Cancer in Iraq Vets Raises Possibility of Toxic Exposure
After serving in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago — and receiving the Bronze Star for it — the Tucson soldier was called back to active duty in Iraq.
While there, he awoke one morning with a sore throat. Eighteen months later, Army Sgt. James Lauderdale was dead, of a bizarrely aggressive cancer rarely seen by the doctors who tried to treat it.
As a result, his stunned and heartbroken family has joined growing ranks of sickened and dying Iraq war vets and their families who believe exposures to toxic poisons in the war zone are behind their illnesses — mostly cancers, striking the young, taking them down with alarming speed.
The number of these cancers remains undisclosed, with military officials citing patient privacy issues, as well as lack of evidence the cases are linked to conditions in the war zone. The U.S. Congress has ordered a probe of suspect toxins and may soon begin widespread testing of our armed forces.
“He got so sick, so fast”
Jim Lauderdale was 58 when his National Guard unit was deployed to the Iraq-Kuwait border, where he helped transport arriving soldiers and Marines into combat areas.
He was a strong man, say relatives, who can’t remember him ever missing a day of work for illness. And he developed a cancer of the mouth, which overwhelmingly strikes smokers, drinkers and tobacco chewers. He was none of those.
“Jim’s doctors didn’t know why he would get this kind of cancer — they had no answers for us,” said his wife, Dixie.
“He got so sick, so fast. We really think it had to be something he was exposed to over there. So many of the soldiers we met with cancer at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) complained about the polluted air they lived in, the brown water they had to use, the dust they breathed from exploded munitions. It was very toxic.”
As a mining engineer, Lauderdale knew exactly what it meant when he saw the thick black smoke pouring nonstop out of the smokestacks that line the Iraq/Kuwait border area where he was stationed for three months in 2005.
“He wrote to me that everyone was complaining about their stinging eyes and sore throats and headaches,” Dixie said. “For Jim to say something like that, to complain, was very unusual.
“One of the mothers on the cancer ward had pictures of her son bathing in the brown water,” she said. “He died of kidney cancer.”
Stationed in roughly the same area as Lauderdale, yet another soldier — now fighting terminal colon cancer — described the scene there, of oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory, all spewing unfiltered and uncontrolled substances into the air.
“One day, we were walking toward the port and they had sulfuric acid exploding out of the stacks. We were covered with it, everything was burning on us, and we had to turn around and get to the medics,” said Army Staff Sgt. Frank Valentin, 35.
Not long after, he developed intense rectal pain, which doctors told him for months was hemorrhoids. Finally diagnosed with aggressive colorectal cancer — requiring extensive surgery, resulting in a colostomy bag — he was given fewer than two years to live by his Walter Reed physicians.
He is now a couple of months past that death sentence, but his chemo drugs are starting to fail, and the cancer is eating into his liver and lungs. He spends his days with his wife and three children at their Florida home.
“I don’t know how much time I have,” he said.
Suspect: Depleted Uranium
None of these soldiers know for sure what’s killing them. But they suspect it’s a cascade of multiple toxic exposures, coupled with the intense stress of daily life in a war zone weakening their immune systems.
“There’s so much pollution from so many sources, your body can’t fight what’s coming at it,” Valentin said. “And you don’t eat well or sleep well, ever. That weakens you, too. There’s no chance to gather your strength. These are kids 19, 20 and 21 getting all kinds of cancers. The Walter Reed cancer ward is packed full with them.”
The prime suspect in all this, in the minds of many victims — and some scientists — is what’s known as depleted uranium — the radioactive chemical prized by the military for its ability to penetrate armored vehicles. When munitions explode, the substance hits the air as fine dust, easily inhaled.
Last month, the Iraqi environment minister blamed the tons of the chemical dropped during the war’s “shock and awe” campaign for a surge of cancer cases across the country.
However, the Pentagon and U.S. State Department strongly deny this, citing four studies, including one by the World Health Organization, that found levels in war zones not harmful to civilians or soldiers. A U.N. Environmental Program study concurs, but only if spent munitions are cleared away.
Returning solders have said that isn’t happening.
“When tanks exploded, I would handle those tanks, and there was DU everywhere,” said Valentin. “This is a big issue.”
The fierce Iraq winds carry desert sand and dust for miles, said Dixie Lauderdale, who suspects her husband was exposed to at least some depleted uranium. Many vets from the Gulf War blame the chemical used in that conflict for their Gulf War syndrome illnesses.
Congress orders study
As the controversy rages, Congress has ordered a comprehensive independent study, due in October, of the health effects of depleted uranium exposure on U.S. soldiers and their children. And a “DU bill” — ordering all members of the U.S. military exposed to it be identified and tested — is working its way through Congress.
“Basically, we want to get ahead of this curve, and not go through the years of painful denial we went through with Agent Orange that was the legacy of Vietnam,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., a co-sponsor of the bill.
“We want an independent agency to do independent testing of our soldiers, and find out what’s really going on. These incidents of cancer and illness that all of us are hearing about back in our districts are not just anecdotal — there is a pattern here. And yes, I do suspect DU may be at the bottom of it.”
What’s happening today — growing numbers of sickened soldiers who say they were exposed to it amid firm denials of harm from military brass — almost mirrors the early stages of the Agent Orange aftermath. It took the U.S. military almost two decades to admit the powerful chemical defoliant killed and disabled U.S. troops in the jungles of Vietnam, and to begin compensating them for it.
Doctors flabbergasted
Whatever it was that struck Jim Lauderdale did a terrifying job of it.
Sent to Walter Reed with oral cancer in April 2005, he underwent his first extensive and disfiguring surgery, removing half his tongue to get to tumors in the mouth and throat. A second surgery followed a month later to clear out more of those areas.
Five months later, another surgery removed a new neck tumor. Then came heavy chemotherapy and radiation.
Shortly after, he had a massive heart attack, undergoing another surgery to place stents in his arteries. Two weeks later, the cancer was back and growing rapidly, forcing a fourth surgery in January 2006.
By this time, much of his neck and shoulder tissue was gone, and doctors tried to reconstruct a tongue, using tissue from his wrist. He couldn’t swallow, so was fed through a tube into his stomach.
Just weeks later, four external tumors appeared on his neck — “literally overnight,” his wife said.
Suffering severe complications from the chemo drugs, Lauderdale endured 39 radiation treatments, waking up one night bleeding profusely through his burned skin. The day after his radiation ended, new external tumors erupted at the edge of the radiation field, flabbergasting his doctors.
“As this aggressive disease grew though chemoradiation, it was determined at this point there was no chance for cure,” his oncologist wrote then.
By then, the cancer had spread to his lungs and spine and, most frightening of all, “hundreds and thousands” of tumors were erupting all over his upper body, his wife said.
“The doctors said they’d never seen anything like it — that this happens in only 1 percent of cases,” she said.
Efforts to contact his doctors at Walter Reed were unsuccessful, but a leading head-and-neck cancer specialist at the Arizona Cancer Center reviewed the course of Lauderdale’s disease.
“This a very wrenching case,” said Dr. Harinder Garewal. “This is unusually aggressive behavior for an oral cancer. I would agree it happens in only 1 percent of cases.”
When oral cancer occurs in nonsmokers and non-drinkers, it tends to be more aggressive, he said.
“My feeling is the immune system for some reason can’t handle the cancer,” he said.
Jim Lauderdale died on July 14, 2006, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Dixie and their two grown children still feel the raw grief of loss, but not anger, she said.
“But I am convinced something very wrong is happening over there. Is anyone paying attention to this? Is the cancer ward still full?” she asked. “I would hate to see another whole generation affected like this, but I’m very afraid it will be.”
© 2007 The Arizona Daily Star
Many know that the USA has used depleted uranium bombs and bullets against thousands of people. There are a few too many mad scientists in labratories of the pentagon and defense contrators who delight in finding ways to cause extreme misery. The world’s biggest bully is fast approaching a dead end. It’s time to turn it all around.
the complete disregard of the US gov’t, including the DOD of course, for the well-being of the soldiers says all you need to know about the criminal insanity of our leadership. and sheer stupidity. how can you be a great imperial power and attain full spectrum dominance and all that PNAC crap when your methods of warfare kill your own soldiers (much less the environment, the natives, etc. etc.)?
hopefully this issue will wake america up. nothing else seems to. when a hundred thousand of these soldiers come home, what then?
WHAT ABOUT THE IRAQIS?? If Congress really wants a comprehensive study, they will also look at what we are doing to the Iraqis. Their public health officials (what’s left of them) have been trying to get our attention about all the cancers, especially in children, ever since the first Gulf War, which is when we first started using DU.
This has been a criminal act of the US. Military medical personnel aren’t stupid. They know radiation poisoning when they see it, and they are complicit in the cover up. They could have followed up with tests and found the levels of radiation in urine, but they didn’t want to have evidence of the crime.
This administration needs to be hauled before the World court and tried for war crimes.
