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	<title>Comments on: GULF WAR ILLNESS CONTROVERSIES DIVIDE VETERANS</title>
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		<title>By: brett lohse</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-70983</link>
		<dc:creator>brett lohse</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:46:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-70983</guid>
		<description>How do 160,000 of us come back sick with diarea,joint/ muscle ache and sleeping disorders that are intratable.  It is obvious that vx nerve gas was used in gulf war1.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>How do 160,000 of us come back sick with diarea,joint/ muscle ache and sleeping disorders that are intratable.  It is obvious that vx nerve gas was used in gulf war1.</p>
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		<title>By: Airborne</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-34440</link>
		<dc:creator>Airborne</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:56:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-34440</guid>
		<description>I was in country with VII Corps, Dec 90 - May 91, so I suppose I have some first hand knowledge.  GW disease could be caused by many things.  The manifestations of of the gulf war disease was nearly immediate.  Some of our guys were having heart attacks with in two weeks of returning, and some of our younger members are already dead and buried, within a few years.
I think it is the combination of these three:
1.  Our perimeter NBC alarms went off all the time early on in the war, so in my heart, I know there were nerve agents out there in small doses.  No immediate deaths, but they were there.
2.  For weeks and weeks on end the black oil well fires completely dominated the sky.  Some days it was so bad, at high noon we used headlights.  It seemed to stay a few hundred yards up in the air.  But I know we breathed a cocktail of raw burned chemicals for many a day.
3.  Cigarettes.  By themselves a known carcinogen, coupled with the other two cigarettes make for a deadly disease that makes everything else worse.  And damn near everyone smoked (95%).  It was the eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die mentality.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was in country with VII Corps, Dec 90 &#8211; May 91, so I suppose I have some first hand knowledge.  GW disease could be caused by many things.  The manifestations of of the gulf war disease was nearly immediate.  Some of our guys were having heart attacks with in two weeks of returning, and some of our younger members are already dead and buried, within a few years.<br />
I think it is the combination of these three:<br />
1.  Our perimeter NBC alarms went off all the time early on in the war, so in my heart, I know there were nerve agents out there in small doses.  No immediate deaths, but they were there.<br />
2.  For weeks and weeks on end the black oil well fires completely dominated the sky.  Some days it was so bad, at high noon we used headlights.  It seemed to stay a few hundred yards up in the air.  But I know we breathed a cocktail of raw burned chemicals for many a day.<br />
3.  Cigarettes.  By themselves a known carcinogen, coupled with the other two cigarettes make for a deadly disease that makes everything else worse.  And damn near everyone smoked (95%).  It was the eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die mentality.</p>
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		<title>By: Barney Rubble</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31727</link>
		<dc:creator>Barney Rubble</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:30:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31727</guid>
		<description>DU destroyed every single Russian tank the Iraqi/KGB/4th Reich could throw at us. Afterwards, the Soviet Union imploded. Now, explain this ... millions of Japanese today live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and are healthy and without massive birth defects. The Rothschilds and their agents are everywhere working to defame our great Nation. I think you are one of them, and I demand you be tracked down and interrogated in Lithuania. CIA, I&#039;ve got a live one for ya.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>DU destroyed every single Russian tank the Iraqi/KGB/4th Reich could throw at us. Afterwards, the Soviet Union imploded. Now, explain this &#8230; millions of Japanese today live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and are healthy and without massive birth defects. The Rothschilds and their agents are everywhere working to defame our great Nation. I think you are one of them, and I demand you be tracked down and interrogated in Lithuania. CIA, I&#8217;ve got a live one for ya.</p>
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		<title>By: Barney Rubble</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31726</link>
		<dc:creator>Barney Rubble</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:25:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31726</guid>
		<description>Mick, President Obama invested in a company which mostly makes good medicine, not bad medicine. If President Obama was the evil manchurian candidate you infer him to be, why martial law would have been declared when the &quot;pandemic&quot; was declared to force-vaccinate everyone. Rense and infowars, with their CIA and/or KGB plants, are doing their best to convince our people our leaders are evil. As O&#039;Reilly says, don&#039;t bloviate. Your ignorance and obvious stupidity needs to be called out.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Mick, President Obama invested in a company which mostly makes good medicine, not bad medicine. If President Obama was the evil manchurian candidate you infer him to be, why martial law would have been declared when the &#8220;pandemic&#8221; was declared to force-vaccinate everyone. Rense and infowars, with their CIA and/or KGB plants, are doing their best to convince our people our leaders are evil. As O&#8217;Reilly says, don&#8217;t bloviate. Your ignorance and obvious stupidity needs to be called out.</p>
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		<title>By: Barney Rubble</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31725</link>
		<dc:creator>Barney Rubble</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:18:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31725</guid>
		<description>Mick, I am going to enjoy making you look like the a$$hole you are, as well as the stupid misinformation plant which thinks rense is the place for legitimate news. Short of requesting your computer hacked to worthlessness, I will embarrass you instead.

1) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125577347155891969.html
Iraq Approves Oil Contract with BP, CNPC Oct 17, 2009
BP is UK, CNPC is Hong Kong, China - you !ucking twit.

2) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/63452.html
China&#039;s thirst for copper could hold key to Afghanistan&#039;s future - Mar 8, 2009
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-taps-huge-copper-apf-1851195726.html?x=0
AP - China taps huge copper reserves in Afghanistan - Oct. 31, 2009

Rense.com is a favorite place for wannabe CIA and/or KGB plants to spread misinformation and for political hackjobs to infer evil plots by President Obama, and they were just as evil to President Bush. 


I have a camouflage .308 rifle with tripod and scope with your name on it. You, Mick, and your fellow traitors trying your best to ruin America need to check out.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Mick, I am going to enjoy making you look like the a$$hole you are, as well as the stupid misinformation plant which thinks rense is the place for legitimate news. Short of requesting your computer hacked to worthlessness, I will embarrass you instead.</p>
<p>1) <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125577347155891969.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125577347155891969.html</a><br />
Iraq Approves Oil Contract with BP, CNPC Oct 17, 2009<br />
BP is UK, CNPC is Hong Kong, China &#8211; you !ucking twit.</p>
<p>2) <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/63452.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/63452.html</a><br />
China&#8217;s thirst for copper could hold key to Afghanistan&#8217;s future &#8211; Mar 8, 2009<br />
<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-taps-huge-copper-apf-1851195726.html?x=0" rel="nofollow">http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-taps-huge-copper-apf-1851195726.html?x=0</a><br />
AP &#8211; China taps huge copper reserves in Afghanistan &#8211; Oct. 31, 2009</p>
<p>Rense.com is a favorite place for wannabe CIA and/or KGB plants to spread misinformation and for political hackjobs to infer evil plots by President Obama, and they were just as evil to President Bush. </p>
<p>I have a camouflage .308 rifle with tripod and scope with your name on it. You, Mick, and your fellow traitors trying your best to ruin America need to check out.</p>
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		<title>By: Dave Winnett</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31625</link>
		<dc:creator>Dave Winnett</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:48:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31625</guid>
		<description>RECENT ARTICLE ABOUT VACCINES/SQUALENE:

http://www.straight.com/article-270843/vancouver/whats-your-vaccine</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>RECENT ARTICLE ABOUT VACCINES/SQUALENE:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.straight.com/article-270843/vancouver/whats-your-vaccine" rel="nofollow">http://www.straight.com/article-270843/vancouver/whats-your-vaccine</a></p>
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		<title>By: Mick</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31619</link>
		<dc:creator>Mick</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:14:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31619</guid>
		<description>It is China that is being encircled and the pipelines are not going to China. It is China and Russia who are warning against an attack on Iran. It is allied ships in the China sea. It is depleted uranium now filtering all over China and poisoning them. It is likely the next nuclear will involve China and Russia. 

