Guerra del Golfo e cancro: OSAGWI, 2 casi su 30 veterani (4 febbraio)

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_refs/n52en651/0089_005_0000002.htm
 The above site will link you to Endnote 651 of OSAGWI's online depleted uranium report, http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/.  It is a record of a meeting between Dr. Rostker (OSAGWI) and Dr. McDiarmid (VA).  RADM Steinman from PSOB was also present via phone.  The meeting took place October 15, 1999.

Go to Page 2, number 6.  It states, in part:  "Dr. McDiarmid said that 30 new veterans had been added to the Baltimore Follow-Up program, including four with shrapnel detectable on x-rays...One of the thirty, a non-shrapnel case, has lymphoma."

In all the debate of the last few weeks, the Pentagon and VA have adamantly denied that any of the veterans in the DU Program are suffering from cancer or any other problems possibly related to depleted uranium.  Not once have they said that one of the veterans had lymphoma, and not once have they said that another one of the veterans had a benign tumor taken out of the bone in his upper arm near where he was wounded by DU.  Dr. McDiarmid states, on page 1, number 1, that she has not seen "any smoking guns," but no reference is made in the rest of document about whether the lymphoma or the tumor were or were not related to DU.  The VA has examined only about 60 of the hundreds of vets in OSAGWI's highest exposure cohort.  Is the lymphoma or tumor possibly related to the veteran's DU exposure?  Might there be other veterans, not yet examined, who also have lymphoma, tumors, or other potentially DU-related health problems?

Page 2, number 7 states, in part: "Dr. Rostker told Dr. McDiarmid that some or all of DoD's DU may have been contaminated with trace amounts of transuranics."  To date, DoD has only reported about transuranics in DU armor, not in DU ammunition.  See the Army's report on transuranics in DU armor at www.nato.int

The Department of Defense has been less than truthful about depleted uranium ever since it first under-reported the number of veterans exposed in the aftermath of the Gulf War.  The Pentagon clearly has more explaining to do about what it knows about the health of vets exposed to DU, and the levels of plutonium in the DU ammo shot in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, the US, and elsewhere.  Until a proper epidemiological study is conducted, further research is completed, and a full accounting of Pu levels in DU ammunition is disclosed, the DU issue will remain unresolved.

Daniel Fahey


A comment: I was not convinced as to whether Jerry Wheat's bone tumor was benign or not. He asked for part of the removed tumor to it could be seen by an independent lab, and this was denied. There is no proof as to whether it was benign or malignant except what the government-funded doctors have said ... and he has had no money to have an outside lab do further analysis of that site on his bone.  It worried me ... if the experience of downwinders in federally funded studies is any precursor to what may be happening here with that Baltimore study.

Would like to interview the vet with lymphoma. Have you any idea of who he/she might be?