Gulf war syndrome,Is depleted uranium the culprit?

[Demonskates]

Ive been reading more and more articles about our service men and woman coming back from Iraq very,very sick.
We have an amazeing arsenal of weapons,many of which use depleted uranium.
Artillery rounds,mini gun rounds for tank busters,not to mention all of the targets that those DU shells are hitting.
depleted uranium is far denser than lead,it cuts through tanks like butter,very effective,but they are also radioactive.60% as radioactive as the waste its made from according to the pentagon,with a shelf life of 4.5 billion years.
Yet there is no test by the government for exposure.They deny that there are health risks associated with using DU weapons.In the first gulf war 260 some odd tons of DU munitions were used.
The symptoms of the service people range from spliting migrains,joint pain,nausea,tumors in the brain,thyroid,or bones,tiredness,weekness,gums bleeding,cancer,ect.
Why would the government deny that simply handling UD is risky?More so,if the government knows that DU is dangerous,why are the troops never told so?Or given protective gear when handleing it?Lastly,why are the men and women sick from handleing DU denyed any medical help for their"gulf war syndrome."
I used to think that there was biological agents in Iraq that our troops were unknowingly being subjected to from the iraqi army,but now im wondering if our guys and gals are being made ill by the very weapons they are useing.
In iraq there has been a cosiderable increase in fetal defects,birth defects,mutations,and illness,all which are similar to what our guys and gals are expirencing,since the first gulf war.
It took 40 years for our government to own up to the fact that many veterans of the Viet Nam war were made ill by Agent Orange,the corrosive defolient used to defoliate the jungles and route out the V.C. and N.V.A
I suppose this will be no diffrent.
Any ideas folks?

[D34DGuY]

I think that you hit the nail right on the head with that one. I also believe that the DU is responsible for many of the problems that our troops, and the iraqis are facing.

[Ningishiddza]

Yet there is no test by the government for exposure.They deny that there are health risks associated with using DU weapons. Why would the government deny that simply handling UD is risky?

That's probably because people have been handling DU for more 40 years.


More so,if the government knows that DU is dangerous, why are the troops never told so? Or given protective gear when handleing it?

It isn't dangerous and troops don't handle it. Even if they did handle it, so what?


In iraq there has been a cosiderable increase in fetal defects,birth defects,mutations,and illness,all which are similar to what our guys and gals are expirencing,since the first gulf war.

Absolutely true. But what dooms DU as the culprit is the fact that people who are not exposed to DU have the same or similar symptoms.

If 90 people have a disease and 60 ate at a certain restaurant within the last 2 weeks but 30 of them never ate at that restaurant, then you have to rule out the restaurant as the source of the disease.


It took 40 years for our government to own up to the fact that many veterans of the Viet Nam war were made ill by Agent Orange,the corrosive defolient used to defoliate the jungles and route out the V.C. and N.V.A I suppose this will be no diffrent.

Yes, the government lies and denies, we all know that.

You need to stay away from junk science. If you need info, you can ask people who were there.

This is the specific activity for U238: 0.0000003361 curies/gram

This is the specific activity for Radon 222 (which you can find in your basement): 0.062 curies/gram.

The Radon gas in the basement of your home 184,523 times more radioactive than U238.

U238/DU is also used as a radiation shield. It might seem daft to use radioactive material to shield against radioactive material, but as I pointed out, the radioactivity is nominal. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, natural background radiation and cosmic radiation is more dangerous than DU.

There's a lot of misinformation around to "bolster" the story that DU is the culprit by the "I don't understand things nuclear so everything nuclear is dangerous" crowd.

Take the tank rounds. The M1 fires HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds and high velocity fin stabilized armor piercing sabot rounds. The sabot rounds are made of DU and have been since the early 1980's. When I say the sabot rounds are made of DU, that's exactly what I mean, made of DU, then entire sabot. It is not "coated" with DU. If you are reading an article an the author claims tank rounds are "coated" with DU, the author is a liar and/or incompetent.

The sabot is essentially a very long dart. It is encase in an aluminum shell casing with high explosives. You can't touch the sabot. All rounds in an M1 are stored in a storage area which has a door which is opened when the loader depresses it with his knee to extract a round. That's a safety thing. If a round explodes in the storage area, it is designed to blow up and out away from the crew and save their lives, and it works just like it's suppose to work.

