*State Challenging Tests For Depleted Uranium*



By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
Courant Staff Writer

July 6 2005

Connecticut is now the second state in the nation to challenge the
validity of the tests the federal government uses to check military
personnel for ingested or inhaled depleted uranium dust from U.S.
munitions explosions.

The new law requires the state adjutant general and the veterans'
affairs commissioner to assist Connecticut guardsmen and veterans in
obtaining "a best practice health screening test for exposure to
depleted uranium." Last month, Louisiana passed similar, less detailed
legislation demanding better depleted uranium testing paid for by the
federal government.

Connecticut's bill, signed by Gov. Jodi Rell last week, requires the
state adjutant general to train guardsmen so they can adequately
determine whether they have been exposed to the dust. It sets up a task
force to study the health effects of depleted uranium and other hazards
wartime service members have been exposed to since August 1990. And it
requires a registry of sick veterans, a plan to help them and a report
on the task force's operations by the end of January.

Before it became law, the Connecticut bill bounced around from committee
to committee and its wording was changed several times, but it retained
one of its central purposes. It challenges a Pentagon and U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs urine testing program that some health
experts insist is insufficient to detect the effects of depleted
uranium, and that advocates say has tested only a relative few of those
exposed to the dust.

One New Haven veteran, Melissa Sterry, 42, a former U.S. Army
Specialist, who said she suffered multiple illnesses as a result of
cleaning tanks and other vehicles during the first Persian Gulf War,
lobbied the bill at every turn. On several occasions, Sterry thought the
bill was dead.

"I'm just stunned. I think it is great!" Sterry said Tuesday when she
was told Rell had signed the bill. "I'm ecstatic that Connecticut has
chosen to lead the nation in proactive caring for veterans."

State Rep. Roger Michele, a Bristol Democrat and a veteran of the
Vietnam War, who shepherded the bill through its final stages, said: "I
remember Agent Orange and the problems our veterans had fighting to get
health care through the federal bureaucracy. DU is the Agent Orange of
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And our soldiers have made enough
sacrifices while risking their lives over there. We need to support them
here in saving their lives."

Two legislators initially proposed separate portions of the bill. State
Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, called for scientific testing of
those exposed to depleted uranium dust, while State Sen. Gayle
Slossberg, D-West Haven, chair of the Veterans Committee, proposed the
task force to supervise efforts at helping veterans.

"I'm thrilled. I think it is a good step forward," said Slossberg, who
added that the state has to increase its efforts to help veterans as
federal health services are eliminated. Dillon could not be reached for
comment Tuesday.

Many veterans' advocates say thousands of service members in both Iraq
wars and the war in Afghanistan have become seriously ill from the dust
from the explosions of the DU munitions. The dust was created from tons
of U.S. and British ammunition and bombs used during those conflicts and
in the Balkan wars, as well as by the United States in Afghanistan. It
can be blown for hundreds of miles. If inhaled or ingested, it can cause
a host of maladies including cancers, kidney disease and birth defects.

/Copyright 2005, //_Hartford Courant_/ <http://www.courant.com>//