It used to be that the government waited until after you were discharged to abuse you. Now abuse starts on active duty. And once we have privatized the military the troops won’t even be allowed to complain.
Hoa binh
Thank you Carla McClain for a very sad but important story, and The Arizona Daily Star for publishing it, and Common Dreams for printing it.
My stomach is still churning as I read the story. All for what? I’m too upset to write for what my two cents is worth, so I’ll just say to all the people in the military…don’t go to Iraq, or if you were there, don’t go back! With this criminal government in power, it is an honor to “just say no” and refuse to continue doing the dirty work of the coward-in-chief and five deferments you know who. You owe it to yourselves, your families, the Iraqi people, and to civilization.
IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS, IT IS UNFORGIVABLE!
Iraq is a stealth nuclear war — no mushroom clouds but the place will be radioactive for generations. It is also a war in which new and terrible chemical weapons are tried out. Our soldiers are nothing but worthless, dispensable guinea pigs to this administration. As sick as they are with cancers and other illnesses, the Iraq’s are much, much worse off. The invasion and destruction of Iraq is a crime of unimaginable proportions that will affect many generations.
DU is a weapon of mass destruction. It kills anyone who is in the path of the wind that carries it. Our troops, Iraqi citizen, and yes, the mercenaries.
I have been railing against DU for 6 years, and nothing is ever done. The entire group responsible for this abomination should be hauled before the World Court and tried for war crimes.
Who has the most weapons of mass destruction? The U.S. Nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, biological weapons. We have used them in the past & are willing to use them today. Hilary & Barack have confessed their willingness to use nukes! And what of the victims of these U.S. weapons in Vietnam & Iraq?
Since 1965 our military has expended thousands of TONS of depleted uranium ammunition, on milirary firing and bombing ranges in the United States and Puerto Rico.
There is a myth that ammunition is ‘tipped’ with DU, actually the shells are solid DU or uranium #238, laced with uranium #235. The term depleted means, it is no longer useful as fuel in an atomic reactor. It is not very dangerous to handle DU when it’s in a solid form.
An Abram’s tank shell has ten pounds of DU, a 30mm Gatling gun shell has 3.5 pounds and those cannon fire near 1,000 rounds a minute.
The danger is, when DU shells are fired, the DU burns and when the round strikes a target, a cloud of smoke, filled with mano-meter uranium specks, fills the air. In a single cupfull of DU dust and smoke, there are FIVE BILLION particles of deadly dust, blowing in the wind. There are about three cupfulls of DU particles in a tank shell and one in a single 30mm shell.
A mano-meter particle of DU, is one millionth of a meter in diameter. If a single speck is inhaled through the nose, it can cross the olfactory bulb and go directly to the brain. Lodged in the brain, several things will occur,__ none are good. First, it will bombard any cell it has adhered to, with over ‘ten thousand times’ the amount of radiation that is acceptable for a tooth or chest x-ray. Unlike a chest x-ray DU does not radiate for seconds, it radiates the cell forever and cancer will occur.
Next, when human cells become cancerous, metastasis may occur, cancerous cells break off and can migrate through the blood stream and settle in any part of the body, where a new cancer factory begins, in the liver, kidneys, lymph nodes, ovaries, breasts, etc. There is more, DU in the brain can damage the mitochondria, which provides all energy to the body’s cells and nerves. Chronic fatigue symptom and diseases, such as lou Gherigs, Parkinsons, Hodgkins, diabetes, autism, etc may result. That is from a single mano-particle of DU in the brain, one in the lung will assure cancer there also.
In the lung, a mano-particle of DU can enter the blood stream and travel to bone marrow, again cancer is assured, in addition, there it can alter the body’s genetic code and this in turn can be transferred to a fetus. The result is a deformed baby with any number of horrible deformities and or, serious medical problems such as autism, diabetes, missing eyes, missing limbs or sex organs. I won’t go on there, it is truly horrible. Pictures are available on the internet under DU, for tose who may doubt what DU in the body can accomplish.
DU use in weapons is by far the last word for the term,__ ‘weapons of mass destruction’.__ We have used thousands of TONS of DU in the Mid-East. There are over a hundred pounds of DU in a penetrator bomb and when those explode, every bit turns to mano-meter specks of silent, wind blown death. Iraq is totally polluted FOREVER with DU. Did I mention, the invisible, microscopic specks of DU are deadly for several billion years?___ True.
People in the Pentagon, DOD, W-H-O and others, have written that DU is not harmful, inhaled DU dust is not dangerous, DU is safe to use and not to worry. Why would they lie? Why does any government official, or politician lie? They lie because they are attempting to hide the truth from the flock. How could any admit, they were forever polluting the Earth and over time, killing billions of people? They cannot admit it. Doctors who wrote paprs about the dangers of DU and worked for WHO were shut down, their papers trashed. Many doctors are not heard.
Let us for a few moments forget everything we ever heard, read, or saw on TV about DU. For a a few moments, pretend you know nothing about DU and consider these few facts.
More than 500,000 of the ground pounder troops who served in the First Gulf War, are now either permanently disabled or dead from cancers. Thousands more are suffering from diseases, these are still young people, thousands of babies born to them were deformed, or suffer from medical maladies like autism or cancers. The cancer rate for children in Iraq and Afganistan has risen 4,300% since 1997. Since we have begun the use of DU in weapons, autisnm and cancers in children in the United States has become a major health problem, every year the percentages and trends show a dramatic rise in just those two medical problems. Children’s immune systems are not as well developed as adults and they show the symptoms of radiation poisoning sooner.
There are trillions times trillion of mano-meter size specks of DU in the air now, it is every place the wind blows, in our cities, streets, yards, homes, waters farmland and gardens. One thing we notice, is the birds and the bees are dwindling at a rapid rate. Animals like birds and bees can’t handle poison as well as humanity does. They begin to die off, and it’s an obvious clue there is a major problem wafting in the air.
Back to the why lie? Lies are told for many reasons, the first is often money, lots of money selling DU ammunition, over 30 country’s now use it. Of course there is pride, stupidity, ignorance, bull-headness, fear of being tagged as an idiot. There are may reasons people lie.
Here is an analogy. Joseph Lord Lister, known as the father of antiseptics wrote: “Without Semmelweis, my achievements would be nothing”.
The Hungarian Dr. Semmelweis discovered, if doctors would only wash their hands, child birth fever, could be eradicated. In his day, microscopes were a dream, microbes were unknown to exist. Semmelweis devoted his life to eleminating the deaths of women who gave birth to a child. In his hospital, deaths from infecions were few and one year there were none.
That same year, at the world re-nenouned Laying in hospital in Vienna, every woman who gave birth,__ died.___ All of them.__ The papers Semmelweis had for years witten on the subject had been ignored, he was called the fool of Peth, his finding were scoffed at by the world’s leading doctors and the entire medical field. The stupidity of it all, finally drove the man insane, and he committed suicide.
One of his favored students was Lord Lister, who carried on the work of Simmelweis and finally won the war___ doctors began to wash their hands,__ the crying of the mothers in the laying in hospitals__ ceased.
A like thing is happening today, history often does repeat. The truth of DU use will over time come out. Sadly, in this case___ time is running out and the crying will be coming from our children___and theirs.
Winds have spread this DU throughout the Middle East…and all across Europe. The entire Mediterranean bassin, which includes Greece, Italy, France and Spain, all of North Africa is now contaminated. Not even “to a lesser degree” than the Middle East and Iraq. There is no “permissible level” of DU. The slightest amount actually alters DNA and causes gene mutations before our eyes. Thank you, America. What good is the World Court if the world is already poisoned and genetically destroyed NOT for several generations, but for millions of years? The half-life of DU is in the millions of years.
Please read Dr. Helen Caldicott’s book, ‘THE NEW NUCLEAR DANGER’ (with a new introduction on the situation in Iraq) .
canardtahiti: CORRECTION - The half life is BILLIONS of years, not millions.
If you want to know more about DU, click on the link below. Be warned that it is graphic and requires a stong stomach.
http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html
DU is actually more threatening than climate change only because it is already too late to stop the death of millions already exposed. Worldwide. It’s an indescriminate killer.
KEM: Do we know of any officials (Congress critters, VP, etc) that have been to Iraq who have come down with these wierd cancers?
Suspect: Depleted Uranium
????
Do a Yahoo Images search for depleted uranium, and then tell me it’s just ’suspected’
this will end like all other situations like this. no accountability. the u.s.a. is turning into one sick country. every american should have to watch that video. most have no idea what is really going on. this really brings it home.
Kem Patrick,
Thanks for the info. I’ve enjoyed your involvement in the Hawaii Tribune Herald thread about DU being found in Pohakuloa Training Area, a large bombing range in the center of the Big Island (only 35 miles from Kona). If the military continues to use this range for bombing practice, imagine the amount of dust that will be shot into the atmosphere.