The DU sabot round does not explode, contrary to the lunatic ravings of many internet wanna-be journalists and other agenda-driven journalists. Sabot rounds are kinetic energy weapons, relying on brute force to penetrate threat armor. At most, a DU round might shatter, but that is rare. They never, meaning at no time ever, explode. There was a friendly fire incident where an M1 sabot went through a Bradley and ripped off the legs of the TC then flew out the other side into another Bradley, but didn't penetrate. The crew received minor injuries from spalling. Spalling is metal fragments of the vehicles own armor that fly around inside a tracked vehicle and kills/injures the crew. Most countries now use spalling nets to reduce the amount of spalling. On several occasions, DU sabot rounds killed two Iraqi tanks with one shot flying through one and into another. You can walk around Iraq and pick up used DU sabot rounds, mostly from the first war.

So all this nonsense that DU sabot rounds explode and create this fine dust that is killing every one is just that, nonsense.

DU is also used to make bullets for 20mm, 30mm and 7.62 armor piercing rounds. Once again, these are not "coated" with DU. The entire round is made of DU. Once again, bullets are kinetic energy weapons, they do not explode on impact. A DU 20mm round does the exact same thing that a lead DU 20mm round does: Deforms on impact.

So, obviously, their position is really weak if they have to make up lies and claim that the rounds are "coated" so that they burn off or explode on impact to create dust which the troops allegedly inhale or ingest.

And what about lead? Lead is toxic and was used on battlefields for centuries. Want to guess how much lead was used in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam? Why don't troops have lead poisoning?

There are still a lot of unknowns. Contaminants from chemical weapons are still all over from the first gulf war, and who knows were Saddam dumped them in the interim years. Iraq wasn't exactly compliant with its chemical industrial wastes either.

Iraq also has numerous disease to which Americans are not accustomed. A number of troops have been sent home with skin diseases and rashes, and other illnesses carried by insects in Iraq.

What I notice rather strangely about this whole thing about DU is that there is a plethora of evidence to support it if it is true. The Iraqis have been there the whole time, breathing this mythical dust created by magically coated rounds that mystically explode. If more than half of all veterans from the first gulf war were "exposed" as many claim, then so should half of all Iraqis, even more so, since they've been there longer.

[Demonskates]

So far ive only read stuff where they say the rounds are fully DU,not coated with it.(besides coating a round would not help to make it as dense as a fully DU round is,it would be useless to coat them)
Although i will say that there is alot of stuff ive seen about the DU dust.
I do not doubt that there are biological agents present in places in Iraq that could account for some of these increased defects and illnesses.
Everything ive read about DU has made the stuff sound incredibly dangerous.
Weather any of it is tue or not,i dont know.
I know a few soldiers are sueing the govt. over these DU rounds,claiming that it is responsible for their illnesses.One claims he breethed in this DU dust accidentaly.
i wasnt sure what to think so i posted this to get ideas on the subject.

[lazserus]

This was a good shot, my man.

Before I rant, I will back up Ningishiddza on his/her/it's conclusion. Their data is quite secure and concise.

Gulf War Syndrome never came from exposure to radiation. Hell, consider how many soldiers came home with the affliction compared to those who were in areas radiated with it. I can tell you it's little to none. Do research and do math. Gulf War Syndrome is based off vaccinations, not radiation exposure. During the Gulf War, the US was experimenting with vaccinations to prevent sickness within certain new areas. I know that's ambiguous, but anyone in our membership who's served overseas knows about the "needle." Anyone who travels across the globe knows that they must be vaccinated first.

During the Gulf War there was a lot of fear of chemical and biological warfare over the desert. During the war, the opponents primarily used mustard gas. It hurt like a bitch and would drive troops to their knees, but that was the primary "bio/chemical weapon."

Most troops came back unharmed. Gulf War Syndrome became a new PTS like Vietnam. The syndrome came due to certain vaccinations.

It's not radiation, it's vaccinations. Radiation doesn't drive people mad.

[Demonskates]

Thanks Lazerus,so you think its the vacines that our govt.is useing thats doing it?
Wow,thats some crazy stuff.Looks like they have one bitch of a side effect.
Does anyone know what these vacines are comprised of other than the govt.?
It seems like there are some monstrous side effects,can an inquiry be done of the components in these vacines,It just seems that if they are the culprit,they are doing our troops more harm than good.