Op-Ed
Nuclear Families
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Brutal Honesty
April 22, 2007 - 11:00pmThe U.S. scares the planet with its arsenal. Right now, we’re sitting on top of almost 10,000 nuclear bombs. One of the byproducts of making these weapons is depleted uranium. U238 is extremely dense, so dense that it can pierce armored tanks. It also bursts into flames while traveling through the armor. UMass and Tufts scientists estimate that between 10 and 35 percent, but sometimes up to 70 percent, of the depleted uranium is aerosolized on impact — it turns into particles 5 micrometers wide, small enough to be inhaled and scatter for miles.
In March 2003, the Army released data on the amount of D.U. dropped on Iraq during the First Gulf War: between 320 and 390 tons. Let’s be conservative — 320 tons at 10 percent is 64,000 lbs.
Radioactive material is all around us — in water, soil, bananas — but in very small quantities. The difference between bananas and Basra, however, is about 1,000 times more radiation. Because U238 doesn’t decay for about 5 billion years, every shell we fire at Iraq will stay there forever. The U.S. isn’t releasing data on the number of shells fired in this war, but consider the amount fired in the First Gulf War (64,000 lbs) at 5 billion years — and America has done more to depopulate Iraq than Saddam Hussein has.
Five years ago, the Seattle Post Intelligencer investigated a highway that was bombed in 1991: they concluded it was still a “radioactive toxic wasteland.” And in May 2003, when Americans were celebrating the Mission Accomplished, Christian Science Monitor writer Scott Peterson recorded radioactive levels 1,900 times the normal background rate in Baghdad.
The effects of aerosolized depleted uranium in your lungs, kidneys and liver are a host of horrors. One of the most frightening, however, is what D.U. can do to your children. Pediatricians and obstetricians in Basra found the rate of serious birth defects more than quadrupled after the city was inundated with D.U. in 1991. These birth defects include multiple congenital malformations, congenital heart diseases, cleft lip and palate, unusual skeletal malformation and hydrocephalus — a condition that prevents cerebrospinal fluid from draining normally, causing comas, dementia, incontinence and a deformed skull.
That this happens to the same newborns whose right to life the President passionately defends should raise overwhelming contradictions. If only Focus on the Family cared our bombs were deforming Iraqi, Afghani and Kosovar children, perhaps the crocodile tears they shed for the unborn would be more credible. A Canadian research team found Afghani residents near Jalalabad, Tora Bora and Mazar-e-Sharif had an average of 315.5 nanograms of radioactive isotopes in their urine; one boy in Kabul had 2,031 nanograms in his urine. Current regulations in America state the maximum safe level is 12 nanograms for a year. It is a bizarre statement of America that poisoned 12-year olds are less interesting than fetuses.
Outside the White House, sanity prevails. In 1999, a U.N. subcommittee decided D.U. was dangerous enough to merit a worldwide ban. Testifying to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 2003, international lawyer Karen Parker stated that D.U. fails all four humanitarian laws regarding weapons: because D.U. will continue to poison people and cause cancers and birth defects for thousands of years, because of its horrible effects off the battle-field, because it is unduly inhumane, and because it has an unduly negative effect on the environment — D.U. violates the rules of war.
After it’s incinerated on impact, D.U. dust settles in lungs, deserts, rivers and animals. Considering food and water, even the U.S. Army field manual states that anything within 25 meters of D.U. is “unsafe for consumption.” Moreover, affected persons should wear respiratory and skin protection to prevent poisoning. The Pentagon, however, maintains that D.U. is not conclusively proven to cause cancers or birth defects. But this is the same Pentagon that didn’t put armor on Hummers or soldiers and did such a bangup job caring for amputees at Walter Reed.
One Army physician disagrees with his former superiors. Dr. Doug Rokke served in the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command. Rokke was sent to Iraq in 1991 to oversee D.U. cleanup. Now, he says more than 30 members of his team are dead. He told journalists, “Verified diverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known D/U. exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities … vision degradation … uranium in semen … and birth defects in offspring.”
He continued, “This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity.”
