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This is disgusting!!!!
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View this Thread in Original format
| hardcore trancer |
I saw this on another thread,I thought I should post it here as well.I knew about about this subject,but didnt know how harmful it could be!!
Iam very angry and disgusted by what I saw!!I think they should show this to Mr.Bush and really ask him if war is the solution for everything!!!:whip: :whip:
Click here
So whats your opinion?? |
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| NeoPhono |
http://www.post-gazette.com/World/2...leted0326p7.asp
| quote: | | DU is a very dense metal, 1.7 times heavier than lead. It is a byproduct of manufacturing fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors and material for nuclear weapons. Processing leaves it depleted of radioactivity, hence its name. It is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium. |
| quote: | | "Taking into account the pathways and realistic scenarios of human exposure, radiological exposure to depleted uranium could not cause a detectable effect on human health," a European Union study concluded in 2001. |
| quote: | | A 2001 WHO study found that DU's hazards are "likely to be very small." A RAND Corporation study in 1999 and another 2001 project funded by the European Parliament concurred. |
| quote: | The Defense Department is monitoring about 90 Gulf War veterans who were exposed to high levels of DU. Most have DU fragments in their bodies as a result of friendly fire incidents.
No ill effects have been found so far. |
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| Nadi |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
You be the judge at which has more credibility ... the WHO or a flash animation :) |
I'm almost tempted to say flash animation. To me the WHO has very little credibility because of all the studies they commision and then fail to publish, usually when the study proves something that they don't like. |
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| djSlain |
am i supposed to be supporting NON-uranium weapon proliferation?
i'm kind of sensitive to the images in the first few seconds of the flash, so i turned it off after the baby pictures. can someone summarize the rest of the flash? |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by djSlain
am i supposed to be supporting NON-uranium weapon proliferation?
i'm kind of sensitive to the images in the first few seconds of the flash, so i turned it off after the baby pictures. can someone summarize the rest of the flash? |
Propoganda intended to make you hate the U.S./Dubya, which was based on faulty if not complete dis- information.:) |
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| WhoaNellie1487 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Propoganda intended to make you hate the U.S./Dubya, which was based on faulty if not complete dis- information.:) |
Ditto. |
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| DaveSaenz |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
I saw this on another thread,I thought I should post it here as well.I knew about about this subject,but didnt know how harmful it could be!!
Iam very angry and disgusted by what I saw!!I think they should show this to Mr.Bush and really ask him if war is the solution for everything!!!:whip: :whip:
Click here
So whats your opinion?? |
You seem very easily manipulated.
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Propoganda intended to make you hate the U.S./Dubya, which was based on faulty if not complete dis- information.:) |
The fact that he appointed industry lobbyists to the EPA, an organization charged with protecting people and the environment they inhabit, makes me hate him enough. I certainly don't need misleading flash animations for that. :)
I'll always love my country (the land and people at least, if not the government). ;) |
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| Renegade |
I'm amazed at how quickly information admonishing the US government is taken on board, and how quickly contrasting views are dismissed as "propoganda" or "faulty if not complete dis- information". First of all, let's deal with the WHO health study which examines the use of of DU in the Kosovan conflict.
First of all, it must be said, that the health issues prevelent after the first Iraq conflict do not seem to be present in the same degree after the Kosovan conflict. This may have something to do with the amount of DU tipped rounds used (31,000 compared to 783,500 in the Gulf War according to the report) or the fact that the study was conducted a fairly short time after the conflict (less than 2 years later) when many of the negative health effects may not have surfaced. However, there does not appear to be any negative civilian health patterns that can be linked to DU in Kosovo (at least, none that I could find) nor do there seem to be the same sorts of military-side health concerns (there were incidents of leukemia, but they seem to correlate with the normal, statistical likelihood of contracting leukemia - see here).
However, the WHO study seems to focus heavily on the short term effects of uranium ingestion (mainly renal toxicity and health-related consequences) without seeming to explore the possible long term effects of inhaled, aerosolized uranium which - even according to the WHO report - "cannot be expelled" once it is inhaled. Firstly the rates of absorbtion are much higher when DU is inhaled rather than ingested (20% against 2% - see here) and secondly there does appear to be some conjecture about how quickly this uranium is expelled once it enters the body. The WHO is operating under the assumption that most of the uranium can be expelled "within 24 hours" after absorbtion, yet uranium is still detectable in the urine of veterans 12 years later.
