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Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium
El_Kabong
Posts: 4,141
too long to post it all here, but a good read
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-radiation-soldiers,0,4675458.story?page=1&coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer
August 13, 2006, 6:14 AM EDT
NEW YORK -- It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills -- morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.
"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."
Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
* __
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-radiation-soldiers,0,4675458.story?page=1&coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer
August 13, 2006, 6:14 AM EDT
NEW YORK -- It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills -- morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.
"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."
Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
* __
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
standin above the crowd
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
hrm.
www.myspace.com/jensvad
They're going to need it if it's DU related. The gov't denied gulf War Syndrome for years. Decades before, it denied ilness related to Agent Orange as well.
Depleted Uranium isn't happy fun time stuff. It's the "junk" left over from nuclear reactors. It's not "safe". It's not "friendly". There's no good way to dispose of it, so we weaponized it. It's radioactive. Prolonged exposure to it, or its dust will fuck you up.
I hope these gents can get better.
old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
it doesn't matter where it came from. it's there, and it'll be everywhere soon enough or something else just as horrible will be. this whole fucking thing is out of control.
~Ron Burgundy
Put up a couple hundred carson generators and power the entire fucking continent.. enough of this money grubbing horseshit... I guess the problem is, you can't charge much for the water used in it.
I guess bp is finally starting to do something with them in CA,
http://www.bpalternativenergy.com/liveassets/bp_internet/alternativenergy/next_generation_hydrogen_carson.html
I know skepticism and some of the politics on here don't mix all that well, but give it some thought.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
We're supposed to be civilised.
We're suppsoed to be the epitomy of freedom and justice and equality.
We're are fucking barbarians. No, sorry, at least with a barbarian the death was quick. Bloody, painful, but quick. Monsters that invent, develop and drop DU on battlefields, on civillian populations, USUKISRAEL, are the real terrorists in the world.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium
for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as
radioactive as natural uranium.
The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in
hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is
plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
[Herbert] Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with
his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly
unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs
in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never
experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a
buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of
hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they
began to talk. "We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says.
"The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.'"
No, it's all in his body....
Commentary :: ::
This a list of medications that Herbert Reed is taking:
Morphine
Methadone
A muscle relaxant
An antidepressant
A stool softener
Viagra for sexual dysfunction
Valium for his nerves
Here are some of his current symptoms:
His gums bleed.
Blood in his urine.
Blood in his stool.
Bright light hurts his eyes.
A tumor has been removed from his thyroid.
Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside
his skin.
Migraines cleave his skull.
His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
Yep, it's all in his head. Only problem, he's not alone.
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos,
Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted
uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003,
while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's
Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who
developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor
of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the
U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium,
but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe,
and not that worrisome. Four of the highest-registering samples from
Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed
said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we
first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied
to us all along."
Please read the entire piece here.
Background is also available from the UNEP (United Nations
Environmental Programme), including data gathered following the
conflicts in Europe by the Post-Conflict branch.
thanks, there's also these from 2 UN reports:
One study of children born of United States veterans of the first Gulf War shows a more than 60% incidence of disability, deformity and other serious medical problems. Another study shows that United States Gulf War veteran' children have a much higher likelihood of having three specific birth defects: two types heart valve abnormality to children of male veterans, and genito-urinary defects to children born of female veterans. "Gulf WarBirth Defects" in the Lexington-Herald Leader, 4 June 2003. A study of British veterans of the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo reveals that they have 10 - 14 times the level of chromosomal abnormalities than usual. H. Schrader, A. Heimers, R. Frentzel-Beyme, A. Schott & W. Hoffmann, "Chromosome aberration analysis in perifiral lymphocytes of Gulf war and Balkan war veterans," in Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol.103 no.3, pp. 211-220.
Afghani people near where the United States carried out military operations contained radioactive isotopes 100 to 400 times higher than Gulf War veterans from the United Kingdom tested in 1999. The report is posted at http://www.umrc.net. The maximum permissible level for members of the public in the United States is considered to be 12 nanograms per year. The Canadian team recorded an average 315.5 nanograms in people in Jalalabad, Tora Bora and Mazar-e-Sharif. A 12-year-old boy near Kabul tested at 2,031 nanograms. After a second trip to Afghanistan, the Canadian team documented comparable results in a much broader area and larger population group. A prominent Afghani physician reports that there is a dramatic increase in birth defects in Afghanistan and people are experiencing catastrophic health consequences.
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
This looks good on the US military and all the people it has polluted along the way to showing the world how it should be. As long as service men and women comeback reaping the rewards of war just like the people who live in those countries that the US military tours, it is a good thing.