toxicity of DU is also a point of medical controversy. Several studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.[5]​ A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: "In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."[10]​ However, the World Health Organization, the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations that is responsible for setting health research norms and standards, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends, states that no risk of reproductive, developmental, or carcinogenic effects have been reported in humans due to DU exposure.[11]​[12]​ This report has been criticized for not including possible long term effects of DU on the human body.[13]​

Content from external source

There have been many instances where ammunition dumps containing DU ordnance have exploded both abroad and on U.S soil near residential areas.

Further DU ordnance is tested regularly in sites around Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Site 300).

http://rense.com/general75/lvermore.htm

SAN FRANCISCO -- In a truly bizarre development, the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, in Livermore, California, has gotten underway even larger nuclear radiation open air explosive detonations at "Site 300" near Tracy, California.

Content from external source

http://mediaroots.org/lawrence-livermore-lab-the-continued-nuclear-arms-race.php

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a secret nuclear weapons production facility. They initially set out to explore the psychological impacts of taking nuclear testing into virtual space. But as their investigation unfolded, they found that the LLNL—in conjunction with Site 300—has built an impressive greenwashing PR campaign cloaking a sinister reality

Content from external source

So what about Iraq? They know all about the effects surely.

http://www.division51.org/Newsletter/2005 - Fall/06.htm

3. Problems related to ammunition. The al-Eskan Children's Hospital in Baghdad reports numerous cases of injuries due to children playing with unexploded war ammunition. This report is from Mu'een Qasses, spokesperson for the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Amman, Jordan.

In addition to the direct injuries, doctors are blaming sharply increasing rates of birth defects and cancer on problems related to munitions—especially on the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the coalition forces in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the 2003 invasion.

In 1989, the rate of birth defects in Iraq was 11 per 100,000 births. At the time the current war began, the rate had gone up 1,000%, to 116 per 100,000. And it is still going up. Dr. Nawar Ali, a medical researcher into birth deformities at Baghdad University, told the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) this last summer: “There have been 650 cases [birth deformities] in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals.” (Cogan, 2005).

Further, he reported that the rate of children under 15 becoming ill with cancer in Iraq has increased to 22.4 cases per 100,000. That’s up from 3.98 cases in 1990.

Dr Janan Hassan of the Basra Maternity and Children’s Hospital agrees. He told IRIN in November 2004 that as many as 56 percent of all cancer patients in Iraq were now children under 5, compared with just 13 percent 15 years earlier.

The statistics suggest the possibility that Iraqi children are facing long-term consequences of depleted uranium contamination. Munitions containing an estimated 300 tons of DU were used by coalition forces in southern Iraq in 1991. A decade after the war, DU shell holes are still 1,000 times more radioactive than the normal level of background radiation.
The surrounding areas are still 100 times more radioactive. Experts surmise that fine uranium dust has been spread by the wind to surrounding regions, including Basra, which is some 125 miles away from sites where large numbers of DU shells were fired.

Content from external source

 

[Alhazred The Sane]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...pleted-uranium-clean-up-contamination-spreads

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...cords-huge-rise-in-birth-defects-8210444.html

http://www.boston.com/news/educatio..._an_armament_sickening_us_soldiers/?page=full

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15168-depleted-uranium-contamination-is-still-spreading-in-iraq

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html

http://www.alternet.org/world/falluja-babies-and-depleted-uranium-americas-toxic-legacy-iraq

Hardly a media blackout on the subject of American use of DU in Iraq.

 

[Oxymoron]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...pleted-uranium-clean-up-contamination-spreads

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...cords-huge-rise-in-birth-defects-8210444.html

http://www.boston.com/news/educatio..._an_armament_sickening_us_soldiers/?page=full

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15168-depleted-uranium-contamination-is-still-spreading-in-iraq

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html

http://www.alternet.org/world/falluja-babies-and-depleted-uranium-americas-toxic-legacy-iraq

Hardly a media blackout on the subject of American use of DU in Iraq.

Apart from the Guardian and Independent, they are not exactly mainstream news sources. And WHO, UK and US still deny the facts.

 

[SR1419]

Apart from the Guardian and Independent, they are not exactly mainstream news sources.

The Boston Globe is a "mainstream" news source....and the article was written by the Associated Press...another "mainstream" news source.

What about the Huffington Post? Mainstream??

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/iraq-war-anniversary-birth-defects-cancer_n_2917701.html

or Foreign Policy?

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/29/iraqs_youngest_casualties_of_war

 

[Jay Reynolds]

3. Problems related to ammunition. The al-Eskan Children's Hospital in Baghdad reports numerous cases of injuries due to children playing with unexploded war ammunition. This report is from Mu'een Qasses, spokesperson for the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Amman, Jordan.

In addition to the direct injuries, doctors are blaming sharply increasing rates of birth defects and cancer on problems related to munitions—especially on the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the coalition forces in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the 2003 invasion.

In 1989, the rate of birth defects in Iraq was 11 per 100,000 births. At the time the current war began, the rate had gone up 1,000%, to 116 per 100,000. And it is still going up. Dr. Nawar Ali, a medical researcher into birth deformities at Baghdad University, told the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) this last summer: “There have been 650 cases [birth deformities] in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals.” (Cogan, 2005).

Further, he reported that the rate of children under 15 becoming ill with cancer in Iraq has increased to 22.4 cases per 100,000. That’s up from 3.98 cases in 1990.

Dr Janan Hassan of the Basra Maternity and Children’s Hospital agrees. He told IRIN in November 2004 that as many as 56 percent of all cancer patients in Iraq were now children under 5, compared with just 13 percent 15 years earlier.