BTW, I’m planning on moving to Hilo (also 35 miles from PTA) in less than a year, so this is of special concern to me.
AmeriKKKa is all about making profits and they don’t care who gets killed or maimed as long as the money rolls in…….
(continued)
The mil insists that DU is “of no health concern” but in about 2 second of web search you can read for yourself that alpha particle emitters are harmless UNLESS they are taken into the body. I’m not sure how anyone can consider a nano-scopic radioactive dust harmless.
To a certain extent it may be beneficial that DU has also been used on the mainland and Hawaii. That may be the only thing that stops it. The chickens have come home to roost.
Hi Rebel Farmer, how ya doin? Not that I know of, Perhaps Bush,__ he’s brain dead.
When people are diagnosed with cancer, or any other malady, like lupus, diabetes, autism, etc., the cause may very well be from inhlaling DU,___ but no one would realize it. Just, “sorry, your child has inoperable brain cancer, we will try chemo and some new drugs that may help. Oh, BTW, do you have health insurance”? The subject of DU is not brought up. Insurance is!
So we could have many who are suffering from the symptoms of radiation poisoning and have any of several medical problems and that’s just too bad. However, if any have been in Iraq, where the radiation levels in Baghdad are over 2,000 times normal, they have inhaled a lot of DU and over time it will kill them. The military won’t blame DU for it. It may take five years for symptoms of radiaton poisoning to appear, it may take much less, dependant upon how much DU has been inhaled and how well their immune system is working.
If any of us were tested for radiation in the urine and the test is positive, that only means we’d have some type of radio-active element in our body, it would be most difficult to prove that was the cause of any medical woes. We do know that since three years after the time DU was first used in large quanities, incidents of cancer, diabetes, autism, etc have risen dramatically, especially in chldren. Is it DU? I would believe so, no other sensible explinations have been brought forth.
If I tested positive for DU, I sure wouldn’t want to father a child. If I’d been in the
M-id East, I’m certain my test would be positive. Hell, one could test positive almost anyplace now. Ask the birds what’s killing them off in great numbers. In fact there is a string on that subject here on Common Dreams now. Scroll doun about half way and read about the birdies dying. It isn’t funny either.
PLEASE AND FOR HEAVENS SAKE order a copy of “Beyond Treason” at www.BeyondTreason.com or call Power Hour Productions at (573) 378-6049 to order the DVD. Vets can get a free copy. The 89 minute documentary presents comprehensive and compelling DOCUMENTATION from the United States Government archives of a massive cover-up lasting two generations. The 2 disc set includes a bonus CD-ROM with THOUSANDS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and many that were not!
We owe our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines on active duty and our veterans from Vietnam to Iraq; our children and ourselves the truth about depleted uranium, agent orange, secret testing of vaccines and drugs, and the other horrors exposed in this documentary.
The actions of the United States Government, from the current and previous administrations towards our troops, have truly been “BEYOND TREASON.”
Dixie Lauderdale: “I would hate to see another whole generation affected like this, but I’m very afraid it will be.”
It’s far, far worse than that Dixie. Instead of a “whole generation” being affected, try every living thing on Earth FOREVER.”
This is international criminality and war crimes of the highest degree. It’s a CRIME the entire Congress isn’t addressing this immediately. Where’s the United Nations? Where’s the International Criminal Court? Too bad there’s no way to prosecute the whole lot of them for malfeasance.
All their lips are zippered shut….for some strange reason. I do applaud Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz for trying to do something for the planet.
Too little. Too late.
Sign the Pledge for Peace at www.pdamerica.org and send Rep. Pelosi a message.
The bastards in charge are far beyond insane. They need to be placed in steel and concrete cages - til we get the world mess straightened out.
==============
BTW a significant part of the USA’s so called department of defense’s information security classifications say that:
Top Secret - information that if known by people without an official need to know, could cause the gov’t extreme embarrassment.
Secret - same as above, only could cause serious (but not extreme) embarrassment.
The US DoD is like an organized crime family - together they commit crimes against humanity, while the media covers their butts and leads people to believe that they’re defending human rights and justice.
========
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X
“I would rather face a thousand cannon, than the pen of a single decent journalist”.
Napolean
Hi IPENEK. We can give nurse Linka Kroll much of the credit for the investigatons in Hawaii. The militay was forced to admit they were using DU there but the damage is done. Perhps no more will be fired there, they have plenty of other ranges here on the mainland for practice.
Did you read the military had denied DU was used at the Hawaiian range and then invited the boy and girl scouts to have camp-outs there on the bombing range? The scouts camped out there, ___Incredible. They will all eventually die from it.
It’s bad enough our military was sent to Iraq on false premises, now they (and the Iraqis} have to suffer and die when they get home (if an IED doesn’t get them first).
Does anyone care about anything anymore? Human beings are supposed to have brains and use them wisely, not be acting like we just landed on planet earth.
Bush and his crowd should be impeached immediately. The troops should be brought home, forget what those misguided, arrogant government service people are saying.
The filthy propagandists of Fox & Clear Channel snort & bark that “You hate America!”
How can anyone who has known about DU for these years possibly summon up any love for a country that produces people who can out-Nazi the Nazis any day of the week?
George W. Bush’s wet dream — the extermination of humanity. Like all serial killers he loved to mutilate & torture animals as a boy. “Who cares about history — we’ll all be dead”.
The original article cites DU as one of many environmental hazards faced by Sargeant Lauderdale. This is consistent with many other reports from the Iraqi battlezone.
The bulk of the posters here have assumed that DU is the prime cause of these injuries. The particular case of cancer presented by James Lauderdale would be a very odd cancer to have been caused by uranium exposure.
The environmental insult most commonly associated with oral cancer is tobacco use. Since Sargeant Lauderdale was apparently not a tobacco user, I would presume that either bad luck (unlikely) or a sticky environmental carcinogen such as crude oil combustion products was envolved.
In high inhaled doses, uranium dust can eventually cause lung cancer. Ingested uranium can cause heavy metal poisoning, similar to lead poisoning with associated kidney damage.
The ill concieved and ill executed war in Iraq is a tragedy of immense proportions. Sargeant Lauderdale is one senseless death, along with thousands of other American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualities of that war.
(Yes Kem, I still work in the nuclear industry. What I have posted here is my understanding from working with and being trained to work with uranium for over 40 years. It is not in defense of my chosen industry or of my employer.)
Re: Your posting of the Arizona Star feature:
Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure
By Carla McClain, Arizona Daily Star
As the writer of The New York Sun feature on August 6, 2007 “Veterans’ Rare Cancers Raise Fears of Toxic Battlefields” BY R. B. STUART - Special to the Sun
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/59915
I am purturbed to say the least that McClain not only admitted to me prior to writing the piece that she read The NY Sun feature forwarded to her last week by an Arizona editor, and researched my SisterSoldier blog for over two hours, then turn around and contact three of the sources in the story, and speak to me via telephone for on the record quotes—only to OMIT the sources she cited for the material in the piece. I am slammed by her arrogance to sift through my 1.5 years of research and write herself a front page feature on the back of my toil and sweat.
I contacted 3 Arizona newspapers in Nov. 2006 regarding the Lauderdale story, because the soldiers widow couldn’t get the time of day from her local newspapers. The Arizona Star was one of them. Below was my E-mail to McClain’s editor-in-chief [Buel} on Friday, to be certain McClain’s sources were properly and ethically cited. A telephone call to the Arizona Star on Friday 24th confirmed the receipt of my E-mail.
Dear Bobbie Jo Buel,
In November 2006 I queried you by E-mail and telephone several times regarding the local story of the Tucson soldier Lauderdale who had undergone a horrific experience post Iraq, resulting in death. My query’s to you and other local Az. EIC’s: Michael Chihak and Christina Leonard, went ignored. And the feature wound up as part IV on my Web Site SisterSoldier below, and recently in The New York Sun.
I understand your health reporter Carla McClain received a copy of my feature in The NY Sun on Aug. 6th 2007 (see forward of article below signature) and pursued the soldiers widow Dixie Lauderdale and others from the piece. I am glad The Arizona Star has now decided to take notice of such an important story—that not only happened to Lauderdale, but other soldiers interviewed and quoted for in my NY Sun feature.
I spoke to Carla regarding the other two soldiers she’s interviewing, as well as speaking to her on the record about my sisters health and other aspects of the story. I pointed out to her as a professional courtesy of referring to The NY Sun feature I wrote, and would like to include my SisterSoldier web site that she researched for material.
Not only is it copyrighted, but it is a compilation of one and a half years of research. So as the EIC I am addressing you with such an important story, that the original source, New York writer R. B. Stuart, be mentioned in the piece, as well as citing the two publications in which a portion of the material was gathered. I rest assure you will be involved with her cover feature…..which I am certain, will generate public response. Something Dixie Lauderdale has wanted from her local community for a long time. And I’m glad you will be able to support her.
