- The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component
known as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing
scandal may be the reason behind Anthony Principi's departure as secretary
of the Veterans Affairs Department.
-
- This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive
director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, writing in Preventive
Psychiatry E-Newsletter.
-
- "The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was
really never given," Bernklau said. "However, a special report
published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as
the definitive cause of 'Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about
the continued use of uranium
- munitions by the U.S. military."
-
- The "malady [from DU] that thousands of our military
have suffered and died from has finally been identified as the cause of
this sickness, eliminating the guessing. . . . The terrible truth is now
being revealed," Bernklau said.
-
- Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000
are now dead, he said. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent
medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56 percent)
who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems. The disability
rate for veterans of the world wars of the last century was 5 percent,
rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.
-
- "The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far
back as 2000," Bernklau said. "He and the Bush administration
have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, it is
far too big to hide or to cover up."
-
- Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently
reported that veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on disability total
518,739, Bernklau said.
-
- "The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,"
Bernklau said. "Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the
Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved in the Manhattan
Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers [from
the second war] as 'spectacular' - and a matter of concern."
-
- While this important story appeared in a Washington newspaper
and the wire services, it did not receive national exposure"a compelling
sign that the American public is being kept in the dark about the terrible
effects of this toxic weapon.
-
- (Veterans for Constitutional Law can be reached at (516)
474-4261.)
-
-
- http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html
|