Iraqi oil will be pumped to Israel and Europe. How you can come to these conclusions is beyond me Barney. 

http://www.rense.com/general82/uspol.htm</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It is China that is being encircled and the pipelines are not going to China. It is China and Russia who are warning against an attack on Iran. It is allied ships in the China sea. It is depleted uranium now filtering all over China and poisoning them. It is likely the next nuclear will involve China and Russia. </p>
<p>Iraqi oil will be pumped to Israel and Europe. How you can come to these conclusions is beyond me Barney. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.rense.com/general82/uspol.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rense.com/general82/uspol.htm</a></p>
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		<title>By: Mick</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31614</link>
		<dc:creator>Mick</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:52:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31614</guid>
		<description>Meanwhile other breaking news. 


The President of the United States, Barack Obama has shares in Baxter, the company many say is responsible for the h1n1 swine flu pandemic. Back 2005 Barack Obama bought $50,000 worth of stock in two companies.

Right after he bought the shares also in 2005 Barack Obama (still a senator at that time) introduced the first comprehensive bill to address the threat of avian influenza pandemic. AVIAN Act (S. 969)

Then it makes it even more interesting that over $60 million dollars was awarded for a vaccine against the bird flu (2007) that at the time did not mutate till afterwards.

The guy sure knows his planning, I guess that is change you can believe in. From investor to President.

http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html
________________________

2 more women in Portugal have miscarriages directly after swine flu shot.

New Hitachi chip fits right into a syringe. What a surprise. It probably has an alarm clock feature to wake you up and let you know it is time go go to the work camp.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Meanwhile other breaking news. </p>
<p>The President of the United States, Barack Obama has shares in Baxter, the company many say is responsible for the h1n1 swine flu pandemic. Back 2005 Barack Obama bought $50,000 worth of stock in two companies.</p>
<p>Right after he bought the shares also in 2005 Barack Obama (still a senator at that time) introduced the first comprehensive bill to address the threat of avian influenza pandemic. AVIAN Act (S. 969)</p>
<p>Then it makes it even more interesting that over $60 million dollars was awarded for a vaccine against the bird flu (2007) that at the time did not mutate till afterwards.</p>
<p>The guy sure knows his planning, I guess that is change you can believe in. From investor to President.</p>
<p><a href="http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html" rel="nofollow">http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html</a><br />
________________________</p>
<p>2 more women in Portugal have miscarriages directly after swine flu shot.</p>
<p>New Hitachi chip fits right into a syringe. What a surprise. It probably has an alarm clock feature to wake you up and let you know it is time go go to the work camp.</p>
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		<title>By: Mick</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31610</link>
		<dc:creator>Mick</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:23:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31610</guid>
		<description>Exactly Barney
They put squalene in that anthrax vaccine. 

http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html

The President of the United States, Barack Obama has shares in Baxter, the company many say is responsible for the h1n1 swine flu pandemic. Back 2005 Barack Obama bought $50,000 worth of stock in two companies.

Right after he bought the shares also in 2005 Barack Obama (still a senator at that time) introduced the first comprehensive bill to address the threat of avian influenza pandemic. AVIAN Act (S. 969)

Then it makes it even more interesting that over $60 million dollars was awarded for a vaccine against the bird flu (2007) that at the time did not mutate till afterwards.

The guy sure knows his planning, I guess that is change you can believe in. From investor to President.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Exactly Barney<br />
They put squalene in that anthrax vaccine. </p>
<p><a href="http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html" rel="nofollow">http://fto.co.za/news/barack-obama-has-shares-baxter-2009111015772.html</a></p>
<p>The President of the United States, Barack Obama has shares in Baxter, the company many say is responsible for the h1n1 swine flu pandemic. Back 2005 Barack Obama bought $50,000 worth of stock in two companies.</p>
<p>Right after he bought the shares also in 2005 Barack Obama (still a senator at that time) introduced the first comprehensive bill to address the threat of avian influenza pandemic. AVIAN Act (S. 969)</p>
<p>Then it makes it even more interesting that over $60 million dollars was awarded for a vaccine against the bird flu (2007) that at the time did not mutate till afterwards.</p>
<p>The guy sure knows his planning, I guess that is change you can believe in. From investor to President.</p>
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		<title>By: Dave Winnett</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31603</link>
		<dc:creator>Dave Winnett</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:34:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31603</guid>
		<description>Barney - I&#039;m consistently positive for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) as well.  I do not at all disagree with your position that vaccines are a cause.  At the same time, I haven&#039;t seen enough evidence to rule out any of the other suspected causes of our chronic illnesses (DU, exposure to sarin, excessive exposure to pesticides, viral, etc. etc.).  I&#039;d prefer to leave all of it on the table for discussion until a definitive answer to Gulf War Illnesses is found, if that ever happens in our lifetimes.  I have Gary Masumoto&#039;s book and I agree it is very compelling.  I wish you the best my friend, and I promise not to hold it against you that you chose the Navy over the Marine Corps when you enlisted ;-)

