Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans
by Paul Zimmerman
The United States insists that weapons containing depleted uranium
pose no health hazards to exposed populations. This charade persists because an
artful propaganda matrix has infiltrated and corrupted certain aspects of the
radiation and biological sciences. The facts which follow will introduce how
our debilitated veterans are being misinformed of the possible role played by
uranium in their illnesses.
1. Within the medical system of the Veterans Administration, veterans are
misled into believing that no medical test exists that can determine DU
contamination. This stance was echoed in a 2006 study by the Institute of
Medicine, lauded as “...the authoritative word on Gulf War Illness” (1). In the
preface of the IOM’s definitive study, this quote appears: “Although there is a
blood test that can provide an indication of exposure to Agent Orange and dioxin
that occurred many years ago, there is not (sic) biological measure that can be
employed today to assess exposures during the Gulf War” (2).
This statement is a lie. A protocol does exist which can determine depleted
uranium contamination years after the exposure event. The methodology was
published in 2002 by Durakovic, Horan and Dietz (3). Essentially it involves
collecting a 24-hour urine sample and analyzing the uranium content by means of
multicollector, inductively coupled plasma ionization mass spectrometry. By
this means the relative concentration of the different uranium isotopes can be
measured. This information can then be used to determine whether or not the
test subject was contaminated with DU. This test has been reproduced by a
number of research groups around the world and has been confirmed as the
state-of-the-art means of accurately determining DU exposure. The Veterans
Administration ignores this scientific breakthrough and does not offer it to
veterans attempting to come to terms with the cause of their illnesses.
2. The US government ardently wishes to convince the public that the only
battlefield hazard posed by DU munitions is shrapnel injuries. Again, the
Institute of Medicine study succinctly states this position: “...it is now
understood that retention of DU-containing embedded shrapnel is the major source
of increased DU exposure in military personnel.” This too is a lie. Its
purpose is to draw attention away from the inhalation pathway. In the study by
Durakovic et al. mentioned above, 27 veterans were studied. All
presented complex, nonspecific symptoms of Gulf War Illness. None of them had
suffered shrapnel injury. Among this cohort, 14 were found to have been
contaminated with depleted uranium. It is important to note that this test was
conducted nine years after the Gulf War, demonstrating the long residency time
of inhaled uranium and the ability to identify such contamination years after
the exposure event.
3. According to conventional wisdom, there are two vectors to uranium’s
toxicity: it is radioactive and it is a heavy metal capable of producing
adverse chemical effects. These two phenomenon are usually treated separately
despite the fact that abundant research has proven that the two work
synergistically, each enhancing the deleterious effects of the other. Uranium’s
radioactivity is rejected out of hand as hazardous because the “dose” of
radiation likely to be absorbed on the contaminated battlefield is too low to
produce cancer. Cancer? Why does cancer enter the discussion of the unexplained
illness of Gulf War veterans? Unbeknownst to most people, the current science
of radiation safety confines itself to cancer causation. This is a
sophisticated ruse that has held sway over radiation protection for half a
century. There exists a large body of research on noncancerous effects of
radiation that is ignored by the international radiation protection community
and the Veterans Administration. [A complete explanation can be found in (4) in
the bibliography].
As for uranium’s chemical toxicity, typical acute exposure events prior to the
first Gulf War, such as with uranium miners, led to the determination that the
kidney was the organ most susceptible to damage. However, battlefield exposure
has no corollary to any other type of uranium exposure and, as a consequence,
may produce unique physiological effects. In no other circumstances do humans
inhale aerosolized micro- and nano-sized particles of highly insoluble ceramic
uranium-bearing material. Innovative research is urgently needed to confirm if
other types of injury may be initiated in the contaminated individual that
bypasses observable damage to the kidney. (See discussion below).
4. The first Gulf War ignited a renewed interest in the toxicology of uranium.
Numerous laboratory studies have documented that uranium is genotoxic (capable
of damaging DNA), cytotoxic (poisonous to cells), mutagenic (capable of inducing
mutations), teratogenic (capable of interfering with normal embryonic
development) and neurotoxic (capable of harming nerve tissue). This research
has yet to dislodge the stale mantra that uranium is only capable of causing
cancer or kidney damage. [For an extensive review of recent research on the
toxicology of uranium, see (4)].
5. Here’s an example of blatant medical fraud. A veteran suffering from the
undiagnosed illness commonly referred to as Gulf War Syndrome, goes to his
doctor concerned that uranium exposure may have been a factor in his
deteriorating condition. In response, the physician orders a test to measure
the total concentration of uranium in a 24-hour urine sample. (This is an
entirely different test from the one described earlier.) When the test results
return from the lab, the GI is informed that the amount of uranium in his urine
is within the normal range. Uranium contamination is not a problem. What he is
not told is that this was a foregone conclusion. Why? Because he was given the
wrong diagnostic test!