Thank you. And I appreciate your attention to my request.
Yours —Robin B. Stuart
Veterans’ Rare Cancers Raise Fears of Toxic Battlefields
BY R. B. STUART - Special to the Sun
August 6, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/59915
WEB BLOGS:
-R. B. STUART
author ~ freelance writer ~ columnist ~ poet
http://sistersoldier.blogspot.com
http://operationpurpleheart.blogspot.com
In my research I have always credited the researchers and writers who have been laboring over this topic since the first Gulf War in 1991. I am glad to have the attention back on DU, just not in the manner this article was written.
This isn’t the first reporter to do this to another writer, who provided them with much needed material for such an ignored and horiffic world wide subject.
In 2006, writer Lonnie Story furnished Florida reporter Audrey Parente [7/06: Daytona Beach Herald] with all of his DU research and material for “The Dustin Brim” story, only to have her win an SPJ award for it and never mention his name once. Not in the article, not in the acceptence.
Maybe if both McClain and Parente win Pulitzers for these stories–they can toast with a cocktail of poloniuum - 210.
I bet they get that quote right.
Yours –R. B. Stuart
This Article has two dimensions to it. I rather regret the ‘come on’. Sargeant what’s his name, along with hundreds or thousands of others wanted to make the Money, have the Prestiege, go kill some Gooks somewhere for Corporate gain - meanwhile, pretending to be regular people…phooey. I would say, that the System might have let the poor man die with some Dignity.
But, moreso… I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I did pay attention to basic Chemistry back in school. Duh! Anything remotely connected to Uranium is DEATH !!! That’s why mother Nature locks it up deep in the eart as an Oxide. But, us terminally hubric humans are Soooo goddamn smart, that we have to dig it up, then use centrifuges to concentrate it to millions of times it’s natural state so we can….
Oh, Yeah…make WMD out if it to hold the World in Nuclear blackmail for the last 70 years. And not inconsequentially….whaddya think these Cosmic criminals are going to do with the leftovers? -> DU Munitions. These people have Already been the death of us.
Next time, try reading a little from your Science Textbook, rather than chasing Jocks around and trying to be the homecoming queen !
Well DUh! What else have the Toxic Georges spread about the planet? Wait until the military families and their neighbors start to come down with mysterious maladies. How many ‘Corporate Doctor Lackies’ are standing by to deny the existance of deadly diseases never before seen in nature - caused by their deadly chemicals never before seen in nature? We all know what our Fascist Dictatorship does to whistle blowers.
When you are done here you might want to check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium . Sure its a wiki, but the info gives you a general foundation for more research.
Depleted Uranium is a poisonous nuclear weapon and our military and the Iraqi civilians will suffer and our government will deny it for the next 12 years and then apologize, nothing more.
One of your best posts, Kem, of the many we have posted over the past months about DU. There’s not much I can add except that the use of depleted uranium weaponry is in direct violation of the NPT, U.N charter, and Geneva Conventions. Of course the monster neo-Cons who began using this insidious weaponry (I believe I read it was first actually used in Bosnia/Kosovo, and they are having similar problems, too) don’t give a rat’s ass about ANYONE except the ‘dead presidents’ on money, and world domination that goes with it, of course.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned to those who are thinking, “Well, that’s happening thousands of miles away, so how does this effect me?” Wake up STUPID, we’re all on the front lines here. This stuff can kill all life on this planet down to the level of miniscule microbes, has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, AND can get picked up in the million square kilometer sand storms in the middle east, lifted tens of thousands of feet to the troposphere, and travel the distance across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States.
Just as Woodward & Bernstien are famous for stating about another criminal Republican administration (Nixon’s), “Follow the money!!!”
1) Nuclear waste poses a lengthy expensive disposal problem for the nuclear industry. Rather than have to meet their responsibility to the American public they sometimes even give it to the military at miniscule, or no, cost. Nuclear power is NOT safe, as moneyed interests would have us be fooled into thinking by their massive propaganda campaigns. Their irresponsible disposal method by handing this deadly material over to the military makes them co-conspirators in war crimes & liable.
“Follow the money”
2) So far we have spent in the neighborhood of $700 billion on this War OF Terror. This is only the tip of the iceberg, however, because the medical costs of taking care of our returning military, their widowed/widower spouses, and their offspring, possibly or even very likely for their entire lives is truly staggering, possibly running into trillions of dollars. What does this really mean for the taxpayer, though? If the American public thinks our increasing by $100 billion a year military budget is bloated just wait until they see the expanded tab for the military medical wing…even in peacetime!!! I haven’t run across it yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see Bechtel, Haliburton, & KBR open medical divisions going after more ‘no-bid’ contracts. Somehow greedy private insurance companies will belly up to the taxpayer trough, too.
“Follow the money”
3) Now let’s get to the heart of the money matter. Doesn’t it make sense that if you wanted to take over the natural resources of a country (or region) it would be much easier if all the people living there ‘conveniently’ died off,or left? So far, out of a pre-war population of 26 million, a million Iraqis are dead (Lancet study, two million are displaced persons within the country (ie. homeless), and two million more have left the country. That’s almost 20% of the population. Adding insult to injury the US is intent on forcing Iraq to pass a hydrocarbon law that basically just steals the Iraqi oil so the big oil companies will make tens of billions of the deal. I just hope some Iraqis understand it is not the everyday people of the US who are raping them, but this corrupt administration, led by the never elected gangster “Bush the Usurper”.
HI BILLY__y4, How ya doin? Glad to know you are still getting your money from the nuke gang. With your intellect, it is a damn shame you didn’t choose a cleaner field to work in. Since you seem to be so well informed this fine day in the medical arena, perhaps you could explain why you refute the medical experts on the subject of DU and it’s health hazards.
I won’t list all of them, but here are two doctors and scientists who disagree with your stupid statements, which must be based upon your ignorance, or from relying on those who are attempting to hide the truth of DU’s dangers. I won’t knock you for being ignorant, we all are on some subjects, but when I am, I do try to not make a damn fool of myself and tell the world that I am. Once before you said you didn’t hit your head, but I think you may have and just don’t recall it. BTW, you can burn off 150 calories an hour by banging your head against the wall.___ I’d rather not eat too much personally.
Anyway Billy__y4, Dr. Marion Fulk a nuclear physical chemist, a former scientist with the Manhatten Project, agrees with the nano-particle theory of British Radiation biologist, Doctor Chris Busby, who has proven that nano-particles of DU are far more dangerous than just average sized particles. Both can kill, the nano-particles are more dangerous because they can enter the brain, etc. Long technical data there, look it up on the internet and study it.
As GWAZDOR wrote, aerosolized DU is deady if inhaled and it only requires a single inhaled speck to cause cancer. So tell me Billy boy, why if inhaling a lot of DU is dangerous, as you stated, and that may cause cancer, which one of the inhaled specks, did the radiation damage to the body? Was it the first of many, or the last, or maybe the number 358 speck?
Finally Bill, if the nuclear industry had done as they PROMISED to ALL of humanity they would do,__ that is__ (to safely store ALL nuclear waste until it was safe to dispose of) we would not have DU used for anything and you wouldn’t have to speak up for the nuclear industry and attempt to make feeble excuses for them.
Come back Billy, and give us all some more of your wisdom on this subject, it makes for an interesting debate.___ Love, Kem
Check ___http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_howkilling.htm
When this screen opens, there is another website to click onto. Read them both, it’s not lengthy, but very informative.
I sent your comment, Peace Warrior, to Carla McClain cmcclain@azstarnet.com, along with my questions. I hope you did not copyright your comment since I could just as well have written it myself–which was your whole point. We all could have!!
Dear Carla,
Your article about US soldiers in Iraq getting cancer points to our use of depleted uranium there as a likely cause. Perhaps young soldiers who were kids during the Gulf War did not find out about our use of it until they ended up in Iraq. To them it’s news. That doesn’t mean you should treat it as news. Your story leaves out the most important fact, which is that the role of DU has been downplayed by the govt. and news media ever since 1991. Good that you bring it up, but do you have to leave out the context in order to get published? If so, write about that! Common Dreams would print it
Why do reporters, certainly not just you!, treat basically old information as if it were unknown? Why do reporters think readers can’t remember and know no history, especially recent history? Is there a reason you can’t add the answer to “for how long has this been going on” to the other questions a reporter needs to ask?