Semper Fi,
Dave</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Barney &#8211; I&#8217;m consistently positive for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) as well.  I do not at all disagree with your position that vaccines are a cause.  At the same time, I haven&#8217;t seen enough evidence to rule out any of the other suspected causes of our chronic illnesses (DU, exposure to sarin, excessive exposure to pesticides, viral, etc. etc.).  I&#8217;d prefer to leave all of it on the table for discussion until a definitive answer to Gulf War Illnesses is found, if that ever happens in our lifetimes.  I have Gary Masumoto&#8217;s book and I agree it is very compelling.  I wish you the best my friend, and I promise not to hold it against you that you chose the Navy over the Marine Corps when you enlisted <img src='http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Semper Fi,<br />
Dave</p>
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		<title>By: Steve60</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31601</link>
		<dc:creator>Steve60</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:27:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31601</guid>
		<description>I&#039;ll add another issue that was done in the Gulf. At first we were eating MREs and we all can exist on them. However, in Oct of 1990 all of a sudden apples, bananas and oranges showed up. They all were marked with &#039;Product of Turkey&#039;. The minute you were about to take a bite, we noticed they reeked of DDT, I mean reeked.The bananas and oranges stunk even after being peeled. We tried to wash them but to no avail. DDT was banned in this country since 1969. Leave it to the DOD to bypass and go to another country. Oh yes, I know what DDT smells like, my father used to spray apple trees and screen doors with it.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ll add another issue that was done in the Gulf. At first we were eating MREs and we all can exist on them. However, in Oct of 1990 all of a sudden apples, bananas and oranges showed up. They all were marked with &#8216;Product of Turkey&#8217;. The minute you were about to take a bite, we noticed they reeked of DDT, I mean reeked.The bananas and oranges stunk even after being peeled. We tried to wash them but to no avail. DDT was banned in this country since 1969. Leave it to the DOD to bypass and go to another country. Oh yes, I know what DDT smells like, my father used to spray apple trees and screen doors with it.</p>
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		<title>By: Barney Rubble</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31597</link>
		<dc:creator>Barney Rubble</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:38:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31597</guid>
		<description>Now, you wonder, why did we go to war in Iraq? We did it for China, so they could get oil from Kirkuk ... just like our war effort in Afghanistan benefits China for its new COPPER MINE! BP is the oil company in Iraq which makes Iraqi oil possible for China. No wonder the British joined us, they knew we would give a trillion dollar oil contract to their British Petroleum, to benefit the crown and its subjects. I&#039;ll say a prayer to my God in Heaven ... &quot;Please reach every American to know the truths and facts and stop being the stupid, illiterate, hillbilly, inbred, filthy with cockroaches in their homes, etc ... realize you kill in the name of China, not national security!&quot; America deserves everything it is getting right now ... its only hope is for the media and the government to redact everything and push the truth before we lose it all. China would love to own California and Hawaii ... do you want to give it to them now, or wait 5 years for their surprise attack after they have stopped selling neodymium (a rare earth metal used for rockets and smart bombs) and we have used up our strategic supply killing homeless Muslims without hope, a home or a job, or an education, who want no part of our world like the Amish ... all for China. Sad.