Vets from the first Gulf War still show the isotopic signature in their urine. D.U. swims through their reproductive organs and skeletal tissues, stalking their future and their children’s lives. As if serving under a monstrous commander in an unjust war were not painful enough, current and future vets are haunted by fear of giving birth to children with horrible physical and mental disabilities.
Rokke insists that the Pentagon isn’t honest: “Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of D.U. were unknown. That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem.”
To recap, then, we know that the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq to “find WMDs,” but instead, turned the country into an experiment worthy of Auschwitz’s Dr. Mengele. The Association of Birth Defects Children has found that Goldenhar Syndrome — eye, ear, facial and spine malformations in newborns — is more prevalent in 1991 Gulf War veterans. In Iraq, birth defects have risen 10-fold between 1989 and 2001, according to Baghdad University’s Dr. Nawar Ali in a report to the U.N.’s Integrated Regional Information Network. Childhood cancer also rose by 242 percent in the same period. Dr. Janan Hassan of the Basra Maternity and Children’s Hospital told the U.N. that more than 56 percent of cancer patients in Iraq were under 5 years old.
The conditions of life in Iraq are imperiled by American lies and brutality. And the lives and families of servicemembers are, again, wasted by the criminals at the helm.
Jeff Purcell is a graduate student in Africana Studies. He can be reached at jlp56@cornell.edu. Brutal Honesty appears Mondays.
Depleted Uranium by Jeff Purcell
I would strongly suggest that Purcell go learn some physical science first before writing all about DU according to the anti-DU crusaders whose mission is to scare veterans and their families into passing laws that will enable the prosecution of American serviceman and women for what really is a non-existent war crime. It is apparent from reading his piece that he has made no effort to discuss this with anyone in Physics, especially Health Physics, Geology or Chemistry Departments. I was drawn to this page by Google Alert on Doug Rokke, Douglas Lind Rokke, PhD Education (no, his doctorate does not have anything to do with DU even though the thesis was written after Rokke came back from serving as a Reservist in the Gulf War. I have gotten Rokke's actual military records, his thesis "Perceived Physics Concepts Needed to Teach Secondary Technology Education as General Education" and reports from Rokkes peers and superiors. Rokke is a phony and if he is coming to Cornell, you should go to DUStory at Yahoo Groups and learn about the real Doug Rokke instead of the glib Doug Rokke, charlatan and showman. He is the consumate actor, just realize he is playing an imaginary part, not recounting the actual things that happened.
Reply to Helbig
He makes no effort to debunk the Basra, Canadian, or ABDC reports, all of which show startling correlations between DU exposure and cancers, birth defects and other horrors we would not wish on anyone we "support." Moreover, data published in the journal "Military Medicine" by Canadian researchers support Rokke's allegations.
It seems clear Helbig's intent is *not* to prevent leukemia or birth defects.
Just another Agent Orange
I suppose Roger Helbig is also in the camp that believes that Agent Orange is not a poisonous birth-defect causing chemical based on the military's denials over the decades since the Vietnam War. Like D.U. today, the government hushed up allegations of Agent Orange's harmful impact to silence both America's veterans who were exposed as well as those fighting for the eyeless, armless, deformed children that happen to be born in areas where defoliants were most heavily used during the war. The bottom line is that it would be costly to face facts and own up to the suffering Agent Orange and D.U. have caused, and thanks to people like Roger Helbig, who will spout nonsense to defend the indefensible, the Army will keep on poisoning fetuses without caring about the consequences.
DU in your own backyard
While it's true that a few US governmental agencies have research and have been unable to find a direct link of DU causing cancer. You don't need a PHD in nuclear engineering to figure out that there are many health hazards related to DU. Depleted uranium is still about 70% radioactive than in its original state, but in a more concentrated form than in nature. The military studies disproving the radioactive risks comes with the assumption that there is no cut on the skin (to block alpha and beta radiation) and the person is fully clothed in combat gear (to block gamma radiation). The gratest risk of DU is not radiation, however, it is its toxic effects on the body, especially the kidney. If none of these facts does not raise any concerns regarding DU, I would recommend that you write to your congress representative and ask them to stop spending your tax money to monitor US soliders who are have to undergoes monitoring when exposed to DU. Here is what the military is telling our soliders regarding DU risks. http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du/index.jsp
You may also wonder where the military manufactures DU. The answer is that DU is manufactured in our own backyard. The first issue is that the spent nuclear fuel has to be transported all over our highway and rail system. And then the manufacturing process requires the usage of heavy metal and toxic chemicals. Where does the output of all of this go? Well, we know were the DU ammunition goes, but then where does the rest of the toxic material go?
