Expert: No U.S. troops have taken ill from depleted uranium

[unhappycamper]

Expert: No U.S. troops have taken ill from depleted uranium
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, December 14, 2007

The U.S. military has yet to discover a case of an American servicemember becoming ill due to its use of depleted uranium over the past few decades, a Pentagon official says.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of force health protection and readiness for the Pentagon’s department of health affairs, doesn’t rule out the possibility of that happening.

But he said in a telephone interview Wednesday that a preventive education policy and the nature of the munitions themselves have resulted in no documented cases since the start of the first Gulf War.

Kilpatrick made his comments when asked about an October report in the Corriere della Serra, one of Italy’s largest daily newspapers, that highlighted an address by Italian Defense Minister Arturo Parisi before an Italian Senate commission looking into the issue.

Parisi reportedly said that 255 Italian troops had contracted tumors while serving on missions in such places as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Balkans in the past decade. According to the report, 37 had died. It also stated that 1,427 troops who hadn’t served abroad had developed tumors during the same period.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50972



uhc comment: I call bullshit -->

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html
**GRAPHIC PICS WARNING*** http://www.uksociety.org/us_crimes_against-humanity_1.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060503&articleId=2374
**GRAPHIC PICS WARNING*** http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id155.html

This google search turns up 87,900 hits.

[krispos42]

1. So, there's no evidence of this, huh?

Makes me wonder where BushCo did with the evidence!

[RC]

2. Americans are the Master race. So we aren't affected by that that sickens and kills the Iraqis.

Yeah, right.

[fed-up]

3. would this be the same Pentagon that denied they were using DU in the first Gulf War??

indepth article on DU

http://www.miltoxproj.org/DLDF.htm

Don’t Look, Don’t Find

Gulf War Veterans, the U.S. Government
and Depleted Uranium
1990 – 2000

Dan Fahey
The Military Toxics Project
March 30, 2000

Introduction

On July 22, 1990, the U.S. Army released a comprehensive report about armor-piercing ammunition made of depleted uranium, a chemically toxic and mildly radioactive heavy metal. This visionary report predicted the combat use of depleted uranium (DU) penetrators could create localized areas of contamination consisting of large amounts of respirable-size uranium particles. Infantry troops were expected to receive the highest exposures through inhalation of the dust, and the Army anticipated the health outcomes could include cancer and kidney problems. Though no anti-DU movement existed at the time, the Army predicted that depleted uranium munitions might be removed from the arsenal by political force once the health and environmental impacts of depleted uranium were widely known.

Fast-forward six months. During Operation Desert Storm, American aircraft and tanks shoot 320 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq and Kuwait. Thousands of Iraqi tanks, personnel carriers and other equipment are contaminated with depleted uranium dust and debris. More than one hundred American soldiers are exposed to depleted uranium in friendly fire incidents; more than twenty-five are wounded by DU shrapnel. After the cease-fire, tens of thousands of front line and rear echelon troops move freely through contaminated areas with no idea DU ammunition had been used, no training on ways to avoid exposure, and no respiratory protection. Many people climbed on and entered multiple destroyed vehicles to remove equipment, gather souvenirs and pose for victory photos. The Pentagon did a splendid job of planning and executing the war, but it neglected to inform the troops who secured the victory about the health hazards of depleted uranium.

When thousands of Gulf War veterans started to report myriad health problems, the Pentagon was quick to rule out depleted uranium (and chemical warfare agents, anthrax vaccinations, PB pills, etc.) as associated with the illnesses. From the beginning, the Pentagon vastly underreported the numbers of veterans who had known or suspected exposures to depleted uranium, an action that helped to steer the course of Gulf War illness research away from DU. The Army produced inaccurate exposure data which the Pentagon misleadingly promoted as proof that not one Gulf War veteran was exposed to enough depleted uranium to cause any health problems.

The government’s response to Gulf War depleted uranium exposures can be summed up as ‘Don’t Look, Don’t Find.’ This is not an articulated policy, but rather a pattern of inexcusable and negligent behavior. Five consecutive Gulf War illness investigations barely scratched the surface of depleted uranium exposures, choosing instead to repeat the prevarications whispered in their ears by Pentagon spin-doctors. Among the dozens of congressional hearings on Gulf War illnesses, not one has been devoted to unmasking the Pentagon’s failure to provide training, protective equipment, or requisite medical testing to Gulf War troops.


...snip