Here is someone else’s response to your story:
1991 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1991 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1992 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1992 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1993 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1993 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1994 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1994 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1995 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1995 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1996 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1996 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1997 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1997 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1998 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1998 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
1999 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
1999 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2000 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2000 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2001 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2001 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2002 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2002 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2003 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2003 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2004 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2004 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2005 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2005 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2006 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2006 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
2007 Question - Our soldiers and their civilians are getting cancer at an alarming rate. They have babies being born with ghastly deformities. What’s going on
2007 Answer from honest people capable of thinking - Depleted uranium is killing these people. We need to stop using depleted uranium
“Hey you know there’s this thing called delpeted uranium and”
STOP IT
THEY DON’T CARE
The immediate casualties are kept low by our use of depleted uranium. If thousands of our soldiers and millions of their civilians die after-the-fact THEY DON’T CARE
The people do not care. The sheep are as passive as always. Can we stop pretending that we are discovering the horrors of depleted uranium when it’s been a well known fact for almost 20 years. Can we stop this liberal cycle of stupidity and stop telling each other something we’ve known for a generation. The rest DON’T CARE. STOP IT. It’s boring
The conversation needs to be focused on how to get the depleted uranium out of our weapons…not another “oh my gosh there’s this thing called depleted uranium.”
There is now no doubt about DU and it’s carcinogenic and mutagenic effects on all life forms. I have little to offer that has not already been said but I read an article written within in this past that added some more perspective to the horror that is DU.
Obviously, there will be no action on the part of the government to cease using DU, as it is a WMD and to admit such would be to concede to being guilty of war crimes. It’s not going to happen.
Further clarification of three issues regarding DU:
Why infants and children are more vulnerable to DU (and to extend this logic would explain why animal species with shorter life spans and insects for that matter would be more vulnerable as well).
“It is a fact of biology, not physics, that living cells are variably sensitive to radiation. This is why continuous emission from a radioactive source within the body, even a low-level source, can have a comparable or even greater impact than a brief burst of high-level radiation. When cells are quiescent, the usual state in an adult, cells are much more resistant to radiation than when undergoing cell division or repair, both of which involve DNA replication. In fact, during DNA replication cells are 600 times more sensitive. This explains why continuous internal low-level radiation caused by nuclear fallout or DU is so serious. It’s no wonder that infants and children are so vulnerable. Their rapidly growing bodies are adding many new cells, hence, are replicating DNA at a much faster rate.”
Why many in the Afghanistan population have Gulf War Syndrome, but Afghanistan lacks the other variables that were formerly given as possible reasons in Iraq (largely smoke and mirrors)
“A medical team dispatched to Afghanistan in May 2002 found “astonishing levels” of uranium in the urine of everyone they tested. The team found sick Afghanis everywhere US bombing had occurred, and the sick displayed the by-now familiar symptoms of Gulf War illness. Durakovic told the BBC he was “stunned” by the results. He made it clear he believes DU is implicated, since “in Afghanistan there were no oil fires, no pesticides, and nobody had been vaccinated.”
Why DU is a worldwide problem
“DU particles less than a micron in size can remain suspended in the atmosphere for long periods. DU particles can circle the globe within a matter of weeks, hence, are likely to contaminate food and water supplies thousands of miles from the point of origin, just as nuclear fallout did in the era of atmospheric testing.”
The article, published 8/23/07, can be read here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18242.htm
For an excellent article about DU see
“Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad”
www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml
by Lauren Moret (eminent scientist)
Kem: Look up “Mushrooming depleted Uranium (DU) scandal blamed” by Bob Nichols
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1771
This is where you will find info about the fact 56% of the first Gulf War vets are on disability (and by the year 2000 at that) compared to 10% for Viet Nam, and 5% for all wars of the last century.
That website worked earlier today, lets try again.
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_howkilling.htm
.
Hi Paul, how are you?__ Great post.__ Paul is the man who got me interested in the subject of DU. Now I don’t like him, cause now I know that unless the use of DU is stopped very very soon, humanity along with all life on Earth will not survive. I have kids and I love them; we’ve spread as much DU here in the United States as we have in Iraq and Afganistan.
That website works now, there is another after the page opens, please read it also, it has a lot of info about DU dangers.
DU has been found on Oahu and on the Big Island of Hawaii. The US military has been using DU in their practice maneuvers — we’re not even at war with ourselves, are we? The US military is poisoning their own native soil and their fellow US citizens.
For some interesting info on DU go to www.amoralamerica.info where you can download the book or the DU chapter for free. That chapter starts on page 264. Good luck to everyone exposed to DU.
PS: The half-life of DU is 4.5 billion years but the story is actually worse that that, if possible. Go to http://www.ccnr.org/decay_U238.html
JH, thank you for bringing up Hawaii, the army just admitted (finally) they have been firing DU there. Here is another website to read and it also will have a website for Nurse Linda Kroll, who doesn’t just blog, she actively got the testing done in Hawaii. She is like Cindy Sheehan, a fighter and she is doin good.
www.protecthawaii.ws/page2.html
Billy___ come back for bashing, I’m in the mood. Sorry you work for the nuclear industry Billy, you, me and Paul Smmith could have been friends.
This is agent orange all over again although the agent is now depleted uranium. Military sources prior to Gulf War I document the dangers and the calculated cover-up of use and exposure. They often claim there is no real danger, but DU is radioactive and toxic to begin with and even more dangerous after it burns on impact. Instead of putting the reactor waste in underground safe storage they are making projectiles out of the stuff and shooting it at people including civilian areas. It is possible that this weapon is part of a calculated slow genocide as it keeps on killing wherever it is used.
Here in Montana a number of local non-profit activists tried to help pass a DU bill modeled after the Connecticut bill (New York bill is better yet) that would improve pre-deployment training as well as testing during deployment and upon discharge. There was complete ignorance on the part of state legislators in the beginning but even after we did some educating as citizen lobbyists the response was apathetic. “Support the troops” is as big a lie as WMD’s. Perhaps the greatest resistance to improving the situation was the National Guard itself. Pre-deployment training is virtually non-existent and that is how they want to keep it. Don’t tell, don’t ask and don’t test. Post-deployment testing is rarely done and with flawed science if it takes place…etc. Tough situation, but I plan to try again with letters to the clowns in Washington sucking up our tax dollars allowing things like this to happen. I am afraid that they are going to stall until many of the exposed are dead very much like agent orange. However, it is better than nothing for all of us to spread the word…etc. And it is stupid beyond belief as they are harming their own troops when they are short of recruits. The Iraqis have an even more acute problem as the DU dust can go anywhere and remains deadly for several billion years. The same is true in areas of Afghanistan. It is worth noting, that none other than Cheney, during Gulf War I, unleashed the mass use of DU.
Federal bills have been drafted to try to put a stop to the insanity but thus far nothing solid has passed. There should simply be an immediate ban. The Pentagon is once again out of control using “terror” tactics with these radioactive and toxic DIRTY BOMBS !
Kem: The link works if you don’t put the underline in front of the address. You got it right the second time.
BTW, I found a picture of Dr. Lauren Moret on a site about my friend Chet Helms (who started the Avalon Ballroom, was partners with Bill Graham in the original Filmore, and hitchhiked back to San Francisco with Janis Joplin after she failed at fame her first time there). He sure had a wide circle of friends.
Kem: I’m surprised in that article,
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_howkilling.htm
they didn’t mention what I have read in another one that the smaller tha particle of DU the more difficult it is for the body to get rid of it. Have you seen something to that effect?
Yes indeedy Paul, the smaller the particle, (one millionth of a meter), smaller than a body’s cell, is deadlier than one the size of a white blood cell. Once in the lung or brain, especially the brain, it will stay there. Another thing, if one inhales a single speck, that would be like winning the Lotto. If you inhale one, you’re most likely gonna inhale a lot of them. But one will do, not necessary to be greedy. It’s every place now Paul, the proverbrial Genie is loose and this Genie don’t give three wishes.
Paul the issue regarding the difficulty of the body getting rid of very small-sized DU particles is addressed in the article I referenced above:
While all uranium is hazardous inside the human body, dust particles of natural unprocessed uranium tend to be less invasive because they are relatively large in size; hence, are not inhaled as easily. Moreover, the tiny cilia in the bronchial passages are efficient at removing particles of this size during breathing. When swallowed in food or water, natural uranium also tends to pass through the GI tract attached to organic matter without much absorption.
Once aerosolized, DU is loose in the environment and it’s only a matter of time before it finds its way into water and food; in which case, DU particles, due to their small size, are easily absorbable through the intestinal lining. They are even more easily inhaled, and will even pass through the skin, making exposure unavoidable in contaminated areas. Submicron-sized DU particles behave like a gas. They are too small to be removed by the cilia in the bronchioles and have no trouble reaching the tiny alveolar sacs in the lungs. In fact, particles of this size can pass directly into the blood and will cross every blood-barrier in the body. Aerosolized DU particles move with ease into the brain, which, no doubt, explains the many neurological problems reported by Gulf War veterans.
