CADU NEWS 10
Spring 2002

Contents
- Ministry of Defence admits DU may damage health
- DU Days of Action
- Second Part of Royal Society Report into DU
- UNEP Report on DU in Balkans
- International DU Conference held in Baghdad
- CADU's position on UK/US potential attacks on Iraq
- DU Afghanistan Report available
- US Hypocrisy on DU in Afghanistan
- US Cancers attributable to nuclear testing fall-out
- Fighting DU in South Africa
- Six deaths in Vieques
- DU in Sardinia
- 15 activists found guilty of speaking the truth
- Environment Agency report on uses of DU in UK
- Gulf War Illness a Myth!!!
- DU Arms Manufacturing moving to Barrow and Sheffield
- BNFL DU Controversy
- Increase in accidents involving transportation of radioactive materials
- UK buying tungsten surrogate
- Our New Worker
- 16th Low-Level Radiation & Health Conference

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Ministry of Defence admits DU may damage health

In an abrupt turnaround from its previous position, the Ministry of Defence is to carry out an inquiry into the potential effects on the health of the Armed Forces handling DU ammunition.
The Ministry of Defence has always refused to accept any conclusive link between cancer and the use of DU ammunition. However, after recommendations from the Royal Society (see below), the Ministry has now decided to conduct a study "to identify any links between exposure to depleted uranium and ill health", including a review of the "effects of depleted uranium inhalation on the pulmonary lymph nodes". The Ministry of Defence inquiry will cover the effects of used DU shells on soil and marine environments. A key development is that the inquiry will also investigate safer alternatives to the use of DU.

The MoD was still keen to stress that it believed "DU munitions to pose an actual health risk under only the most extreme of conditions". However given that is was only last October that Geoffrey Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence said "that recent hysteria over the impact of firing DU on health and the environment was without factual foundation" it is clear that their hand has been forced to at least give the appearance of concern.

Anti-DU campaigners are advised not to get too excited however. As many recent reports, including those of the Royal Society and UNEP, have shown the data used is often inadequate or biased and have the tendency to find only what those commissioning them want to find. The MoD makes it clear that is has no intention of stopping the use of DU munitions whatever the outcome of the research but instead states that "DU will remain in the UK inventory for the foreseeable future" and indeed that there"is a need…to extend the capability of those DU munitions currently available to the UK Armed Forces."

As Ray Bristow, of The Gulf War Veterans and Families Association, points out internal studies have been available to the military since 1990 that concluded that DU was harmful to the health of combatants of both sides in addition to the local civilian population and the environment. The MoD has always chosen to ignore such reports in the past as well as mounting evidence of ill health in soldiers who served in the Gulf and Balkan wars and the Iraqi population. While campaigners should be proud of the fact that through their efforts the ill effects and environmental contamination of DU are being exposed we must always be vigilant for attempts at official whitewashing of facts and sidelining of public concerns.
The Ministry of Defence press release and research proposal can be found at: http://news.mod.uk/news/press/news_headline_story.asp?newsItem_id=1552

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DU Days of Action - Please Circulate Widely

CADU is calling an International Day of Action against DU on Wednesday 29th May. We are networking the idea as widely as possible and asking as many people as possible to get involved at this crucial time in the movement against DU. Please start thinking of actions related to depleted uranium that could be done in your local area, from public awareness raising to targeting businesses involved in DU proliferation or condemning governments that promote its use (a list of DU related sites will be on our website shortly). Let us know any ideas that people think of to make this day really exciting and please publicise the date as widely as possible. We are trying to get groups all over the world involved to make this a truly effective protest against the dangers of Depleted Uranium.

In the run-up to this day of action, CADU will be organising an action on Thursday 25th April. If you are in the North West area, and would like to participate, please let us know, and we will let you have more details.

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Second Part of the Royal Society Report into DU

On the 18th March the Royal Society released the second part of their report into the health effects of DU. In 2001 The Royal Society published a report on the radiological hazards of the heavy metal, that even despite finding that troops in a tank who survived being hit by a DU shell could double their risk of dying from lung cancer, was heavily criticised for its flawed data and inadequate assessment of risk.

This second report concentrates on the chemical and long-term environmental risks. The report points out there are still many "uncertainties" in research into the health and environmental effects of Depleted Uranium and that much future research needs to be done to ascertain long-term risks.

