Ban Depleted Uranium

After Veteran’s Day came and went, I kept reading about the various concerns that our troops face both home and abroad. They struggle with maintaining their health care coverage, getting the psychiatric services that they need due to PTSD, and struggle to find an adequate job in order to support their families in a severely weakened American economy. These are just a few of the major issues that face our troops here.

Do our troops have adequate protection and care while on tour duty? What kinds of chemicals are our troops being exposed to during warfare? Are they safe? This led me to look harder. I started talking to a few Veterans that I know and asked them what they thought and what they were working on. The answer is: Depleted Uranium and the controversy behind it. So, what is depleted uranium, what’s it used for and why should we care?

Well, the United Nations has declared DU an illegal weapon. The European Union has passed a resolution calling for a global moratorium and ban on the production and use of DU munitions. For many years, the U.S. government and our military have suppressed and discredited research and information on DU munitions (just as they did with Agent Orange). DU is currently being manufactured here and elsewhere. It’s being used by our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and presents a national and global public health threat that we need to confront.

Depleted Uranium is a chemically toxic radioactive heavy metal that is 1.7 times the density of lead. It’s the waste remaining after the process of enriching uranium that’s used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. Thousands of tons of the waste is recycled to weapons manufacturers by the U.S. government for use in M-16 shells, and other munitions, and to manufacturers of military tanks and vehicles as armored shields. As effective DU is as a penetrating explosive weapon and shielding device, its effects are much more far-reaching as long-term poisonous residuals in human bodies, soli, water, and air. When a DU round hits a hard target, as much as 70% of the projectile can burn on impact, creating a firestorm of depleted uranium oxides. The residue of this explosion is an extremely fine insoluble uranium dust. The term “depleted” is greatly deceptive. Scientific research has shown DU to have a half-life of billions of years. The dust can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants, animals, and soli. Breathable uranium oxides often result in various cancers and other maladies and in birth defects as they are passed genetically to offspring.

Numerous websites contain definite research and information on DU, including http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/index.html.

Information can also be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

Recent research on the binding of low level uranium to human DNA which leads to various cancers and the work of Diane Stearns, Northern Arizona University biologist, can be found at http://nacrp.web.arizona.edu/research/.

Also, Veterans for Peace, Inc. are actively involved in circulating petitions and gathering signatures for Congress in order to get a moratorium on DU munitions which would hopefully lead to a ban!

Watch this video on to learn more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTJ1let0so&feature=related