Aerosolized DU is also different from unprocessed natural uranium in another important respect. Under the conditions of extreme temperature and high velocity impact, DU particles are rendered ceramic-like, which makes them insoluble. The body has trouble excreting them, for which reason they tend to persist. This explains why 8-10 years after the war veterans of Desert Storm were still excreting DU in their urine, semen, and even in their sweat,
Some of the insoluble DU is also scavenged from the lung into the thoracic lymph nodes, where it damages the immune system and also causes lymphoma and leukemia. Many DU nano-particles are also absorbed into the blood and transported via cholesterol and lipids throughout the body. Some DU is excreted by the kidneys, but not all. Much of it accumulates in organs, tissues and bones, and even in human semen. In fact, DU’s affinity for the sexual organs is an especially serious problem because DU is known to cause chromosomal damage, thus burdening future generations with birth abnormalities. The problem is a double whammy: DU is a mutagen due to its radiological properties, and also due to its chemical properties because it is a heavy metal. It turns out that uranium has a chemical affinity for phosphate. A biochemist at Northern Arizona University recently showed that when living cells are exposed to uranium the uranium binds to the phosphate structure in the DNA and causes mutations from chemical effects.
The article is very comprehensive and worth reading:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18242.htm
DU, is a waste product of the nuclear power and bomb industry. American citizens have been accused of ‘dirty bomb’ plots and tortured to the point of organ failure to extract false confessions. Jose, can you see? … But the real Dirty Bombers are the American Government and it’s Corporate Masters. What is the cost of this insanity, this WMD? The bill for Bush’s warcrimes is about $4000 for every American man, woman and child. Cleanup, repairs and reparations are extra. How can a nation of impoverished slaves pay for a car or slave quarters much less for the PlunderGas to run them?
VANISHING EARTH: In your first blog, you stated you did not have much to offer.
Well well,___ what you have offered is all any need to know about what DU is capable of and how deadly it is to humanity and especially to children. Your two blogs are the most important of all posted here and even more so than the original article. Thank you so very much, for coming on with your most imformative comments.
The rest of the comments posted here are of extreme importance also, for anything we learn from each other on this issue is very helpful. DU should be the most important issue facing all of humanity. DU is an issue that can be corrected, but if not corrected, will eventually mean the end of life on this planet. That is a strong opinion, only mine, but I base it on what I have read on the subject, the facts of the dramatic increases in so many diseases, and not what I may believe personally. I thank you all, even you Billy for you opened the discussion for further comments.
Within a day or so, this article will be in the CD archives, and we will go on to other important issues. Please don’t forget this one, for on a scale of 1 to 10, DU is 1. Global Warming 2, Wars of any kind 3,___ Girls 4. Bush/Cheney/Rove/Conyers/Pelosi?Rummy?___ Screw them.___They are screwing all of us.
Kem,
You asked how I can be so ill informed. When we first started sparring, I was speaking from my experience and training. I have not worked extensively with DU metallic components (although I have toured a uranium foundry making penetrators and observed the manufacturing process).
After we started discussions about the possible medical effects of DU exposure, I did what is called a Medline search. This is the same seach your doctor would use if he/she were confronted with an unfamiliar illness. This searches all the world’s medical literature.
From Medline I found a study done by the VA of uranium contamininated soldiers from friendly fire in Gulf War I. I found a German study of peacekeeper troops in the Balkans. I found a similar Dutch study. None showed any ill effects.
Nothing in Medline showed any adverse health effects from exposure to DU munitions (other than the obvious intentional injuries from shooting a weapon at someone). The Medline included papers from countries with vigorous anti-nuclear policies.
I did a literature search of the public US government studies:
I found a report on the inactivated Jefferson army base in Indiana with extensive DU contamination. It said the deer grazing in the target area were healthy and could be hunted but not to permit farming.
I found a study by Sandia Lab that said that category 1 soldiers (victims of friendly fire and rescue personnel from DU targeted vehicles) should experience about a 1% increase in risk of lung cancer. It said that a similar increase in cancer risk to children playing on targeted vehicles should also be expected.
I read one of your linked sites. The risk level stated in your linked source was not traceable to source documentation. It claimed a hazard level more than 1000 times higher than the NRC safety limits for airborne uranium for industrial workers.
I have read some of the other links on the subject of DU. Some are general antiwar polemics, others equate DU munitions with atomic weaponry. Some play loose with statistics and radiation theory. Some equate a microscopically detectable cell change with medically significant illness.
We have soldiers ill from Gulf war I and II as well as the civilian population. In both of these wars the troops and civilians have been exposed to a witches brew of environmental toxins. This brew obviously does include uranium dust. To accurately say that the uranium is causing the illnesses, you would need to separate the effect of all the other toxins (read the first half of the original article on this string). I have not read, other than as a polemic, where this has been studied and documented.
If you are aware of a medical study which shows medically significant injury (i.e. illness) from battlefield uranium exposure without confounding chemical environmental exposure, I would be most interested. I am not, however, interested in polemics.
Regards,
Bill
Using DU laced bombs and munitions is genocide against populations.
Hi Bill, I will only say, I have not read that particular study. I have read many similar however and all are flawed by the facts and disputed by doctors who have credentials just as good as the de-nyers. The difference being, the de-nyers are under political pressure.
I prefer to leave this open for Vanishing Earth to respond to you, or Linda Kroll, or Paul M Smith. They are better at it than I and hopefully they will return here before this article is buried. Did yu read the article I gave a website for and any of the others posted by so many?
Take Care Billy, perhaps someday we can sit by a keg of Michelob and have a fun discussion. I fear that is very un-likely, due to the present political situation our country is now in.
Aloha from Hilo Mahalo to all DU Truth Teachers and thank-you again for mentioning Hawaii. For anyone who would like to know the breaking news in Hawaii see
Two front page news articles published today August 26, 2007 in the Hawaii Tribune Herald
“Radioactive find at PTA fuels fears
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/08/26/local_news/local03.prt
“Leaders at every level concerned about discovery”
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/08/26/local_news/local04.prt
Also this news article from August 21, 2007 Depleted uranium found at PTA
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/08/21/local_news/local01.txt#blogcomments
The first two articles are not in blog format. See HOW THEY CENSOR US! The third one is and I invite all you DU Truth Teachers to comment; Kem has posted several times. Thank-you Kem. There’s 50 word limit and a time delay for posting to be seen. YuK!
BTW Kem you give me too much credit!
I’m no Cindy I just came up with a unique way to educate the local people here. I made a website (only four months ago), which is amazing since I’m puter challenged. And I co-wrote and act in a play on the subject. See website Kem posted earlier. Kem I think I love you. 
Hello PaulMagillSmith, Kathyodat and Rebel Farmer.
Hawaii is contaminated with DU. The military and our State Public Health Dept say it is the not harmful kind. No public health risk. How could it be harmful? What the military does admit to is 15 spotting rounds of DU used back in the late 60’s!!
The illitary opps I mean military still claim that they DO NOT use DU in live-fire training practice today.
Then I read posts about DU is in all munitions…like the comment KEM made earlier and I say again Yikes!!
How can this be harmful? If they admit it is harmful they admit that the miitary has been poisoning us for decades!!! Which they have.
The DU find they admit to is from an outdated munition. On May 29th during a ceremony on Saddle road protestors armed with radiation monitors got a reading on a plume of wind that measured 75cpm and stayed high for several minutes. Normal background radiation is 5-20cpm. One of the articles above states that the military has no plans of stopping live-fire training in our beautiful island.
Less than 10 miles downwind from the Pohakuloa Training Area in the center of Big Island is a girls and boy scout camp. They have to say it’s not harmful or their admitting that they’ve polluted children for over 60 years. And they have.
I invite anyone who wants to stay informed on the DU issue in Hawaii to sign my guest book. I will never publish anyones email. I always send info as Blind CC. I honor your right to privacy but I do need kokua (help) in passing information forward. God I love blogs and the internet. but I hate slow dial up. Keep it up DU truth teachers!
Lindafaye
www.protecthawaii.ws
I just re-read your comments Billy, you are not interested in polemics. Is that politics? If so, the study you referred to was urged on by politicians. Bet on it. The facts of dramatic rises of diseases, autism and cancers in children in the past twentyfive years for example, is NOT politics, it’s a lot of dead babies and children.
Ok Billy,
How do you explain the fact of the increased incidences of cancers in both the civilian population AND troops who were in Afghanistan where there weren’t oil fires and all the other toxic chemicals as present in Iraq?
You all are forgetting this “war” was planned by God and Bush is just following instructions, so we may as well relax, it is surely a good thing. After all, it is only the “Cradle of Civilization” that is being destroyed and as the oil is underground, it should be ok. Probably Bush will start visiting veteran`s hospitals and checking this problem of cancer any time now.
You know, Billy…Kem, jadedprole, peaceman, kathyodat, Linda Kroll, JConrad,vanishing earth, Siouxrose, et al, and I would like to have you be right in your opinion (not that we believe you are, though), but with some things as potentially deadly as DU (or climate change for that matter) can we really afford to take the chance?
The expression, “Better safe than sorry” has real meaning in this case, except in this instance I think, “Better safe than deformed, sick, mutated, or extinct” is more appropriate.
