Check out www.umrc.net
They're the non-profit research group Uranium Medical Research Centre. They've recenty run some test for depleted uranium contamination in Afghanistan. What they found surprised them. They found lots of non-depleted uranium contamination centred around areas that saw action in the recent US led Operation Enduring Freedom. They haven't issued a final report yet, but they claim preliminary indications point to the development of new warheads by the US using non-depleted uranium instead of or in addition to the traditional DU warheads. These non-DU type warheads appear to spread around uranium pollution even more profusely than the older DU type weapons. If they were using these types of weapons in Afghanistan, it is quite likely they would also have used them in Iraq as well.
More info available at their web site www.umrc.net
Summary of recent findings as released by UMRC International Director of Research, May 21, on Without Borders, Al Jazeera Broadcasting<1>
UMRC’s recent findings, May 2003, reveal a wider scope of human and environmental contamination in Afghan civilians, corroborating the November 2002 Jalalabad findings.
Jalalabad area: New reference levels based on recent collections of samples and controls have revised the Jalalabad results upward to uranium values 45 X’s normal.
New bioassay studies identify uranium internal contamination in Spin Gar (Tora Bora) area and the City of Kabul are up to 200 X’s the Reference Level of the unexposed population.
Surface water, rice fields and catch-basins adjacent to and surrounding the bombsites have high values of uranium, up to 27 X’s normal.
Low but as yet inconclusive readings of U236 have been identified by the laboratory in some urine samples; further analysis is underway to determine the metallurgical origins of the uranium with a consideration of “commercial natural uranium” containing recycled reactor spent fuel products.
Analyses of soils and debris collected inside OEF bomb craters and target sites have uranium values 3 X’s to 6 X’s normal.
Surface soils surrounding the bombsites and downwind from ground-zero are elevated close to 3 X’s reference levels.
Field and laboratory data show that samples with elevated uranium levels, civilian health problems, and weapons exposure histories correspond spatially and chronologically to ordnance deployed by Operation Enduring Freedom.Here's an excerpt from their preliminary write up of the Afghanstan findings.
Radiological measurements of the uranium concentrations in Afghan civilians’ urine samples indicate abnormally high levels of non-depleted uranium. Radiological measurements of Afghan civilians’ have high concentrations of uranium in a range beginning at 4 X’s and reaching to over 20 X’s normal populations. This is 400% to 2000% higher than the study controls and normal population baselines of the concentrations of nanograms of uranium per liter of urine in a 24-hour sample. UMRC has completed initial but still preliminary studies that corroborate these finding in biological controls and geological samples taken in Operation Enduring Freedom bombsites.
<snip>
With the exception of Natural Uranium, alternative explanations are attributable to radio-isotopic signatures (ratios of isotopes of uranium) not substantiated by the laboratory results of Afghan civilians and bombsites. The isotopic measurements are objectively reliable and cannot be misrepresented other than by intentional adulteration of the specimens or intentional efforts to contaminate the population to mask the origins of contamination. Notably, the results of the analysis of biological specimens (urine) and the bomb-crater samples are compatible.
The possibility of Natural Uranium remains under investigation. Local geological samples and controls do not substantiate a source other than the OEF bombing. There are no geological, commercial and agricultural phenomena or activities and uses in the environs of the contaminated populations that might explain the contamination. UMRC invites reasonable explanations and continues to investigate alternatives or evidence that might explain origins other than uranium-alloyed and composite uranium-high-explosive ordnance deployed by Operation Enduring Freedom.(my emphasis /jc)
Above excerpt taken from:
http://www.umrc.net/AfghanistanOEF.asp
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