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now, you wonder, why did we go to war in Iraq? We did it for China, so they could get oil from Kirkuk &#8230; just like our war effort in Afghanistan benefits China for its new COPPER MINE! BP is the oil company in Iraq which makes Iraqi oil possible for China. No wonder the British joined us, they knew we would give a trillion dollar oil contract to their British Petroleum, to benefit the crown and its subjects. I&#8217;ll say a prayer to my God in Heaven &#8230; &#8220;Please reach every American to know the truths and facts and stop being the stupid, illiterate, hillbilly, inbred, filthy with cockroaches in their homes, etc &#8230; realize you kill in the name of China, not national security!&#8221; America deserves everything it is getting right now &#8230; its only hope is for the media and the government to redact everything and push the truth before we lose it all. China would love to own California and Hawaii &#8230; do you want to give it to them now, or wait 5 years for their surprise attack after they have stopped selling neodymium (a rare earth metal used for rockets and smart bombs) and we have used up our strategic supply killing homeless Muslims without hope, a home or a job, or an education, who want no part of our world like the Amish &#8230; all for China. Sad.</p>
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		<title>By: Barney Rubble</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31596</link>
		<dc:creator>Barney Rubble</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:25:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31596</guid>
		<description>Let me be clear. I have Gulf War Syndrome and I am service connected for it. Now, when did i serve honorably? 1992 - Persian Gulf, USS Independence. So, how did I get Gulf War Syndrome? Two words - ANTHRAX VACCINE. It was forced on every recruit in April of 1991 in the Navy&#039;s San Diego RTC (now closed). I proved my case. I won a partial victory. More is pending, because I can&#039;t work and 40% SC is not something which can be lived on. How did I prove it? I said to an asshole doctor in Denver VA to test my blood for ANA. I was using the information from Gary Matsumoto&#039;s book Vaccine A, which every veteran should read. No history in my family of autoimmune disease, and to this jerk&#039;s astonishment, I tested positive for ANA, and still do. So, if you want to prove Gulf War Syndrome, forget about DU for now, and demand an ANA test be done to explain your &quot;fibromyalgia&quot; and &quot;irritable bowel&quot; and your &quot;chronic fatigue&quot;. It all wraps up into a very nasty case of a deadly disease similar, but not exactly, LUPUS ... and it is a killer. Anyone, with the knowledge of truth, who advocates H1N1 vaccines knowing they contain squalene, is just as guilty of murder as the physician with the needle. Revolution now.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Let me be clear. I have Gulf War Syndrome and I am service connected for it. Now, when did i serve honorably? 1992 &#8211; Persian Gulf, USS Independence. So, how did I get Gulf War Syndrome? Two words &#8211; ANTHRAX VACCINE. It was forced on every recruit in April of 1991 in the Navy&#8217;s San Diego RTC (now closed). I proved my case. I won a partial victory. More is pending, because I can&#8217;t work and 40% SC is not something which can be lived on. How did I prove it? I said to an asshole doctor in Denver VA to test my blood for ANA. I was using the information from Gary Matsumoto&#8217;s book Vaccine A, which every veteran should read. No history in my family of autoimmune disease, and to this jerk&#8217;s astonishment, I tested positive for ANA, and still do. So, if you want to prove Gulf War Syndrome, forget about DU for now, and demand an ANA test be done to explain your &#8220;fibromyalgia&#8221; and &#8220;irritable bowel&#8221; and your &#8220;chronic fatigue&#8221;. It all wraps up into a very nasty case of a deadly disease similar, but not exactly, LUPUS &#8230; and it is a killer. Anyone, with the knowledge of truth, who advocates H1N1 vaccines knowing they contain squalene, is just as guilty of murder as the physician with the needle. Revolution now.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Mick</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31589</link>
		<dc:creator>Mick</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:00:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31589</guid>
		<description>http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm


