I tried to contact Dan Fahey and his group. It seems to me if one test group
that should be studied would be the actual individual who fielded the
munitions for the military. I am one such member. During my tour at YPG, 1986 -
1989, I was the only military assigned to one branch which did the video
documentation with the PATS laser systems "down range". Guess who got "dirty".
Other
specific military individuals were assigned to these tests, Apache pilots,
Abrams drivers, ect. We were never given any protocol regarding DU. Today, my
wife and I suffer from diagnosed and undiagnosed illnesses which we believe
are related to DU. She is not in good shape. We have a doctor with one of the
Southeast's best hospital/university research facilities who is trying to get
the tests established. Dr. Durakovic's group (UMRC.net) has been
unresponsive since Sept. Chris Williams


In a message dated 12/12/2008 11:41:20 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
wildclearing@... writes:




Gulf War Illness report shows cover-up by US government scientists
A US Congressional report on Gulf War illness has accused US
Government scientists of covering up key data on the impact of
depleted uranium on veterans' health.
12 December 2008 - Dave Cullen



In mid November, a committee set up by the US Congress released a
landmark report on Gulf War Illness (GWI), an event widely reported
by the media. It was considered a landmark study, as it stated
categorically that the ill effects suffered by veterans of the
1990-1991 Gulf War were real, and amounted to a distinct medical
condition.

The report identified two probable causes of this illness -
pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills which were given to troops to
protect them from nerve agents, and pesticides which were liberally
used to protect troops from insects.

However, amidst all the fuss, some incredibly damning information on
the US government's response to the use of uranium weapons was
completely ignored by the media. The section on DU related a litany
of irrelevant research, obstructive and incompetent behaviour by the
US government, and confirmation that a touchstone study on veterans
affected by DU covered up an incidence of cancer in the group.

McDiarmid study
Melissa McDiarmid’s Baltimore study, which looks at the health of
friendly fire victims, many of whom have DU fragments in their
bodies, drew particular criticism. This study is frequently referred
to by the UK and US governments when they seek to defend DU, and has
been repeatedly attacked by campaigners – all of whom are vindicated
by the report.

While the DoD has indicated that at least 900 veterans were involved
in incidents that could cause higher-level DU exposure, only 70 were
studied in total – and only 30 in any single follow up. The crude
categories used for medical problems and the lack of a control group
in all but one of the studies, mean that they are of little use for
drawing meaningful conclusions. It is also suggested that the studies
failed to follow up significant findings, including detectable levels
of uranium in the sperm of several veterans in 1997.

Cancer cover-up
Most damming of all is the attempt to cover up the incidence of
tumours in McDiarmid’s study group. The fact that one veteran
developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma is mentioned in passing in one write-up
in 1999, but omitted from subsequent reports, and the occurrence of a
non-malignant bone tumour in another is not mentioned at all.

This was first exposed by US veteran and DU researcher Dan Fahey, and
was mentioned in his presentation during ICBUW’s workshop at the
United Nations in April 2008, but the fact that the committee
confirmed it is a huge vindication. The omission is euphemistically
described as ‘puzzling’, and the committee questioned the study
director about it, who apparently replied that: “these cases were
not included because they were not believed to be the result of DU
exposure.”

Knowledge gaps
In comparison to the relatively clear evidence for PB and pesticides
being a possible cause of Gulf War illness, the information on other
possible causes is much less clear, and DU falls into this category.
The report makes clear that there are huge gaps in our knowledge
concerning the use of uranium munitions.

Unlike oil well fires and possible nerve agent exposure, the US
government has not provided reports into the areas where DU was used,
and the units most likely to be affected. Although a map exists, it
appears the committee was not shown it. Instead they have to fall
back on the estimates by Dan Fahey that several hundred thousand
veterans may have been exposed to DU.

Other knowledge gaps highlighted by the committee are that most of
the models used to estimate the dangers of DU are based around the
scenario of friendly fire incidents, which are not typical of the
majority of exposures, and that self-reporting – the main source of
information for studies which track exposure to health problems –
will be even less reliable as most soldiers knew nothing about DU
during deployment.

Flawed studies
The concentration in research into well understood diagnosable
conditions is singled out for particular criticism, as it is
practically useless in assessing any link between DU exposure and the
collection of ill-defined symptoms that constitute GWI. The report is
particularly critical of the US Institute of Medicine's ‘Gulf War
and Health’ reports for this reason. While the report on DU is not
singled out for particular criticism, this flaw and the omission of
important research in other reports in the series lead the committee
to declare the series did not fulfil their legal requirements, and it
recommends that the government office that commissioned them should
be stripped of responsibility for future research.

Potential dangers of DU
There may have been some disagreement within the committee about the
potential dangers of DU, as they cite preliminary evidence from
animal studies of its damaging effects on the brain as “potentially
of great importance” but state that more research is required before
they could make recommendations on the basis of this evidence. They
also go out of their way to point out that health concerns about DU
are much broader than GWI, and there is scant evidence with which to
judge its links with cancers and birth defects. Indeed, it is implied
that the Department for Veterans Affairs has not released information
it has on the health of veterans’ families.

Recommendations
The recommendations that follow are very simple – suitably broad
epidemiological studies of veterans to establish links between DU
exposure and health outcomes, more sophisticated attempts to
establish exposure than self-reporting, and monitoring of cancer and
mortality amongst veterans thought to be active in areas where DU has
been used. As this is the kind of recommendation which a first year
medical student would have made when the DU issue came to prominence,
it is hard to think of a greater indictment of the 17 years of
research since 1991.

Notes:
Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses: http://
www1.va.gov/www1.va.g
Attachments
Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans (7178 Kb -
Format pdf)
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses was
created by Congress in 1998, and first appointed by Secretary of
Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi in January, 2002. The mission of
the Committee is to make recommendations to the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs on government research relating to the health consequences of
military service in the Southwest Asia theatre of operations during
the Persian Gulf War.

This document is in PDF format and can be read using Acrobat Reader.

from ICBUW

Wes Rehberg
Wild Clearing
www.wildclearing.www
Skype: wildclearing

Wes Rehberg
Wild Clearing
www.wildclearing.www
Skype: wildclearing

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