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| topics | war links | This zenvirus.com site copyright © HUGH COOK This is Hugh Cook's log of his researches online into depleted uranium, radon, alpha particle radiation and related topics. |
depleted uranium debate continues
(Page 0)2003 August 18 Monday.
Found some statistics on cancers and birth defects in Iraq - the statistics are online on a site run by The Japan Times.
Today the relevant article is at:-
www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030818a7.htm
The article reports that doctors from the southern area of Iraq are saying that cancer cases are up following the use of depleted uranium munitions by the United States in the first Gulf War in 1991. Cancers and birth deformities. The following figures appear to relate to the Basra area and are attributed to Janan Ghalib Hassan, who apparently is a doctor:-Hassan, 47, said that in 2001, 611 babies were born with no limbs, no eyes or other birth defects, compared with 37 such cases in 1990.
The significance of these claims of DU damage, to my mind, is that doctors from Iraq are still saying that DU is dangerous even though Saddam Hussein has fallen. Similar statements were coming from Iraq before Saddam's fall, and the changed political situation has not altered the tune that Iraqi doctors have been singing. This suggests that what Iraqi doctors have been saying about the dangers of DU is medical opinion rather than regime propaganda.
2003 August 18 Monday.
It occurred to me that perhaps some DU researchers have websites, and that, if so, the fastest way to get updates on the cutting edge of DU science might be to go to their websites.
This thought has taken months to arrive, putting it at the "why am I brain-damaged?" end of the spectrum.
Let's check this out ....
As I discovered earlier, you can go to the United States National Library of Medicine where you can drill down to a huge collection of references and abstracts from over 4600 biomedical journals.
Once having arrived, you can punch "depleted uranium" into the search box and get real scientific documents. Or, at least, abstracts of these documents.
What catches my eye today isModeling of the dispersion of depleted uranium aerosol
dated April 2003. This says, in part:-The main result is that the depleted uranium mass is deposited very close to the release point. The deposition flux at a couple of kilometers from the release point is more than one order of magnitude lower than the one a few meters near the release point.
How does one interpet that? Given that one of the "DU is safe" arguments depends on the notion that DU dust from battlefield use is so widely dispersed as to be harmless, I interpret it as a bad news fact.
But that's not today's purpose ....
Today's purpose is to hunt down some websites for individual DU researchers ....
One abstract available isA review of the effects of uranium and depleted uranium exposure on reproduction and fetal development
by Arfsten DP, Still KR, Ritchie GD.
Punching "Arfsten DP depleted uranium" into a search engine leads me toPotential Mechanisms for the Toxic Effects of Depleted Uranium (DU) Alloy on Rat Reproduction and Fetal Development
.... this is a question rather than an answer, saying in part:Currently, there is a gap in knowledge regarding the effect of DU alloy exposure on adult reproductive success and the fetal development and behavior patterns of their offspring. The fact that implanted DU alloy translocates to the gonads and developing fetus, and that DU alloy is genotoxic, justifies conducting studies on the potential cross-generational effects of DU alloy exposure in rodents.
.... I don't think I will go any further today, but this seems to be the way to develop this research log: try to find the websites of individual DU scientists and see what they are saying online.
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