Horror Of US Depleted 
Uranium In Iraq Threatens World 
American Use Of DU is &quot;A crime against humanity which may, in 
the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.&quot;
US Iraq Military Vets &quot;are on DU death row, waiting to die.&quot;
By James Denver


&quot;I&#039;m horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It&#039;s going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car.&quot;
 
The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.
 
For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
 
These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.
 
A Dirty Tyson
 
&#039;Depleted&#039; uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For &#039;depleted&#039; sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth&#039;s heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson&#039;s punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. &#039;Crispy critters&#039; is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: &quot;The children&#039;s skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited.&quot; (Daily Mirror)
 
The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.
 
A Terrible Legacy
 
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing &#039;at an alarming rate&#039;. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1
 
On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year&#039;s war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.
 
The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
 
We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called &#039;safe limit&#039; of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there.
 
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.
 
Doctors report that many women no longer say &#039;Is it a girl or a boy?&#039; but simply, &#039;Is it normal, doctor?&#039; Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.
 
Blue on Blue
 
What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.
 
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that&#039;s 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government&#039;s failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans&#039; associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are &#039;on DU death row, waiting to die&#039;.
 
Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.
 
They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.
 
The Vital Evidence
 
Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only &#039;low level&#039; radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied &#039;low-level&#039; radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells &#039;like flashes of lightning&#039; again and again in a single second.2 Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such &#039;lightning strikes&#039; can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.
 
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body&#039;s communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.
 
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This &#039;radiation-induced genomic instability&#039; is compounded by &#039;the bystander effect&#039; by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.
 
The Price of Truth
 
That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, &#039;The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.&#039;3
 
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.
 
The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren&#039;t used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was &#039;linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage&#039;. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.5
 
A Culture of Denial
 
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as &#039;weapons of mass destruction&#039; &#039;incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law&#039;. Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.
 
Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, &#039;The [US government&#039;s] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.&#039; He concluded, &#039;uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.&#039; Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.
 
During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says &#039;it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.&#039; Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called &#039;some&#039;.
 
The Way Ahead
 
Britain and America not only used DU in this year&#039;s Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn&#039;t limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq&#039;s cities. This means that Iraq&#039;s cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.
 
The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?
 
So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.
 
References
 
1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.
 
2. Rosalie Bertell&#039;s book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.
 
3. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1
. htm#TAB L_Research Report Summaries
 
4. www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm
The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is available at the website www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Grove s21feb03.htm
 
5. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.
htm#tab L_research report summaries
 
Further information
 
The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: www.llrc.org
 
James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on science and technology.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm</a></p>
<p>Horror Of US Depleted<br />
Uranium In Iraq Threatens World<br />
American Use Of DU is &#8220;A crime against humanity which may, in<br />
the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.&#8221;<br />
US Iraq Military Vets &#8220;are on DU death row, waiting to die.&#8221;<br />
By James Denver</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m horrified. The people out there &#8211; the Iraqis, the media and the troops &#8211; risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It&#8217;s going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car.&#8221;</p>
<p>The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.</p>
