Yawn...ionesco DEBUNKED...again.
I can't imagine our government cheerfully investigating this (and they are not)
While depleted uranium (DU) could theoretically cause heavy metal toxicity at very high levels, in particular kidney dysfunction, no Gulf War veterans experienced intakes high enough to cause adverse health effects. The available scientific and medical evidence to date does not support concerns that DU has caused or is causing illnesses in Gulf War veterans. A total of 104 individuals were exposed to DU in friendly fire incidents, some of whom have retained metallic fragments. While there has been no clinical evidence of illness associated with DU exposure to date, the veterans involved in friendly fire will remain under medical surveillance indefinitely.
Funded by the US Government (no project number): PAC (Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses), 1996
Funded by DoD (no project number): OSAGWI, 1998a; OSAGWI, 2000a; OSAGWI, 2000g; OSAGWI, 2001a; Harley, et al, 1999; White House, 2000
Funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (no project number): ATSDR, 1999
Funded by VA (no project number): IOM, 2000
ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY (INCLUDING DEPLETED URANIUM)
Based on data developed to date, OSAGWI concluded that, while DU could pose a chemical hazard at high intakes, no Gulf War veterans experienced intakes high enough to cause health effects. (OSAGWI, 2000a) Furthermore, the available evidence indicates that due to DU’s low-level radioactivity, adverse radiological health effects are not expected. The available scientific and medical evidence to date does not support claims that DU caused or is causing illnesses in Gulf War veterans.
Since 1993, the Baltimore VA Medical Center has monitored 33 veterans seriously injured in friendly-fire incidents involving depleted uranium. (Hooper, et al, 1999; McDiarmid, et al, 2000) The VA is following the group very carefully, administering a broad battery of medical tests to determine if the embedded DU fragments are causing any health problems. While these veterans have persistent impairments due to their wartime injuries, the Baltimore researchers report that the veterans are not demonstrating adverse effects from DU’s chemical or radiological toxicity. About half of the 33 veterans still have DU fragments in their bodies, and they have demonstrated persistent elevated concentrations of urinary uranium. The veterans without retained DU fragments have not shown higher than normal levels of urinary uranium. To date, no adverse effects in the kidney have been detected. In 1999, the Baltimore VA evaluated 30 additional veterans involved in friendly-fire incidents, including 4 with suspected embedded DU fragments. (OSAGWI, 2000a) While there has been no clinical evidence of illness associated with DU exposure to date, the veterans involved in friendly fire will remain under medical surveillance indefinitely.
As an extension of the two Gulf War Registries, DoD and VA initiated a program in 1998 to perform a DU medical examination for any concerned Gulf War veteran who requests it. This includes a physical exam, a questionnaire for DU exposure, and a 24-hour urine sample to measure urinary uranium. As of late 2000, 398 veterans have received this exam. The results were recently published for the first 169 veterans who volunteered for this expanded program in August 1998 to December 1999. (McDiarmid, et al, 2001) Only three individuals had validated, elevated concentrations of uranium in their urine. Of these three individuals, one person probably had retained DU metal fragments from a friendly fire incident. The sources of the elevated uranium levels in the other two persons are unknown; in fact, one of them was not even a Gulf War veteran. The authors concluded that elevated urinary uranium levels were unlikely to be observed, except for those veterans with retained DU metal fragments. They stated: "There is little likelihood that the possible but transient exposure to DU during the Gulf War will result in significant health issues now or in the future. . . Those with normal uranium values now are unlikely to develop any uranium-related toxicity in the future regardless of what their DU exposure may have been during the Gulf War."
DoD has funded five toxicology projects to investigate the health effects of DU in experimental animals. The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute has been investigating the health effects of embedded DU pellets in rats since 1994. One important finding has been that there was no detectable kidney toxicity in these rats, even at very high concentrations of urinary uranium. (Pellmar, et al, 1999a; Pellmar, et al, 1999b)
gulflink.osd.mil |
