URANIUM AND APLASTIC ANEMIA

Depleted uranium: Dead children, sick soldiers New Dawn

"PROF. GUNTHER: Yes. Later on I happened to see children playing with these projectiles. A little girl who possessed 12 of them died of leukaemia. Also in the children hospitals of Baghdad, Mosul and Basrah the number of leukaemia, aplastic anaemia and tumor development is noticeably on the increase. Moreover a new up-to-date undiagnosed disease is seen with abnormal abdominal distension possibly related to disturbed liver and kidney functions. Because of the impossibility of treatment the children die, most painfully from secondary infections."

"Similar medical reports coming from Iraq suggest serious health effects in children which could be related to DU exposure. The Iraqi Health Ministry has reported an increase of leukemia and aplastic anemia in children older
than four years old since the Gulf War. The number of congenital birth defects has skyrocketed to 28 percent today from 8 percent before the war. Liver and kidney disease are now ranked as fourth and fifth causes of death among children over the age of five."

"Last May, the Iraqi government filed a formal complaint with the UN about the problems its medical officials had documented related to DU contamination. Dozens of foreign and U.S. medical experts have voiced similar concerns. Dr. Siegwart Gunther, president of the Austria-based International Yellow Cross and a professor of epidemiology and infectious disease, discovered in May 1991 cigar-shaped projectiles from leftover DU explosives on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. "I happened to see children playing with these projectiles ... A little girl who possessed 12 of them later died of leukemia," Gunther reports. In subsequent visits in 1992 Dr. Gunther noted an increase in leukemia, aplastic anemia and tumor developments among children who had found similar projectiles and used them as toys."

"Chino Hills and its' residents have been the unknowning participants in an experiment using depleted uranium weapons.

"Recently completed studies, done by the Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substances Control, at the former Aerojet Ordnance Facility, in Chino Hills, have concluded that contaminants have
been found in both the soil and the ground water (at depths as great as 35 feet) at 10 locations on the site. The testing found evidence of mustard gas, nerve gas (probably VX), tear gas, explosive chemicals and other potentially dangerous materials (including depleted uranium, perchlorate, and TNT)."

Representatives from many grassroot organisations all over the US, and some from Europe, came together in Washington to discuss a common strategy against this horrible new weapon in the conventional armsrace.

Learn about GULF WAR ILLNESS and depleted uranium

Radioactive Battlefields in Iraq and Kuwait