<p>For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds &#8211; there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects &#8211; killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.</p>
<p>These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate &#8211; including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.</p>
<p>A Dirty Tyson</p>
<p>&#8216;Depleted&#8217; uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For &#8216;depleted&#8217; sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth&#8217;s heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson&#8217;s punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. &#8216;Crispy critters&#8217; is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: &#8220;The children&#8217;s skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited.&#8221; (Daily Mirror)</p>
<p>The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.</p>
<p>A Terrible Legacy</p>
<p>Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing &#8216;at an alarming rate&#8217;. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1</p>
<p>On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year&#8217;s war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.</p>
<p>The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.</p>
<p>We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called &#8216;safe limit&#8217; of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there.</p>
<p>Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.</p>
<p>Doctors report that many women no longer say &#8216;Is it a girl or a boy?&#8217; but simply, &#8216;Is it normal, doctor?&#8217; Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.</p>
<p>Blue on Blue</p>
<p>What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.</p>
<p>Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that&#8217;s 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government&#8217;s failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans&#8217; associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are &#8216;on DU death row, waiting to die&#8217;.</p>
<p>Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.</p>
<p>They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.</p>
<p>The Vital Evidence</p>
<p>Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only &#8216;low level&#8217; radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied &#8216;low-level&#8217; radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells &#8216;like flashes of lightning&#8217; again and again in a single second.2 Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such &#8216;lightning strikes&#8217; can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.</p>
<p>Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body&#8217;s communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.</p>
<p>In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This &#8216;radiation-induced genomic instability&#8217; is compounded by &#8216;the bystander effect&#8217; by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.</p>
<p>The Price of Truth</p>
<p>That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, &#8216;The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective&#8230; the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.&#8217;3</p>
<p>Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.</p>
<p>The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren&#8217;t used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was &#8216;linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage&#8217;. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.5</p>
<p>A Culture of Denial</p>
<p>In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as &#8216;weapons of mass destruction&#8217; &#8216;incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law&#8217;. Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.</p>
<p>Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, &#8216;The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.&#8217; He concluded, &#8216;uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.&#8217; Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.</p>
<p>During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says &#8216;it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.&#8217; Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called &#8216;some&#8217;.</p>
<p>The Way Ahead</p>
<p>Britain and America not only used DU in this year&#8217;s Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn&#8217;t limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq&#8217;s cities. This means that Iraq&#8217;s cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.</p>
<p>The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?</p>
<p>So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.</p>
<p>References</p>
<p>1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.</p>
<p>2. Rosalie Bertell&#8217;s book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.</p>
<p>3. <a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1" rel="nofollow">http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1</a><br />
. htm#TAB L_Research Report Summaries</p>
<p>4. <a href="http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm</a><br />
The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is available at the website <a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Grove" rel="nofollow">http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Grove</a> s21feb03.htm</p>
<p>5. <a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11" rel="nofollow">http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11</a>.<br />
htm#tab L_research report summaries</p>
<p>Further information</p>
<p>The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: <a href="http://www.llrc.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.llrc.org</a></p>
<p>James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on science and technology.</p>
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		<title>By: Samuel Hargrove, US Army (Ret.), &#039;91 Gulf War Veteran</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31588</link>
		<dc:creator>Samuel Hargrove, US Army (Ret.), &#039;91 Gulf War Veteran</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:31:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31588</guid>
		<description>Great read, David!