Although its findings will be of no surprise to those who have followed the campaign against DU the report goes much further in admitting that there are significant health effects both to those immediately exposed to DU and to the present and future generations of people living in areas exposed to DU contamination. However there are still significant omissions from the report that suggest there is still not a concerted will to reveal the real damage that DU munitions pose.

Among the findings of the report is evidence that short and long term damage to the kidney function is possible through DU exposure including cases where "Kidney uranium levels in some of these soldiers could be very high and would probably lead to kidney failure within a few days of exposure," Respiratory damage is also a consequence of exposure and it admits evidence that DU can cause damage to genetic resources, DNA and reproductive health. There will be long term exposure to those returning to areas where DU has been deployed, including through contaminated food and water supplies and over time with leakage into the environment "the proportion of exposure from intakes of DU from contaminated water sources will increase."

The report makes a number of recommendations including long-term epidemiological studies in those exposed, the need for long-term environmental sampling, and that "the Localized areas of DU contamination provide a risk, particularly to young children, and areas should be cleared of visible penetrators and DU contamination removed from areas around known penetrator impacts."

Given the extremely alarming nature of these findings it would be commonsense that these recommendations should be implemented immediately. Yet despite reporting these consequences of DU use the Royal Society report concludes that even for soldiers on the battlefield exposure levels would be too low to generally have any "adverse effect" on any organ. Dr Chris Busby of the Low Level Radiation Campaign made a series of suggestions to the report's draft copy all of which were ignored in the final copy which have led him to conclude that "there was no real intention to research the area except in ways that were guaranteed not to find anything." Similarly Malcolm Hooper, Chief Medical advisor to the British Gulf War Veterans argues, "This is an attempt to give a scientific imprimatur to the stance of the government, which is unacceptable". The question is how much health and environmental damage has to be "proved" before the risks of DU use is taken seriously by the political and military establishment!

The report is available at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/policy/du.htm

CADU has prepared a response to the second part of the Royal Society report.

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UNEP Report on DU in the Balkans

The United Nations Environment Programme also released the second part of its study into the effects of DU use in the Balkans with "Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment in the federal Republic of Yugoslavia". The first report on Depleted Uranium in Kosovo in 2001 was strongly criticised by Dr Chris Busby in the European Parliament for having incorrect data and an analysis of the results that was either "biased or badly interpreted".

The second UNEP report has new evidence of the far ranging and long lasting contamination caused by the use of DU munitions. It found that of the six sites it examined over two years after the end of the conflict "widespread DU contamination" was present at five, in soil samples taken. As the report states, "This indicates that during the conflict, DU dust was widely dispersed into the environment following the explosion of DU rounds". With unexploded munitions the team found "the penetrators recovered by the UNEP team had decreased in mass by 10-15 % due to corrosion. This has important implications for decontamination approaches as well as for future risks of groundwater contamination and monitoring needs."

Airborne DU particles were also detected at two of the six sites measured, which "highlights important risks associated with soil disturbance at DU sites. As a result, necessary precautions should be taken during decontamination or construction works at DU sites." Moreover "while the Cape Arza site in Montenegro had undergone comprehensive decontamination involving the removal of two tons of rock, soil and humus, low-level contamination could still be detected by the UNEP team. This result shows that complete site decontamination is very difficult to achieve when funds are a limiting factor."

One would think that taken together these findings would constitute a very good case to indicate the inhumane and unacceptable risks that DU poses to civilian populations and future generations, and yet again we see that the report concludes that "the findings of this study in Serbia and Montenegro are consistent with the findings of UNEP's DU study in Kosovo (2001). No alarming levels of DU contamination were detected". Again we have to ask how high do the risks have to be to be considered too high? How much radiological and toxic pollution is too much? Journalist Robert James Parsons has noted of the report that:
"Only six sites were visited, and all of them had been already cleaned up by the Yugoslav federal authorities before the visits.

The standards used for assessing contamination danger were those of the World Health Organization and International Commission for Radiological Protection, which are based on norms built on studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb blast victims (one-event, external radiation), revised over the years. When pressed on the inappropriateness of these norms for measuring internal radiation, they admitted that this was so, saying that they had been more or less constrained to keep to the WHO standards. Nonetheless, he also admitted that the real danger was from inhalation of air-borne particles.

A report submitted to the team by the Montenegrin government about chromosome problems among people working on the DU clean-up sites was referred to the WHO, whose Dr Repacholi claimed that there was not enough evidence to draw firm conclusions, without, of course, proposing a proper epidemiological study to settle the matter."