In accidents where people absorb into their bodies an abnormal amount of
uranium, the soluble portion relatively rapidly enters the blood, is transported
to the kidneys and is then excreted. During this period, measured in days to
weeks, the uranium concentration in the urine will be elevated while the body
efficiently goes about ridding itself of excess uranium. Measurement of total
uranium in urine during this time will demonstrate abnormally high levels which
can be used to determine if kidney damage is a possible concern. Similarly, a
veteran injured by shrapnel will show an elevated concentration of uranium in
his urine for years as uranium slowly dissolves from the metal fragments in his
body. In the case of inhalation exposure, measurement of total uranium would be
elevated only if measured on the battlefield soon after exposure while the
soluble fraction of uranium is being eliminated from the body. But conducted
years after exposure, the test would provide no useful information because
uranium levels would have returned to within the normal range. What’s not being
addressed is the fate of the insoluble portion of the absorbed uranium. This
uranium dissolves very slowly, over a period of years. While this is taking
place, the total concentration of uranium in the urine may never rise above the
normal range. If a veteran wants to know whether he is carrying depleted
uranium in his body years after exposure, he requires the proper diagnostic
test, the one mentioned in #1 above.
5. The war is Bosnia was fought between March 1992 and November 1995. In its
aftermath, soldiers serving in the former Yugoslavian army, staffers of
humanitarian missions and Yugoslavian residents began manifesting symptoms of
some unidentified illness similar to that suffered by US soldiers who served in
the Gulf. Belatedly, NATO announced in 2000 that munitions containing depleted
uranium had been fired on the Bosnian battlefields. This revelation was
groundbreaking. The Bosnian theater contained none of the risk factors for Gulf
War Illness that veterans were exposed to who served in Iraq and Kuwait such as
oil well fires, vaccines for anthrax or botulinum toxins, Iraqi chemical and
biological warfare agents, etc. The only factor that linked the two theaters
together were DU munitions.
Using an innovative technique of electronic microscopy, Antonietta Gatti and
Stephano Montanari analyzed tissue samples taken from those suffering so-called
Balkan War Syndrome (5). Every tissue sample and lymph node that was examined
contained spherical, combustion-derived metal-alloyed microparticles and
nanoparticles. To confirm an environmental origin of this debris, the
researchers noted that particles found in the tissues of diseased soldiers and
civilians were “mutually compatible” with those found on the ground in the
territories where battles had been fought and where the pathologies were
contracted.
This avenue of investigation reveals a third vector of DU’s toxicity which acts
synergistically with DU’s radiation and chemical effects. Nanoparticles have
recently received a great deal of attention due the numerous proposed
applications of nanotechnology, the use of materials smaller than 100 nanometers
(0.1 microns). Nanoparticles have been shown to exhibit many unusual
properties. They possess the ability to pass directly through certain tissue
types, travel along neurons, escape filtration from the blood by the spleen and
the liver, and avoid immune system detection by macrophages. These unusual
characteristics give nanoparticles ready access to all tissues of the body.
While circulating through the body, their surface chemistry provides a platform
for ongoing heavy metal interactions with the body’s molecular makeup. Thus,
insoluble uranium nanoparticles represent point sources for chronic chemical and
radiological poisoning to the body’s interior. In addition, nanoparticles of
many different compositions have been implicated in initiating inflammation,
oxidative stress and gene activation.
With over 100,000 Gulf War veterans ill with an undiagnosed illness, one would
think that the work of Gatti and Montanari would have stimulated medical
follow-up among researchers sincerely interested in exploring the origins of
Gulf War Illness. However, their work has so far remained ignored by the
Veterans Administration.
6. On August 20, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired an episode in its series
Conspiracy Test entitled “Gulf War Illness”. During the program, the results
of research undertaken at the Molecular Medicine and Genetics Lab at Wayne State
University were presented. In a preliminary study supervised by Dr. Henry Heng,
blood samples were collected from five veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who were
suffering symptoms of the undiagnosed illness they had contracted while in
military service. All had previously tested positive for the presence of DU in
their urine and none had served in any area of Iraq where possible exposure to
chemical warfare agents might have occurred as a result of the destruction of
weapon caches at Khamisiyah. Using spectral karyotyping (SKY), Heng and his
graduate students imaged and analyzed the chromosome structure of blood cells in
each of the veterans. What Heng and his colleagues found using this technique
was startling. The karyotype of each of the veterans clearly displayed
significant levels of chromosome damage. According to Heng, the damage widely
exceeded that observed in cancer patients. Translocations, broken chromosomes,
centromere displacements and aneuploidy (a gain or loss in the number of
chromosomes) were observed. According to Heng, the chromosome aberrations
observed were typical of the type of damage produced by radiation. This is
another avenue of investigation ignored by VA.