You know, just like you work in a nuclear industry setting I do also. Every day, while assembling & testing the device my brothers invented (see www.nukalert.com) I think of the consequences of irradiation. With a nuclear explosion, dirty bomb, or even core meltdown I have some protection through the Nukalert device, but DU is much more insidious because it is very difficult to detect. It’s not a bang or bright flash, but a slow creeping serpent, though deadly all the same.
I saw a figure the other day stating that in the past 30 or 40 years, even including 911, the total casualties from terrorist acts numbered less than 10,000. We’ve probably killed over that many people in Iraq already by using the recognized WMD of DU (maybe just in Bagdad alone), so who are the terrorists now? Who, by their actions can lay claim to being part of the “Axis of evil”? Iraq? Iran? North Korea? Or us? As more and more information comes to light, or is forced out of this very dark secretive administration, I believe your position will become indefensible. The very fact you have stuck around so long debating with Kem, myself, and numerous others shows us you have some very serious doubts about the correctness of your line of thought. Step into the light/right my friend.
Solution is obvious. Gather up and pump DU dust into the White House and
Pentagon. If they so much believe what they say, then no problem. If they’re
wrong, part of the problem solved.
whats the problem?
The munitions companies get to make a killing selling DU, the military gets to dispose of its nuclear waste, and the medical indusry gets to make a lot of money…all together it boosts the GDP…human lives are just another resourse to be exploited so that the rich can get richer
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that this is the depopulation agenda.
Kem,
Thanks for your reply. I did hear something about the scout camping near PTA, a cause for concern.
I’m going to make a prediction that, for Hawaii residents at least, this is going to become a huge issue, especially if the DU contamination in PTA is extensive — simply due to its locale and its proximity to populations.
I “hear” critics, like Billy, who question the danger based on scientific reports, but how many serious studies have been done?
There are reports of increased incidence of feral feline leukemia on Mauna Kea. So what’s up? I’m new to and pretty agnostic about this issue and I know that anecdotal story (and let’s be honest, this article is one) and even scientfic data can be skewed to fit opinion.
What I keep coming back to is this fact:
Outside the body gamma ray emitters are by far more dangerous than alpha particle emitter, but once inside the body this distinction reverses itself. Perhaps Billy can write on that issue.
I end with this: Brushing aside the whole issue of war, does it make sense to use a weapon that will leave a toxic dust coating the face of the Earth for eternity? And 4.5 billion years is about as close to eternity as you can get…and that’s just its half-life!
One more thing: As one poster noted, this issue shouldn’t just be about DU. I have no doubt that the mil exposes soldier and civilian to other ungodly substances, all the while hiding behind a certain shield of immunity. Bullets and bombs would be top of the list but not the only ones.
Okay one more more thing: DU is an essential component to what the mil considers its technological capability, both in armor and armor penetrating rounds. SO…it’s really going to take an international moratorium to stop it.
What we need is less armor and more amore.
Aloha from Hilo
Anyone care to comment or pass forward?
HTH Article DU Found at Pohakuloa
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/08/21/local_news/local01.txt#blogcomments
Aloha from Hilo,
Hawaii still has artillery live-fire training. There’s no agreement to stop because they say their is no health risk.
The military has agreed to do testing but there is no agreement their tests will be transparent and methods verifiable by independent experts. We want truth in testing.
We want our veterans tested for DU. After three legislative Bills failed in the last two years; Our veterans have no protection because they say their is no health risk.
Aloha from Hilo,
Mahalo to all DU Truth Teachers.
HAWAII MAY NEED YOUR HELP TO PASS THE WORD.
Kem has already help. Mahalo Mucho Grande Kem!
If anyone wishes to stay informed on the DU issue in Hawaii write to: tenfingers10toes@protecthawaii.ws or visit www.protecthawaii.ws
I will never publish email lists, I always send duplicated information as Blind cc.
Mahalo Lindafaye
Keep telling the Truth, You Wonderful DU Truth Teachers,
Lindafaye Kroll RN BSN
Hi IPENEK Yes, there are feral cats dying on Hawaii. The English first brought the rats, then the cats to kill the rats. For awhile that was a real big problem on Hawaii and a major problem for many years on Cat Island in the Bahamas.
DU will kill any living thing, microbes, birds, bees, inscects and amphibians suffer first. The cat issue is moot, for they have a worm disease that is killing them, so to talk about cats dying from DU becomes argumentative and helps the military argue that DU is not harmful.
The point Billy brought up about deer were healthy in DU contaminated areas helps the military and government also. The deer would be dying from DU, but it’s a long slow death so the deer could be dying but it may take five to ten years before cancers kill them, just like humans, When the deer lay down and die, no one investigates to determine why they died, and if cancer was found no one would investigate what caused the cancer in the first place and the DU issue is dead along with the deer.
Children are dying from cancer, but the blame is not placed upon inhaling DU in the first place. It is the dramatic rise in diseases that is the obvious clue there is a terrible and relatively new problem here on planet Earth.
No one really knows how many people are suffering and dying, and or, are born with deformities from DU, because there has never been an honest and thorough investiigation by any of any government’s health agencies. Just like this article about James Lauderdale, the cause of his cancers are being argued. Health organizations have been ordered to hide the truth and now they don’t know how to tell the truth, for if they did, as Paul Smith noted, they would be guilty of mass murder world wide. If governments intended to kill off large numbers of people in the world with use of DU, they sure did pick the wrong poison, a bit like picking the wrong Vice President or Attorney General. When those trillions times trillions of deadly specks kill off the ocean’s phytoplankton, everything on the planet will die.__ EVERYTHING!!
Phytoplankton float on, or near the surface of the ocean’s waters and those plants produce over 65% of our oxygen. Currently something is killing off the tiny plants and no one know why. Well, microscopic dust will float on water, if it’s DU killing the plants, and there is no earthly reason it could not be, we are all screwed. The use of DU must be stopped now,___ not next year, NOW!!
I do hope that everyone will pass the word, write their congress people, write to their editors and have shit fits about this subject. No one can honestly believe that DU is safe, the facts of the steady increases in autism, cancers, and many other diseases, like diabetes, etc, is a clue that cannot be ignored.
People get cancer and it’s not blamed on DU. It should be the first thing checked. If a person tests positive for DU in the urine. DU is going to eventually kill them. If it’s your kids, you would be angry. Get angry before your children have cancer, or autism, or anythng that should not have happened. Trust me, you do not want to ever bury one of your children.__ NEVER!__ The wound never heals.
Hi Linda, keep up the fight and pressure kid, you can win.
Many thanks to posters, in particular KEM, Vanishing EARTH & JCONRAD. Which pope defined ours as a “death” culture?
CANUCK CHUCK: I generally appreciate your cynicism and humor but NO ONE profits in this scenario, it’s a scorched earth syndrome that leaves no LIVE players.
The fatalistic sense of this subject sends my mind on a few tangents. One is the way the US military lays ISLANDS, nature’s most pristine paradises, to waste. Wasn’t it the bikini islands where nuclear tests were first done? Off the Puerto Rico shoreline, the island of Vieques, once a US navy stronghold is filled with high rates of cancer from other munitions testing, and now this absolutely tragic travesty on the miraculous island of Hawaii.
It always brings me back to the use of religious PR, for wasn’t it “right to life” that got the fundamentalist hordes to become the support system for this diabolical bunch who have taken such ruthless control of absolute power, and hardly directed it at anything remotely life-affirming; rather, theirs is what seems a plan to kill it all. What God does such action show homage to?
Sun Bear, a status given to an Indigenous American who shows particular intuitive resonance with and capacity to tap into what some might term the ancestral memory, others, the voices of the spirits, to recognize profound spiritual truths that speak to the web of creation. Before the “white man” ever headed west to extract uranium from the deserts where the last Indians resided, they were told that once this digging began, it would set the earth into a cycle of death followed by potential rebirth. It was understood that this playing with fire, this forcing open Pandora’s chemical box, would require a payment beyond which conscientious minds were prepared to recognize.
Didn’t the originators of the atomic bomb lament their own work once they saw what it could do in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. THIS is where the darkness really took over, this splitting of the atom, this wretched, “Let no man tear asunder what God hath joined together,” has led to havoc. HOW any sentient mind could commit further to the likes of these (weapons) having SEEN the hellbent destruction to lives and bodies, is beyond anything my soul can fathom. However, US tax dollars have indeed gone to banking on greater and greater weapons of destruction, and now, like a cosmic “what goes around, comes around” bad drama, we all find ourselves characters caught up in a plot so diabolical that for many, denial becomes easier.
These authorities denied that the air in NYC was toxic after 911. They denied the role of Agent orange to mutate cells. They deny all over again. The leit motif of just about every opinion I post is that there IS a higher justice… in times like these, I encourage others to consider it, as we sure as hell do not see viable justice operating on this plane in spite of our courageous pro-life efforts.
It’s good to see DU being discussed, thanks to KEM PATRICK for that excellent post.