The second UNEP Balkans study is at: http://postconflict.unep.ch/

CADU is compiling a full response to the UNEP report which will be available at our website shortly. To see Chris Busby's response to the initial report, look at the Low Level Radiation Campaign website;www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/uneprept.htm

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International DU Conference Held in Baghdad

A two day conference was held in Iraq, on the 26th and 27th of March, to examine the effects on health of depleted uranium munitions used by U.S.-led forces during the Gulf War, which it says have caused a rise in cancer in Iraq.

"The conference is to meet the urgent need for researchers and specialists in Iraq and other countries to define negative impacts of DU weapons on humans and the environment," Education Minister Fahad Salim al-Shaqra said in his opening speech. Experts at the two-day conference, organised by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, include researchers from Egypt, Thailand and Yemen.

Cancer rates among children have almost trebled from four cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 in 1999. Congenital deformities in Basra, southern Iraq, increased four-fold from 1990 to 1999. "The cancer rate increased among children 242% in 1999, whereas leukaemia cases increased by 100% in the same year compared with 1990's figures," Shaqra added. Shaqra said incidence of cancers of the breast, thyroid gland and lymphatic system also rose.

An Iraqi vet said on Saturday thousands of fish that have died at fish farms near Baghdad were poisoned by munitions used by British and U.S. forces.
In November, after lobbying from Washington, the U.N. General Assembly voted against an Iraqi proposal for a U.N.-backed study into the effects of depleted uranium used in the Gulf War.

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CADU's position on any UK/US attack on Iraq

CADU strongly opposes any attack by either the US or the UK on Iraq, and demands that the UK government condemn US moves in this direction. This would be an act of unprovoked aggression clearly illegal under international law, as Iraq has in no way been linked to the September 11th attacks. Hundreds of thousands of people have already died as a result of the US and British-led embargo on Iraq, that has prevented essential food, medicine and cancer-detecting equipment from reaching the Iraqi population.

Iraq has suffered US bombing raids on a daily basis since the end of the last conflict in 1999, and any renewed full-scale attack would only add to the prolonged suffering of the innocent people in Iraq.

Please write to your MP and encourage them to sign up to Alice Mahon's Early Day Motion opposing military action against Iraq at this time. 140 MP's are already signed up - for a list, see the House of Commons website http://edm.ais.co.uk

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DU in Afghanistan Report Available

Dai Williams' extensive report into the highly probable use of Depleted Uranium in Afghanistan, as reported in the last issue of CADU news -http://www.cadu.org.uk/news9.htm, is finished and available on-line.
There has been very little media reporting, and almost none in the UK, on its contents despite it being circulated by management around several UN agencies, which suggests this may be due to something more deliberate than accidental.
It can be found at:
http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm

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U.S. Hypocrisy

In January U.S. Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfield, said that the U.S. had found radiation in Afghanistan - but that it was from DU warheads belonging to Al-Qaeda. U.S. officials say that uranium-238 found in an al-Qaeda facility in Afghanistan was intended for "dirty bombs" that would "spread radioactive material over a wide area. In addition to killing people in the bomb blast and poisoning others with radiation such a bomb could render large areas unusable and require lengthy and expensive clean-up efforts."

The U.S. has done exactly this with uranium-238 in bombing Iraq in 1991 (320 tons of U-238), Bosnia in 1995 (3 tons), and Kosovo in 1999 (10 tons). But when the U.S. Air Force uses U-238, it is called "depleted uranium."

When the UN General Assembly was asked on November 29th to study the effects, in Iraq, of radiation from the U.S. U-238 bombardment, the U.S. lobbied so strongly against the resolution that it failed 45 to 54 with 45 abstentions.

For 12 years the Pentagon has claimed that U-238 weapons don't poison the earth or cause cancer. Why then is the U.S. so opposed to studying its effects? How can the US call the threat of U-238 by others an act of terror without condemning its own Air Force?

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U.S. Cancers Attributable to Nuclear Testing Fallout, Government Study Shows

An estimated 80,000 people who lived in or were born in the United States between the years 1951 and 2000 will contract cancer as a result of the fallout caused by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, according to an analysis of government studies by the Institute for Energy and Environmental, Research. Well over 15,000 of these cases would be fatal.

