news.com.au
Diggers to get uranium checks
From AAP
21jan01

20:50 (AEDT) AUSTRALIAN soldiers who served in the Balkans will be asked for blood and urine samples under a plan announced today to deal with their possible exposure to depleted uranium.

And aid agency CARE Australia, which had about 30 aid workers stationed in the Balkans at various times, is also considering the risk its staff may have been exposed to.

Concern over the possible effects of exposure to depleted uranium have mounted following the deaths from cancer of Italian and Belgian veterans of the Balkans conflict.

Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott announced the five-point plan which involves identifying and screening personnel, providing counselling, establishing the risk of depleted uranium and monitoring veterans' health for five years.

"I am advised that 216 Australian Defence Force personnel have served in the Balkans for periods of 30 days or more, since 1993, in areas including Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," Mr Scott said in a statement.

"The Department of Defence is currently compiling a nominal role of personnel who performed temporary duty in the Balkans for periods of less than 30 days.

"At present, there is no conclusive scientific or medical evidence that exposure to depleted uranium munitions is a health risk."

But the government was committed to meeting its duty of care to the ADF personnel who served in the Balkans, Mr Scott said.

"All current and former ADF personnel who have served in the former Yugoslavia since the Balkans conflict began will be contacted in writing by the Defence Health Service and asked to complete a questionnaire to participate in blood and urine screening in order to gather baseline clinical and exposure data," Mr Scott said.

"An independent review of those questionnaires and and health screening test results will then be carried out by the Repatriation Medical Authority and appropriate independent scientists."

A CARE Australia spokeswoman said the organisation had been carrying out research on the level of risk its staff encountered and the matter had been discussed on Friday.

"We have definitely been looking at what we'd need to do if there was some level of risk determined," she told AAP.

Depleted uranium was used by the United States in armour-piercing weapons during its bombing raids on the Balkans in 1999 and in the Gulf War in 1991.

It is feared that radioactive dust spreads in a potentially poisonous cloud when the weapons impact on their targets.

Information issued by Mr Scott's office says depleted uranium is 40 per cent less radioactive than natural uranium.

About nine tonnes (31,000 rounds) of depleted uranium munitions were fired into around 112 sites in Kosovo in 1999 and around three tonnes (10,000 rounds) were shot into Bosnia in 1994-95.

The United Kingdom defence ministry said very little was shot into the British sector of Kosovo, and most Australians who served in that conflict were with the British forces.

In contrast, about 320 tonnes of depleted uranium was used during the Gulf War.

The federal government is calling for Gulf War veterans to take part in a large-scale study of their health.

Mr Scott also urged any Balkans veterans who believed they had a medical condition as a result of their service there to call the Defence Health Service on 1800 502 771.



Comments: smart British and US troops don't go were "safe" DU was shot.