According to a study conducted by the UMRC:
| quote: | | In a group of thirteen veterans whose urine was quantitatively analyzed for DU isotopes by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) nine years after exposure, five tested positive for the presence of DU. |
http://www.umrc.net/Abstract_WLCC_Vancouver2003.asp
Therefore, contrary to what we might otherwise expect to see, reminents of DU have continued, in some cases, to exist in the body many years after the absorbtion of a "maximum permissible inhalational dose of uranium". Given that "the deleterious biological and medical effects of internalised uranium multiply over time" (see here)(or, put simply, the longer you have uranium in your blood stream, the greater your chance of becoming ill) it would be difficult to accept the WHO when they suggest that DU poses a negligable risk when they fail to take into account this long-term exposure to DU (none of the scenarios seem to factor in such long-term concerns). From the same link given above, we can see that the greatest dangers posed by DU are not the immediate health worries (renal contamination in the case of ingestion) but effects of long-term exposure to uranium, necessitated by the long metabolic life cycle of "aerolised" uranium (which enters the body though inhalation of exploded DU ordinance):
| quote: | It is well known that the primary mechanism of uranium internal contamination of Persian Gulf and Balkan veterans is inhalation of air-borne particulate from ballistically pulverised and thermally aerosolised DU-alloyed penetrators and armour-defeat ordnance. Uranium oxides entering the body through the lungs have a long metabolic life cycle. They are incorporated into organs and tissues over many years, perhaps permanently.
Whereas 90% or more of orally ingested uranium particulate and DU oxides are eliminated by the body’s normal metabolic processes within 48 hours, inhaled uranium contaminant is incorporated into various tissues and organs. Depending on such factors as solubility, size and chemistry of the particulate (affected by the thermo-ballistics of the weapon and environmental conditions), portions will be eliminated immediately while other portions will be housed in “target organs” (e.g., lungs, bone, spleen, liver, lymph glands, brain) to be slowly released over the life of the veteran. |
So it is quite clear here that inhaled DU is not broken down or expelled from the body quickly, that it will exist in the body for a long time and that it will spread to "target organs". Given this, what exactly are the potential dangers of such long-term DU contamination?
Firstly there is a undeniable link between long term DU exposure and the formation of cancer and tumours due to its mutigenic effect on the body:
| quote: | Previous studies at AFFRI indicate that exposure to DU or HMTA causes changes in cells, both in vivo and in vitro, suggesting that DU has carcinogenic potential.
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Urine from DU-implanted animals was mutagenic; a consequence of the presence of excreted DU. Exposure of cultured human bone cells to DU or HMTA resulted in a transformation of those cells to a type with biochemical and growth characteristics typical of tumor cells. The magnitude of transformation observed with DU and HMTA was similar to that observed with the known heavy metal carcinogen, nickel. These cells, once transformed, produced tumors when injected into immune deficient mice. DU and HMTA were also shown to be genotoxic and mutagenic in model system studies. |
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsear...er/DoD122.shtml
Also:
| quote: | | DU was found to be mutagenic, and it transformed human osteoblast cells to a tumorigenic phenotype. It also altered neurophysiological parameters in rat hippocampus, crossed the placental barrier, and entered fetal tissue. |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...7&dopt=Abstract
So DU is mutagenic and "cross[es] the placental barrier, and enter[s] fetal tissue"? Just a hunch, but could this explain the rise in horrendous birth defects ("in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births" - see here), in the absence of any competing theories - observed in Southern Iraq? Could its carcinogenic properties of long-term exposure to DU also explain the rise in cancer in Southern Iraq during the same period?
| quote: | | Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths. |
(Same link as above)
Even the WHO reports report a 50% increase in cancer incidents between 1991 and 1992 and that "[reported cases of] leukemia, in general, is 6 times higher than reported cases in 1989 and is 10 times higher in the southern Governorates" (see here).
(I couldn't find any long-term cancer trends in Iraq on the WHO website - it only goes up to 1994 in this article.)
But it's not just the civilian population the feel the effects, the troops suffer as well:
| quote: | "DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.
Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.
Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring. |
(url provided above.)
| quote: | The military admitted that they were finding uranium excreted in the semen of the soldiers. If you’ve got uranium in the semen, the genetics are messed up. So when the children were conceived—the alpha particles cause such tremendous cell damage and genetics damage that everything goes bad. Studies have found that male soldiers who served in the Gulf War were almost twice as likely to have a child with a birth defect and female soldiers almost three times as likely.
[...]
When we first got assigned to clean up the DU and arrived in northern Saudi Arabia, we started getting sick within 72 hours. Respiratory problems, rashes, bleeding, open sores started almost immediately.
