THE INDEPENDENT (London)
12 January 2001
MoD plan for depleted uranium trials provokes new health fears in Scotland
By Marie Woolf and Kim Sengupta

New tests of depleted uranium ammunition are to go ahead next month in Scotland, despite mounting concerns about the health risks associated with it.

MPs had called on the Government to shelve plans to fire DU rounds at the Ministry of Defence test site in Kirkcudbright. Sixty DU rounds will be fired until October into the Solway Firth, where about 6,000 DU shells have been fired since testing began in 1982. MPs say it is "insensitive" for the Government to continue with its testing programme and believe local people and fishermen should be alerted to its plans.

Personnel at the Government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency will have health checks and a doctor will be on site. The Government has refused calls for compulsory testing for all service personnel who served in the Balkans and Gulf War. However, it has offered voluntary testing. The Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, said he would consider it being carried out by an independent laboratory.

The Government faced intense pressure yesterday to make a second Commons statement about the risks associated with DU because of the news that the Ministry of Defence had first been alerted to possible adverse effects in 1979 in a memo concluding that it was a toxic material.

Ministers played down a leaked MoD memo from four years ago that warned of the risk of brain, lymph and lung cancers. Mr Hoon told Channel 4: "I have had specific scientific evidence about that ... It is something the department has had over a period of time. But today ... the best scientific evidence I have available is that is not true ... We have always made quite clear that in limited circumstances there was a risk, and we have advised soldiers of that risk."

The MoD had attempted to dismiss the report, claiming it was the "flawed" work of a "junior trainee". It admitted later the "trainee" was a middle-ranking officer, a major.

A leaked document revealed that the Army's Quartermaster General had recommended the report be studied by any personnel likely to come into contact with DU ammunition.