ROME A group representing Italian soldiers and their families on Wednesday contested a government report that said it had not yet found a link between the use of depleted uranium weapons and cancer among servicemen.  The association argued that the Defense Ministry was working with questionable data, skewing results to underplay the effects of the so-called Balkans Syndrome.  On Monday, Franco Mandelli, head of a scientific commission set up by the government to look into cancer among soldiers who served in the Balkans in 1995 and 1999, said the incidence of tumors was "significantly less than expected."  But the military support group said the findings were skewed by including soldiers who had not worked in contaminated areas and people who had been sent to the Balkans for just one day.  "The Mandelli Commission report is unacceptable and should be thoroughly redone," said Falco Accame, head of the soldiers' group known as the National Association to Help Victims Belonging to the Armed Forces and the Families of the Fallen.  Mr. Mandelli's study echoed other scientific reports that have so far failed to find a link between depleted uranium weapons and the illnesses now affecting soldiers: Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.  A Balkans Syndrome scare broke out in January when it was reported that at least seven Italian servicemen had died from leukemia after exposure to depleted uranium-tipped ammunition used by NATO forces in the Balkans.  Mr. Accame said the Italian commission needed to widen its study to include at least four tumor-suffering soldiers exposed to depleted uranium while serving with UN peacekeeping forces in Somalia.

Dan Fahey