When I first learned about DU and how much we’ve used in Iraq in this war, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had no idea. I didn’t want to believe. It’s the biggest conspiracy theory going.
I still halfway hope it’s a lie, some propaganda someone dreamed up to scare us, make us hate our government, whatever. Stupid science or fake science, but if it is fake science, it’s very convincing and I’ve bought into it. I sure wish our Admin would say something meaningful about it, because their complete silence and denial of the issue certainly makes it more likely the horror of DU is not overstated here. AS with global warming and everything else, it’s “ignore the obvious until impossible”. And then it’s blame the truth tellers, yes?
My only question now, defeatist I admit, is whether there is anything we can do, and does it matter. Seriously, that’s where I’m at. The American public, saturated with conspiracy issues and corruption in our government, probably couldn’t take this in anyway, and if they got anywhere close, MSM shills would muddy and confuse the issue, as is their job.
But even if they could understand, would it help? Many hundreds (thousands?) of tons of DU have been vaporized already, and the human race will be gone long before it is.
It’s just a question of time now, as far as I can see. We might slow things down if we could stop them from using any more DU, but in looking at the complete lack of knowledge in the US, I’m not sure what good it does to even try, and that totally demoralizes me. The Iraq war will be over before we can convince them that using DU is insane. We’ll have the unbelievable cancer rates which we’ll blame on everything under the sun, including ourselves exposed to sun, long long before any truth about DU comes out.
When it does, we’ll be that place they used to call America.
If there isn’t any way to fix it or avoid world-wide exposure, I…just don’t know what to do now. Idiots that couldn’t see past a preemptive war of no reason will never face this. By the time they have no choice in facing it, it will be too late. If there’s any truth to this at all, well like I said, I just don’t know what to do now. I don’t see modern medicine finding a fix, especially in light of the fact that more and more of us won’t have access to modern medicine at all, and modern medicine itself consist mostly of prescribing medication rather than diagnosis. I don’t see pills fixing the problem of internal radiation exposure, and I don’t see us stopping breathing.
We were a good species, right? We had our fun, we loved and lived and had a good time. Made some cool stuff. Wrote some nice things. I hope the new people come from dogs, and I hope the dog people remember us fondly.
WHATEVER4, I appreciate your comments. At times I feel the same way; what’s the use of trying?
I’m sure you also have the fighting spirit that exists in all life, even plants that are not watered hang on to the bitter end, when all hope seems to be gone, it rains, or the humans come home from a trip, water the dying plants and they blossom once again.
We are in trouble here on this unique, blue and white water planet, the only one we know to exist in the entire, ever expanding universe. Are we humans going to destroy all life here? We can,___ we can. If you have a God you have hope, if not, the only hope is to stop all use of DU now, and those with a God better join in, or your God will be pissed. I don’t wish to face mine for doing nothing.
Let us all not just say it, do it, like Linda Kroll does. Write to your editors,___ brief, sincere and factual letters. Do the same with your congress people, hit their nerves and their souls.__ We still may have a chance.__ This is not the raving of a wild eyed doomsayer, or a conspiracy theorist, ___ the clues of what is occurring in nature are so clearly obvious.
SIOUXROSE, you are such a good and wonderful soul, like so many here at Common Dreams. You however, bring out the spritual elements so well, those that are so very much needed in the dark days.
Thanks everyone for this lively discussion about such a deadly substance that will kill people and all living things with whom we share this planet.
PaulMagillSmith
As I mentioned earlier in the comments, and you perceptably also asked, why is it that in Afghanistan we have soldiers and Afghanis that are testing positive for Uranium, who exhibit the same set of symptoms now described as Gulf War Syndrome, when Afghanistan had none of the other complicating factors which Iraq did, mainly burning oil wells, chemical facilities which we destroyed, and possibly chemicals which we had previously sold to Iraq under Saddam?
The UMRC (Uranium Research Medical Center) sent it’s people to Afghanistan in 2002 and what did they find? In Nangarhar, every single person tested reported positive to uranium in their urine, with concentrations of between 100 and 400 percent greater than those obtained from Gulf War Veterans in 1999. The city of Kabul with a population of 3.5 million and Jalalabad also has large percentages of the populace reporting the same constellation of symptoms now known as Gulf War Syndrome. How widespread is the contamination in Afghanistan?
“The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium.”
Interestingly much of the destruction was done under the banner of “Operation Enduring Freedom”. I understand the Enduring part, not so much the Freedom aspect.
Siouxrose
Thanks for another eloquently stated comment which captures the magnitude of the problem and that at some level, even though the truth has been stymied at all levels of government, we are all in some way complicit because our taxation and representation system has enabled this machine to do this much damage with the sobering thought that probably much more will be done before the truth reigns in this behavior. Unfortunately it will probably take the other nations of the world to modify this behavior as Americans continue to believe that their lives spent in a quest for newer, bigger, and better is sanctified by God and more conspicuous consumption is the way to happiness.
And the brain-washed MSM masses are convinced of their need for ever more products made possible by an out of control need for corporations to obtain ever more profits by any means possible, damn the consequences. Do we really need to choose between 500 different brands of shampoo alone every time we go shopping just to cite one symptom of our out of control consumerist society. Ok well I’m getting slightly off topic here but these are symptoms of a society of excesses which under this administration has reached it’s zenith.
Kem Patrick
Thanks for the continued comments reminding everyone of the seriousness of this madness of poisoning the very Earth which sustains all life with DU. And yes, you cannot rely on government studies on DU because it is stifling those that have first hand knowledge of it and are honest and brave enough to try to get the truth out.
One reservist by the name of Major Doug Rokke, who was a physicist, was tasked with overseeing an effort to cleanup a number of armored vehicles that had been contaminated bu DU “friendly fire” ordinance explosions that were meant to be shipped back to the United States. Within 15 hours of exposure to the DU dust everyone on his team developed skin rashes and experienced respiratory problems. In 1994 he was named director of the Army’s Depleted Uranium Project. He was even awarded with two medals.
However what he had learned during the clean-up process is that there is no effective way of completely removing DU. In 1996 he was fired because he could not say what the Army wanted him to say about effective cleaning up of DU. VA tests now confirm he has 5000 times the acceptable level of DU in his body. He has had 18 kidney operations and gastrointestinal and eye surgery. He says all of the approximately 100 men team with whom he worked is dead or sick from varying diseases. He states that the military has destroyed medical and personnel files to avoid liability. This happens to be what really happens to someone who wants the truth be told about DU. In fact the silencing of whistleblowers is happening to people at all levels of government, the case of FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, in which among the numerous truths she discovered was the blackmarket sales of nuclear arms by our own government being perhaps the most potentially devastating one. The reality is the whistleblower hardly ever is commended for their exposure of criminality. They are usually demoted, fired, and have life-long repercussions for their courage to take on the system. That DU truth is actively silenced by the government is a no-brainer, why would they admit to using WMD’s against their own citizens and the people and wildlife of the world. The only motive is to stifle such disturbing truths, as these are crimes of unimaginable proportions.
JUst a note to say I wrote about this disaster two years ago in In These Times. I was viciously attacked by some wacko who claimed that my figures for DU use in Afghanistan and Iraq (3000+ tons as of late 2004) were not true by a factor of ten (he said it was just a few hundred tons, which is what was used in 1991 in Iraq), and the editors of ITT not only accepted his crap, but apologized for my article (without letting me respond in the issue). Only after I threatened to make an issue of their behavior did they let me run a response two issues later, and even then they still questioned my figures.
I was right then about this atrocity, and obviously, even more of the toxic substance has been used since.
I resigned from the masthead of ITT over this stupid behavior by the editors, and haven’t written for them since.
The DU poisoning of Iraq (and Afghanistan), in the long run, may prove to be as great a crime as the original invasion and terminal destruction of the state of Iraq, for Iraq’s cities, where all the bombing and fighting has occurred, have been dusted with thousands of tons of uranium dust which will sicken Iraqis for 100,000 years to come.
Bush should be impeached, cried for crimes against humanity, and sentenced to clean up Iraq with a toothbrush for this genocidal act.
It’s ironic that the people in government who’ve been crying “support the troops” the loudest, first have poisoned them, and then have been fighting bitterly to prevent them from getting tested right away, when the uranium can be detected.
I should also point out that the US has steadfastly prevented the UN from coming in and testing around the country for DU contamination.
Dave Lindorff
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
PS, I am interested in writing a book about the DU poisoning of American soldiers and Marines. If anyone has stories and wants to contact me, I can be reached at dlindorff@yahoo.com
For those who want to know my journalistic background, please go to http://www.thiscantbehappening.net and to the biographical page on that site.
Dave you should do a chapter on the impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam as this was similar to the impact of DU in its consequences in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In Hanoi there is an organization called the “Peace Village” which works with children whose parents were exposed to Agent Orange during the war. These children were born with muscular destrophy, learning disorders and other diseases as a result. Many American Vets during that war also came home