"This report and other official data show that hot spots occurred thousands of miles away from the test sites," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "The new fallout maps and radiation dose estimates show that nuclear weapons states not only harmed their own people but also people in other countries."

Despite this classified reports leaked from the Pentagon of its' "nuclear posture review" show plans to develop a whole new generation of "mini-nukes"!
The most recent government study, a fact sheet, and official fallout maps are posted on the IEER web site http://www.ieer.org.

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Fighting Depleted Uranium in South Africa

Muna Lakhani is one of the co-ordinators of the Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Some of the projects they are currently involved in include fighting a proposed Radioactive Waste Smelter and fuel plant at Pelindaba (a few kilometres from communities, townships and the Cradle of Humankind, the world heritage site), which would involve the transportation of between 2 and 40 trucks PER DAY carrying either enriched uranium or fuel "pebbles". Also a proposed Pebble Bed Modular Reactor programme of Eskom (our electricity utility) and NECSA (Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA) at Koeberg, the countries' only nuclear site.

Muna writes "The problems to date are all familiar, I am sure - bad process, misleading information, raising hopes of government with promises of jobs and foreign income etc etc...
We are working very hard at trying to change the proposed nuclear development path here, and your good wishes and support will be most welcome - we are fairly up to speed on most issues, but more information is always welcome!

Eskom's partners are Exelon (from the USA) and the recently insolvent BNFL (from the UK)..."

They can be contacted at www.earthlife.org.za

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Six deaths this week in Vieques

The Committee for the Rescue and Development in Vieques, Puerto Rico, denounced the deaths this past weekend of six people, four of them cancer victims. Lung and stomach cancers were the principal causes. The victims were residents of the Monte Santo and Lujan sectors, areas that receive winds directly from US Navy's the bombing zone on the Northeast part of the island. Several scientific studies show how military toxics produced during sixty years of bombing, get to the population through the breezes and the food chain.
Dr. Rivera Castaña mentioned that ". more than a year ago the Legislature assigned funds for an epidemiological study on cancer to be ready in five months and we have not yet seen any results."

The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques demands the Navy begin the cleanup of the environmental disaster that little by little is killing our people.

For more information contact: Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
Apartado 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765
Tel. 787 741-0716 Fax. 787 741-0358
Email: [email protected]

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DU in Sardinia, Italy, near a NATO firing range

Recently, Italian anti-Du campaigners found near the "poligono interforze del Salto di Quirra di Perdasdefogu", an experimental Firing Range in Sardinia, traces of caesium 137. In that Firing Range there are signs which alert on radioactive contamination. In a little town near the F.R., there were 10 cancer deaths out of a population of 150. In the last years we saw children deformities: i.e. in 1988 out of 15 children born in another small town near the F.I. there were 5 with congenital abnormalities. They are looking for a team of volunteers to monitor possible presence of depleted uranium in the area. They think that it is possible to find other firing ranges here in Italy (and maybe in Europe) that leak contamination. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Contact: Marco Saba Researcher Phone: (Italy+) 340 5006545 or [email protected]

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15 Activists Found Guilty of Speaking the Truth

15 Activists have been found guilty for trespass during an action at Alliant Techsystems (ATK) on the 27th March. Alliant Techsystems produces DU munitions, cluster bombs and landmines in Edina, Minnesota. Three Sisters of St Joseph of Carondelet are choosing jail in solidarity with prisoners, here and abroad, who are not allowed alternatives; and to emphasise the devastating impact of ATK's weapons on civilians and the earth, including the devastating consequences of military spending on the U.S.'s domestic needs. 400+ arrests in the past six years at ATK have led to a dozen trials, with 5 acquittals. This is the first time a jail sentence has been imposed for non-violent civil disobedience at Alliant Techsystems.

The action took place November 7, 2001 at Alliant's new corporate headquarters in Edina, Minnesota. The question asked that day of Alliant: Who profits? Who Dies? The activists walked onto the lawn near the parking lot which Alliant Tech rents, planting small warning flags to alert passersby of the danger of decisions being made inside.

At trial the group claimed they had a right, even an obligation to speak out, under the Nuremberg Principles, on what they argued was the violation of international law by Alliant. The weapons it produces "cause undue damages on indigenous populations" under article 51 of the Geneva Convention, and are "indiscriminate" under Geneva Protocol I. They cited Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which says that such international treaties are the supreme law of the land superseding any state laws.