The answer is that the toxic material ends up in our backyard, along with traces of DU (http://yosemite.epa.gov/...). If the heath and the environmental impact on a land on the other side of the globe does not bother you. Consider the impact in your own drinking water and on your federal taxes.
Nuclear Families brutal honesty by Jeff Purcell
I was extremely disappointed in the article “Nuclear Families brutal honesty” by Jeff Purcell. I had the understanding that Cornell was a highly respected institution of higher learning and am surprised that this article was written from a very biased point of view. If Mr. Purcell had taken time to investigate, he should have been able to find some more reliable sources of information about the toxicity of uranium on his own campus. The first place to look may be the Office of Health Physics since “health physics is the profession devoted to protecting people and their environment from potential radiation hazards”. The study of health effects of uranium is not new and the maladies listed by Dr. Rokke and his associates in the anti-DU movement are not expected effects of uranium. You may wish to check up on Dr. Rokke's claims. Even if a correlation between DU exposure and cancers could be established, you should be aware that correlation does not establish cause and effect. All other possible causes must be investigate. I would like to think of Cornell as a dependable source of truth in that which is published on its web sites.
Jeff Purcell: "Nuclear Families"
I have read many sources re "Depleted" Uranium, and find Mr. Purcell's column to be a fair summary of my reading thus far. Those in doubt would find the large bibliography at Veterans for Peace Chapter 109 (Olympia, WA) to be very informative.
Likewise, please see Thomas Fasy MD, Assoc Prof. of Pathology, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, as interviewed by Truthout in Portland OR on 4/20/07. Dr. Fasy, while stating the chemical (heavy-metal, similar to lead and arsenic) toxicity is probably worse than the radioactivity, pointed out that "DU" is chemically very reactive in binding to the minor groove of DNA, the germ plasm. He agrees with the estimates of birth defects and childhood leukemia in Iraq. VFP Chapter 109 members attended the conference and interviewed him for community television.
Other people studying the effects have included a Professor of Tropical Medicine, Siegwart Horst-Gunther MD, and a leading Hiroshima reporter, Akira Tashiro, who spent four months in world travel and interviews. Both have published books on the subject.
I fully agree with international law expert Karen Parker, that the use of "DU" is a war crime on four counts. It is only "depleted" in lacking U 234 and U235.
George Hill MD
Nuclear Families
Nuclear Families? Let me start by saying that after reading this article, I spent time looking at factual sources on DU. I would suggest anybody that is interested should do what Mr. Purcell clearly didn't do. Research it at credible sources that are not politically aligned. I found good information from WHO and non-governmental, non-political organizations. Mr. Purcell is clearly on a political rant here and cares nothing about facts or science. Jeff made no attempt to find "Truth" - brutal or otherwise.
First, I researched this statement. "One Army physician disagrees with his former superiors. Dr. Doug Rokke served in the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command". Mr. Purcell implies that Mr. Rokke is a physician - which he is not, he has a PHD in EDUCATION. He is NOT an MD. It took two seconds in WIKIPEDIA to find that information. I just don't believe as easy as that was to find, that Jeff didn't find it.
Next I see a great deal of information implying risk from radition. Which I guess we are all suppose to *gasp* at... Natural Uranium is 99.3% U238 and DU is 99.8% (see how useful facts are). There is virtually no difference in the stubstances. The biggest risks from Uranium are chemically. Uranium-238 decay is an "alpha" decay. Yes, I realize Jeff didn't bother mentioning there different kinds of radition. Probably because he didn't want you to know that alpha can't even pentrate the skin... You can effectively shield it with a piece of notebook paper. Everyone is exposed 24x7 to the normal background radiation of the cosmos, raditaion is part of the natural order of things. That 1.5 mr/hr background is of more pentrating radiation (gamma) than Uranium's alpha emission. I guess that fact was ignored because making a political statement of his feelings is more important than truth and fairness.