I applaud you on holding our community of veterans accountable for our actions. In my opinion, when we come together as a community of veterans as we did while serving in uniform, we are a force to be reckoned with.

Our collective voices are strengthened and our issues acted upon WHEN we put aside ideological differences, personal agendas and/or biases. 

The issues are too great for personal attacks. Civil discourse must rule the day, if ever we are to influence the political process for a better quality of life for us all!

Drive on, my friend!

All the best,

Samuel</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Great read, David!</p>
<p>I applaud you on holding our community of veterans accountable for our actions. In my opinion, when we come together as a community of veterans as we did while serving in uniform, we are a force to be reckoned with.</p>
<p>Our collective voices are strengthened and our issues acted upon WHEN we put aside ideological differences, personal agendas and/or biases. </p>
<p>The issues are too great for personal attacks. Civil discourse must rule the day, if ever we are to influence the political process for a better quality of life for us all!</p>
<p>Drive on, my friend!</p>
<p>All the best,</p>
<p>Samuel</p>
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		<title>By: Paul Sullivan</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31580</link>
		<dc:creator>Paul Sullivan</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:18:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31580</guid>
		<description>Dave, Good essay.  Very sad to hear there are some crackpots - some of whom are veterans - who do not believe in Gulf War illness or the serious adverse medical problems associated with Depleted Uranium.  In 1998, Dan Fahey wrote the first-ever investigative report, published by the NGWRC, about the hazards of DU.  After we published our report, then the White House, DoD, and VA wrote Presidential Review Directive 5, a policy guidance that declares that post-war medical problems should be handled as public relations problems and not as public health issues.  PRD 5 still is official policy. Best, Paul.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dave, Good essay.  Very sad to hear there are some crackpots &#8211; some of whom are veterans &#8211; who do not believe in Gulf War illness or the serious adverse medical problems associated with Depleted Uranium.  In 1998, Dan Fahey wrote the first-ever investigative report, published by the NGWRC, about the hazards of DU.  After we published our report, then the White House, DoD, and VA wrote Presidential Review Directive 5, a policy guidance that declares that post-war medical problems should be handled as public relations problems and not as public health issues.  PRD 5 still is official policy. Best, Paul.</p>
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		<title>By: duane fish us army retired gulf war</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31579</link>
		<dc:creator>duane fish us army retired gulf war</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:14:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31579</guid>
		<description>the war on our minds wasn&#039;t the  gulf war or the iraq war,or the vietnam war . it is about the second war, the one that starts when vets return home. it&#039;s what a soldier faces when she or he has to prove that she or he hasn&#039;t invented some mystery illness,it&#039;s what a soldier faces when some acquaintance at work ask him how many rag-heads he wasted. i was a healthy 53 year old when i went to the gulf war. i am now 72 and ever since i have been back i have been to the albany ny va medical center. i have nerve damage on my right side only. i have other medical problems als since i have been back.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>the war on our minds wasn&#8217;t the  gulf war or the iraq war,or the vietnam war . it is about the second war, the one that starts when vets return home. it&#8217;s what a soldier faces when she or he has to prove that she or he hasn&#8217;t invented some mystery illness,it&#8217;s what a soldier faces when some acquaintance at work ask him how many rag-heads he wasted. i was a healthy 53 year old when i went to the gulf war. i am now 72 and ever since i have been back i have been to the albany ny va medical center. i have nerve damage on my right side only. i have other medical problems als since i have been back.</p>
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		<title>By: CWO4 Gourley usa ret.</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31543</link>
		<dc:creator>CWO4 Gourley usa ret.</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:37:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31543</guid>
		<description>What would a air force idiot know about du? After all they still don&#039;t believe that their dumping agent orange did anything bad</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What would a air force idiot know about du? After all they still don&#8217;t believe that their dumping agent orange did anything bad</p>
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		<title>By: Dave Winnett</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31541</link>
		<dc:creator>Dave Winnett</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:16:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31541</guid>
		<description>Folks - I appreciate the feedback.  I would prefer to think that he is just a very misguided individual, or perhaps just overly obsessive about DU.  If it&#039;s more than that, then I would be VERY concerned.  I don&#039;t like to think of myself as a conspiracy theorist.  Maybe I&#039;m naive and too trusting in the government I served for so long.  But if I ever found out that there are people serving in or for high government that would knowingly allow young Americans to be permanently sickened by a deadly toxin, no matter the national security benefit, I would be outraged.  If that isn&#039;t treasonous behavior, I don&#039;t know what is.  Let’s hope the man is just a little nuts.  Either way, I hope that the study of DU continues.  We need to know if this is bad stuff.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Folks &#8211; I appreciate the feedback.  I would prefer to think that he is just a very misguided individual, or perhaps just overly obsessive about DU.  If it&#8217;s more than that, then I would be VERY concerned.  I don&#8217;t like to think of myself as a conspiracy theorist.  Maybe I&#8217;m naive and too trusting in the government I served for so long.  But if I ever found out that there are people serving in or for high government that would knowingly allow young Americans to be permanently sickened by a deadly toxin, no matter the national security benefit, I would be outraged.  If that isn&#8217;t treasonous behavior, I don&#8217;t know what is.  Let’s hope the man is just a little nuts.  Either way, I hope that the study of DU continues.  We need to know if this is bad stuff.</p>
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		<title>By: Gale</title>
		<link>http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/11/17/gulf-war-illness-controversies-divide-veterans/comment-page-1/#comment-31526</link>
		<dc:creator>Gale</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:19:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://127.0.0.1/?p=9432#comment-31526</guid>
		<description>Very good write-up, David.  Don&#039;t let old Helbig get your goat.  We know what goes around comes around.  Most veterans and veteran advocates know of his traitor-like works against his sick fellow comrades now.

What I worry about is wondering if this dude ever held a secret or TS clearance?  We already know he&#039;d do anything for a buck now.  Can you say &quot;John Walker&quot;, military spy?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Very good write-up, David.  Don&#8217;t let old Helbig get your goat.  We know what goes around comes around.  Most veterans and veteran advocates know of his traitor-like works against his sick fellow comrades now.</p>
<p>What I worry about is wondering if this dude ever held a secret or TS clearance?  We already know he&#8217;d do anything for a buck now.  Can you say &#8220;John Walker&#8221;, military spy?</p>
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