When you have a mass dose of radioactive particulates and you start breathing that in, the deposit sits in the back of the pharynx, where the cancer started initially on the first guy. It doesn’t take a lot of time. I had a father and son working with me. The father is already dead from lung cancer, and the sick son is still denied medical care.
[...]
According to the Department of Defense’s own guidelines put out in 1992, any excretion level in the urine above 15 micrograms of uranium per day should result in immediate medical testing, and when you get up to 250 micrograms of total uranium excreted per day, you’re supposed to be under continuous medical care.
Finally the US Department of Energy performed a radiobioassay on me in November 1994, while I was director of the Depleted Uranium Project for the Department of Defense. My excretion rate was approximately 1500 micrograms per day. My level was 5 to 6 times beyond the level that requires continuous medical care.
But they didn’t tell me for two and a half years. |
http://www.yesmagazine.org/25enviro...ealth/rokke.htm
Now it should be pointed out that, despite reports such as these of negative health consequences for those likely to be engaged in activities that my lead to its inhalation, Depleted Uranium is likely not related to what is popularly known as the "Gulf War Sydrome". Those suffering (or claiming to be suffering) from the group of symptoms known by this name don't appear to have symptoms generally connected to ingenstion of DU. Besides which:
| quote: | | The less than 1% of Gulf War veterans complaining of symptoms were spread almost evenly throughout the Gulf War theater. No particular platoon or region shows any increased rate of occurance characteristic of the release of a real weapon. |
http://www.biofact.com/gulf/
Nonetheless, while the effects of the use of DU may not be quite as widespread as many claim (i.e. negative effects seem limited to those who may have inhaled exploded DU ordinance - merely coming into contact with DU weapons will not cause negative consequences due to its low dermatological absorbtion rate and low radiation levels) there are undeniable health risks associated with it. It's difficult to inextricably associate the increased incidents of cancer and birth defects in Southern Iraq with the use of DU ordinance, but the theoretical connections between DU and these sorts of incidents are undeniable.
So what am I saying? Firstly, that such connections cannot be made definitively, but there is some compelling evidence linking them. Secondly, until these connections are either proven or dismissed, the continued use of Depleted Uranium in munitions is an unjustifiable risk. The nations who use such weapons are obliged to do the necessary research into possible long-term health effects the weapons may have on the troops (considering few veterans are ever tested and that reports on DU use are rarely published by the governments - see here) and civilian populations. Until it can be demonstrated that:
1) The use of Depleted Uranium is not in any way related to the negative health effects suffered by those who may have inhaled its aerolised variant.
2) The carcinogenic and mutigenic properties of DU uncovered in labaratory tests are false or non-existent.
Then I cannot see any rational justification for the continuing use of these weapons, considering the risks they pose. If you can dismiss the medical evidence supporting their deleterious effects, or offer some other explanation for the rise in birth defects and cancer for those exposed to it, then I'll be happy to drop the case, but until then, the insistence that the use of DU is perfectly safe would appear to be grossly inaccurate. |
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| biznology |
Eh Renegade, youre just spreading anti-Bush propaganda!:p :toothless
Seriously, this problem isnt even a Bush issue, because you could blame all of the last 5 presidents, if not more for the research and military spending that resulted in these weapons| |
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| Heinz |
depleted uranium comes from nature. so its all natural biodegradable(4.5billion years, but stil biodegradable) safe weapon to use. but hey, those pictures should not be saying, stop going to war, and the usa is bad. i think it says "dont with usa and bush, or your children will have eyes growing on the back of they heads and testicles hanging out of they nipples.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
and renegade, far to ing long to read. i didnt even bother, but i what i see its anti bush, so what, everyones anti bush. im anti-macdonalds in afghanistan but do you see me bashing them? NO |
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| dj adagnitio |
| quote: | Originally posted by Heinz
depleted uranium comes from nature. so its all natural biodegradable(4.5billion years, but stil biodegradable) safe weapon to use. but hey, those pictures should not be saying, stop going to war, and the usa is bad. i think it says "dont with usa and bush, or your children will have eyes growing on the back of they heads and testicles hanging out of they nipples.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
and renegade, far to ing long to read. i didnt even bother, but i what i see its anti bush, so what, everyones anti bush. im anti-macdonalds in afghanistan but do you see me bashing them? NO |
Why don't you take a minute to read the thing before you make assumptions about it? I did take the time to read Renegades post and it was both very well articulated and very interesting. He discussed the issue of depleted uranium weapons without really making it very political, and he backed up what he was saying with sources. |
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