I decided that if there were documented issues with Uranium exposure, a good place to look would be the industry that mines the mineral. I looking through several sources on that, the only issue identified is that adquate ventilation has to be provided in uranium mines so that Radon-222 doesn't build up. Its not an issue in the open pit mining of Uranium. (Yes, it has been mined in open pits for YEARS before Jeff decided to write his paper)
If Jeff Purcell wants to bash the governement and state his policitcal views, I would die for his right to do that. But this article is factually flawed, biasedly sourced with conviently and myopically selected facts. Given the quality of the work, I hope when it says "Graduate Student", they mean he graduated recently from 6th grade. Perhaps you should change this from "Brutual Truth" to "Biased Rubish".
Misinformation about Depleted Uranium
Purcell falsely portrays Douglas Lind Rokke, PhD Education as an Army physician .. Rokke was an Medic in the Illinois National Guard and he even saved a couples lives when he encounted their auto accident on the way home from drill. He was justly commended for that, but he is not now, nor ever has been a Medical Doctor nor is he now, nor has he ever been qualified to discuss depleted uranium because First Lieutenant Rokke, Army Reserve was a pretty green kid on the block when he was sent to Saudi Arabia and he never led anything there.
Now, Jaime Duong thinks that Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium are the same. They are not; one was knowingly sprayed on jungle canopies when it was known to be an extremely hazardous chemical. The other is a bullet that is fired at tanks and there is a worldwide disinformation campaign by people like Rokke, Leuren Moret, who also likes to convince the world that she is a scientist of some renown who worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when she worked at LLNL all of 8 months and she was a Sr Scientific Technologist in the Computer Lab! Now, she is traipsing up volcanic hillsides in Hawaii with a Geiger counter pretending that she is a "geoscientist" of some renown finding evidence of depleted uranium. I wonder what a true geologist would tell you about the natural radioactive mineral content of the Hawaiian lava flows. I do know that all rocks and soils have some naturally occuring uranium and its decay by products; that is why the uranium-lead decay cycle is used to measure the age of rocks and the age of the Earth.
Since this is a college newspaper of a great university and its community, I would think that the people who read it are the kinds who carefully research and think, not typical knee jerk lemmings who believe everything that they read on the net. The latter would agree with Jaime Duong. He clearly has not made any effort to see if anything that he has read that has been posted by the anti-DU crusade which Purcell appears to have joined is true. If he were to do a more in-depth study and not just accept what Rokke or Moret says is the truth.
If there is anyone in the Geology or Physics Departments at Cornell, please do enlighten Mr Duong and Mr Purcell. Tell them to stick to politics and leave the science to scientists.
Roger Helbig
Agent Orange and DU
My point about Agent Orange wasn't that it's a heavy metal like DU not that it is radioactive. The point I was making was that the Government denied claims that Agent Orange was poisonous, even to their own veterans (the heroes) who came back with all sorts of chemical poisoning and created "flipper babies." The fact that the government has denied the harmful effects of DU is not and never should be taken as proof that it is harmless. The fact remains that regardless what type of radiation it puts out or how long its half-life is, it is a heavy metal, and when DU bullets hit tanks it vaporizes into the air, which, those "misinformed" Iraqis now breath in. If you want definitive proof of DU's harmful effects why don't you go grind some up and snort it, get back to me when your next kid is born without eyes or a mouth.
Death of Army Veteran Dustin Brim; DU
I suggest that readers do a google search on "Dustin Brim" and read what Daytona Beach News Journal Investigative Reporter Audrey Parente wrote. Her non-biased interviews are documented and her interview with Dr. Johnnye Lewis at University of New Mexico can be listened to. Also her interview with Congressman McDermott, Dr. Glen Lawrence, Long Island University among many others on all sides of the issue.