Helen Caldicott’s Back
Helen Caldicott — the woman who claimed that Space Shuttle launches were destroying the ozone layer — is back with a retread of a radiation story ahead of possible U.S. military action in Iraq. This time around, Caldicott has joined in the chorus of those who believe that depleted uranium in some U.S. ammunition and armor used during the Persian Gulf War is causing birth defects and other problems in Iraq.
Depleted uranium is uranium 238 which is generally used to reinforce tank armor and, alternately, in ammunition designed to destroy enemy tanks. The primary advantage of uranium 238 is that uranium is an extremely dense material. In a much-publicized example of the power of depleted uranium armor in the Persian Gulf War, for example, one U.S. tank managed to take close ranged direct hits from three separate Iraqi tanks and not only survive but also managed destroy all three of the enemy tanks.
But according to Caldicott, depleted uranium is still dangerously radioactive,
. . . it is a potent radioactive carcinogen, emitting a relatively heavy alpha particle composed of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. Once inside the body — either in the lung if it has been inhaled, or in a wound if it penetrates flesh, or ingested since it concentrates in the food chain and contaminates water — it can produce cancer in the lungs, bones, blood, or kidneys. Third, it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, meaning the areas in which this ammunition was used in Iraq and Kuwait during Gulf War will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time.
Depleted uranium is, in fact, barely radioactive (otherwise it would not be a very suitable battlefield weapon). In fact, in most parts of the world the top layer of soil is hundreds of times more radioactive than depleted uranium. Aside from weapons, depleted uranium is used as counter weights in aircraft and in radiation shielding for medical equipment.
Caldicott nonetheless claims numerous radiation-related health effects on children from the use of depleted uranium during the Persian Gulf War,
My fellow pediatricians in the Iraqi town of Basra, for example, are reporting an increase of 6 to 12 times in the incidence of childhood leukemia and cancer. Yet because of the sanctions imposed upon Iraq by the United States and United Nations, they have no access to drugs or effective radiation machines to treat their patients.
The incidence of congenital malformations has doubled in the exposed populations in Iraq where these weapons were used. Among them are babies born with only one eye or missing all or part of their brain.
The main problem with this is that the major effect of exposure to uranium is renal problems, which is the major illness that afflicts people who work in uranium mines and are exposed to the substance regularly. There is also some possibility that such workers may have an elevated risk of lung cancer after years of exposure, but separating out miners’ exposure to uranium and radon makes it difficult to establish this with any certainty (elevated risk of lung cancer in uranium miners has usually been ascribed to radon gas exposure given that it is airborne).
Claims of increased levels of birth defects, leukemia and cancers are simply not credible since the Iraqi government has shot down every attempt to independently study the alleged problems.
Source:
Medical consequences of attacking Iraq. Helen Caldicott, San Francisco Chronicle, October 10, 2002.
Tags: Uncategorized