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Environment Agency Report in Uses of DU in UK

The Environment Agency has released a report into the uses of DU in the UK and the problems of disposal. While it does not cover health related issues, it focuses on DU, which is not stored in nuclear installations, and pays particular attention to the aerospace industry and scrap metals recycling issues. Most worryingly it concludes that is it not military sites, but the aircraft servicing, salvage and recycling industry that is the most likely place for DU incidents.

It also identifies a risk for medical equipment containing DU, and notes that there is no disposal facility in the UK for DU.

Call 01793 865 000 for a copy of the full report: "Depleted Uranium - A Study of its Uses in the UK and Disposal Issues"

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Gulf War Illness a Myth!

A report published in the British Medical Journal has claimed that Gulf War Illness is not caused by anything specific to that war, such as Depleted Uranium or untested chemical weapon vaccines, but that rather the symptoms described have been suffered by soldiers in all wars in the last century.

The report by Edgar Jones compared the symptoms to those of soldiers after the 1899 Boer War and claimed they were very similar. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said that it "provided useful information about the health of veterans after conflicts."
US veteran groups estimate that as many as 13 000 have died and 270 000 are suffering from Gulf War Illness.

Malcolm Hooper, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Gulf Vets would certainly have something to say about this bogus report!

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DU Arms Manufacturing Moving to Barrow and Sheffield

BAE Systems Royal Ordnance finished its manufacturing of the L30A1 120mm rifle gun system used in the Challenger 2 tank and fashioned from US-supplied Depleted Uranium blanks. The manufacture has now moved on to the new site in Barrow. Production of barrels and breeches has also been subcontracted to Sheffield Forgemasters.

ACTION PLAN: If you live anywhere near Barrow or Sheffield why don't you pay them a visit and let them know you know what they are up to.

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BNFL DU controversy : Uranium to be dumped

While researching DU production, Phil, a CADU volunteer uncovered a story from last year about British Nuclear Fuels plans to dump up to 30,000 bags of depleted uranium contaminated waste at a rubbish dump near Preston, in north-west England, run by Lancashire Waste Services. The waste comes from the nearby BNFL Springfield nuclear fuel complex and each plastic bag will contain up to 0.2 per cent (by weight) of uranium, or up to 20 grams. The contaminated waste would previously have gone to the Drigg low-level waste dump but the complex is filling up and space is at a premium. The company is therefore looking for alternatives for low-level wastes. The story is from Nuclear base information service, and now CADU will be investigating further whether this dumping actually occurred
http://www.n-base.org.uk/public/briefing/brief262.htm

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Increase in Accidents involving Transportation of Radioactive Materials

A report carried out for the Department for Transport, Local Government and
Regions, and the Health and Safety Executive National Radiological Protection Board has been published that analysis' accidents involving the transport of radioactive materials from, to, or within the UK during 2000. It found that the 1990-2000 decade had a higher number of accidents than previous decades for "unclear reasons".

The two accidents that led to the highest radiological exposures both involved the "discovery of items of uranium metal in domestic waste, or scrap metal waste"

The DTLR report "Radiological Consequences resulting from Accidents and Incidents Involving the Transport of Radioactive Materials in the UK - 2000 Review" can be seen at:
http://www.info4local.gov.uk/searchreport.asp?id=4819&heading=e-mail+alert

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UK Buying Tungsten Surrogate

The British Army is procuring a new tungsten-penetrator round compatible with the gun of its Challenger 2 tanks to replace the L27 APFSDS projectile, which uses a depleted uranium penetrator. This is because the tungsten round has improved compatibility with other tank gun models.

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21-23 June 2002: 16th LOW LEVEL RADIATION & HEALTH
CONFERENCE, DUBLIN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
IRELAND

RADIATION RELEASES AND HEALTH

Speakers on depleted uranium, Chernobyl, Collective Dose Model, current radiation worries - mobile phone masts etc, and more.....

Workshops on European cooperation on nuclear risks, Internal emmiters, Regular monitoring (air, sea & land) Priorities in epidemiological research, Priorities in biological research

For more information and booking contact:
Admin Fiona Lyng [email protected]
Organiser Carmel Mothersill [email protected]

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A BIG THANK-YOU

to everyone who responded to our plea for subscriptions and donations in the last issue - the money raised is ensuring we can pay the rent on our office, and do things like the DU Action day.

Page last updated: 6th December 2002

CADU NEWS 10 Spring 2002

CADU NEWS 10
Spring 2002