7. In 2003, Heike Schröder and her research associates published a study of 16
British Gulf War and Balkan War veterans who suspected that they had been
exposed to depleted uranium. When compared to suitable controls, the study
group demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the frequency of
dicentric chromosomes and centric-ring chromosomes in peripheral lymphocytes
(6). (These aberrantly shaped chromosomes are created when two double-strand
breaks in DNA are improperly repaired, either between the DNA from two separate
chromosomes or within the DNA of a single chromosome. The elevated occurrence
of these in individuals serves as a biological indicator of exposure to ionizing
radiation.)
The findings of Schröder and her colleagues are extremely significant. The
observed chromosome aberration frequency they observed should not have been
occurring at the “dose” delivered by battlefield DU. According to the authors:
“However, as dicentric chromosomes are reliable indicators of ionizing
radiation, our findings contradict official releases from the IAEA, the WHO, the
MOD and the DOE, stating that the radiotoxicity of DU would be negligible” (7).
A further bewildering discovery was that the observed chromosome aberrations
should not have been so prevalent 10 years after exposure, which was when the
veterans in this study were tested. Schröder offered the observation that
soluble DU would have been flushed from the bodies of test subjects relatively
soon after exposure. Further, the biological half-life of dicentric chromosomes
is 3.5 years. As a consequence, the observed chromosome aberrations could not
have been produced at the time of the exposure event. So how were they
produced? Schröder proposed that the chromosome aberrations were a
manifestation of ongoing damage to the body’s interior produced by the radiation
emitted from insoluble particles that were lodged in the body since the moment
they were absorbed on the contaminated battlefield.
The scientific research mentioned above clearly suggests that depleted uranium
is a factor in the undiagnosed illness suffered by veterans. Yet numerous
publications from the world’s guardian institutions continue to proclaim that
this is impossible. The VA has aligned itself with this political propaganda
and, in the process, makes a mockery of science.
To conclude, the Veterans Administration is being lackadaisical at best,
criminally negligent at worst, in its treatment of veterans suffering from
symptoms of so-called Gulf War Illness. Valuable avenues of research are being
intentionally ignored because they raise disturbing questions of the impact to
health from radioactive material released into the environment. Rather than
throw a disparaging light on cherished weapon systems, our cherished veterans
are being abused by an uncaring medical system.
Paul Zimmerman is the author of A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult
of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science. Excerpts, free to
download, are available at www.du-deceptions.com.
Bibliography
1. Sartin J.S. “Gulf War Syndrome: The Final Chapter?” Mayo Clinic
Proceedings. 2006; 81(11):1425-1426.
2. Institute of Medicine. Committee on Gulf War and Health. A Review of the
Medical Literature Relative to the Gulf War Veterans’ Health. Gulf War and
Health. Volume 4: Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington,
DC: National Academies Press; 2006.
3. Durakovic A., Horan P., Dietz L. “The Quantitative Analysis of Depleted
Uranium Isotopes in British, Canadian, and U.S. Gulf War Veterans”. Military
Medicine. 2002; 167(8):620-627.
4. Zimmerman P. A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists,
Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science. August, 2009. www.du-deceptions.com
5. Gatti A.M., Montanari S. “So-called Balkan Syndrome: A Bioengineering
Approach”. Emilia, Italy: Laboratory of Biomaterials of the University of
Modena and Reggio; February 2004.
http://www.idust.net/Docs/Nanoparticles01
6. Schröder H. Presentation at the World Uranium Weapons Conference. October
16-19, 2003. University of Hamburg, Germany.
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_hamburg03.html
7. Schröder H., Heimers A., Frentzel-Beyme R., Schott A., Hoffmann W.
Chromosome Aberration Analysis in Peripheral Lymphocytes of Gulf War and Balkans
War Veterans. Radiation Protection Dosimetry. 2003; 103(3):211-219.
To order the book, choose a quantity and click the button below.
The price for each book is $35.00 USD plus $5 for shipping in the US. Due to the weight of the book (1 Kg/2 lbs) shipping charges to Canada are $12 and $23 for worldwide shipping.
2Checkout.com, Inc. is an authorized retailer of dudeceptions.com
