NEWSWEEK, 15 gennaio
Health: Tracking a Deadly ‘Balkan Syndrome’
NATO military officials and ambassadors will meet this week to discuss deaths allegedly caused by uranium exposure in the Balkans

Jan. 15 issue — Nato finds itself under a new attack in Europe. NATO military officials and ambassadors will meet this week to discuss deaths allegedly caused by uranium exposure in the Balkans.

  SINCE THE KOSOVO conflict ended in June 1999, seven Italian soldiers and one Red Cross official who served in Bosnia and Kosovo have died of leukemia and other forms of cancer, which some people link to depleted-uranium armor-piercing shells used by U.S. aircraft. Soldiers from Belgium and Portugal have also died, but evidence of a link to depleted uranium is far from clear. And at a time when Europe is mulling the creation of an independent military force, the furor about a so-called “Balkan Syndrome” has further destabilized NATO’s footing on the continent.

  Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato is pushing for an investigation. He says NATO lied when it assured officials that U.S.-made munitions did not pose health risks. But not even his own government seems is united on the issue. Italy’s Under Secretary for Defense Marco Minniti admitted that no link had been proved between depleted uranium and the deaths, an assertion backed by most experts. The cancers afflicting the Italian soldiers and 17 other Balkans veterans appear to have developed too quickly to suggest a likely connection to depleted uranium used in the area. And tests after the gulf war, when the shells were first used, proved no links to illness. It is also unclear whether the deaths are statistically out of line with normal rates of cancer. But the dispute has become both emotional and political—and will not quickly subside.

© 2001 Newsweek, Inc.