The statistics suggest the possibility that Iraqi children are facing long-term consequences of depleted uranium contamination. Munitions containing an estimated 300 tons of DU were used by coalition forces in southern Iraq in 1991. A decade after the war, DU shell holes are still 1,000 times more radioactive than the normal level of background radiation.
The surrounding areas are still 100 times more radioactive. Experts surmise that fine uranium dust has been spread by the wind to surrounding regions, including Basra, which is some 125 miles away from sites where large numbers of DU shells were fired.

I see the use of the word "surmise". There is evidently no actual data correlating the DU with these childhood cancers, measuring actual exposure of the children,
or any causation established. Oxymoron, this adds up to a very weak case.

The report you cite refers mainly to changes in recorded cancer rates. However, this doesn't necessarily help us much because what if the reportig system has changed from worse to better? If so,the increase your source cites could be simply due to better reporting, you see?

Here, the authors look at what seems to be a reporting scheme, but they took the data they gathered and compared the cancer rates to other middle eastern countries which did not have significant depleted uranium exposures. When the data is compared in this way, the picture portrayed in some of your stories becomes unclear. Cancer rates are quite a bit higher in Israel, for example, than in Basra.

see tables 6 & 7 page 1154:
http://www.apocpcontrol.net/paper_file/issue_abs/Volume11_No4/d 1151-4 Habib.pdf

Now, I'm not saying that the data shows how depleted uranium in Basra actually protects its citizens from cancers which are seen at a higher rate in Israel, but saying that depleted uranium is the sole reason for an escalation of cancer rates in Basra would just be a similar fallacy.

 

[Oxymoron]

I see the use of the word "surmise". There is evidently no actual data correlating the DU with these childhood cancers, measuring actual exposure of the children,
or any causation established. Oxymoron, this adds up to a very weak case.

The report you cite refers mainly to changes in recorded cancer rates. However, this doesn't necessarily help us much because what if the reportig system has changed from worse to better? If so,the increase your source cites could be simply due to better reporting, you see?

Here, the authors look at what seems to be a reporting scheme, but they took the data they gathered and compared the cancer rates to other middle eastern countries which did not have significant depleted uranium exposures. When the data is compared in this way, the picture portrayed in some of your stories becomes unclear. Cancer rates are quite a bit higher in Israel, for example, than in Basra.

see tables 6 & 7 page 1154:
http://www.apocpcontrol.net/paper_file/issue_abs/Volume11_No4/d%201151-4%20Habib.pdf

Now, I'm not saying that the data shows how depleted uranium in Basra actually protects its citizens from cancers which are seen at a higher rate in Israel, but saying that depleted uranium is the sole reason for an escalation of cancer rates in Basra would just be a similar fallacy.

I see a lot of words such as 'what if' and 'if so' and 'could be' in your conjecture.

'Maybe', you are in denial and do not wish to face up to the 'facts' that radiation is cancer causing, even background radiation, but when you increase radiation levels dramatically by use of DU ammunition why would anyone be surprised by the effects... 'Oh it's not politically expedient'. I know, lets lie about it.

 

[Mick West]

I see a lot of words such as 'what if' and 'if so' and 'could be' in your conjecture.

'Maybe', you are in denial and do not wish to face up to the 'facts' that radiation is cancer causing, even background radiation, but when you increase radiation levels dramatically by use of DU ammunition why would anyone be surprised by the effects... 'Oh it's not politically expedient'. I know, lets lie about it.

But what actual evidence is there that the DU increased radiation levels enough to cause cancer? It's not incredibly radioactive.

 

[Alhazred The Sane]

Apart from the Guardian and Independent, they are not exactly mainstream news sources. And WHO, UK and US still deny the facts.

Those were all in the first page of a Google search. My point was that this isn't being buried by the media (although you are perfectly right if you assert that it is not being given the coverage it deserves, I'm with you on that). The UK, the US, France and I think 5 more countries are still keen on keeping DU in the market place. Sadly, some of those countries are on the Security Council, and any one of them can veto ... etc. The WHO can't really be taken seriously when the issue concerned involves members of the SC, especially when it comes to weapons. How long did it take the WHO to speak out against land mines?

Oxy, we're on the same page on more things than you might think.

 

[MikeC]

The WHO can't really be taken seriously when the issue concerned involves members of the SC, especially when it comes to weapons. How long did it take the WHO to speak out against land mines?

They were publishing information about land mine casualties at least as far ago as 1999 - eg this one about Kossovo
, or resolution WHA51.8 Concerted public health action on anti-personnel mines from 1998 which lists some history of actions that decade

A search of the WHO site for "landmine" finds 240 or so documents if you actaully want to search them for the first mention.....

when should they have "spoken out" against them?

 

[Alhazred The Sane]

They were publishing information about land mine casualties at least as far ago as 1999 - eg this one about Kossovo
, or resolution WHA51.8 Concerted public health action on anti-personnel mines from 1998 which lists some history of actions that decade

A search of the WHO site for "landmine" finds 240 or so documents if you actaully want to search them for the first mention.....

when should they have "spoken out" against them?

If you're asking me for a personal opinion, then I think that WHO should have been active against the use of land mines some time after it became apparent that children in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam etc. (sorry, people, not just children) were dying or being crippled by the activities of warfare after the wars had ended. It shouldn't have needed the celebrity appeal of Princess Diana to get the fuckers off their arse. When should WHO have acted? 1999 might sound recent, but 1979 would have been more appropriate.

 

[RolandD]

We are talking about a war zone, remember. There are probably a dozen other possible carcinogens in abundance in those areas.