Why are we Killing the Gene Pool

What is Depleted Uranium?

Depleted Uranium (U-238) is made from uranium hexaflouride, which is the non-fissionable by-product of the uranium enrichment process completed at facilities in Tennessee, Ohio, and Kentucky. The process removes fissionable U-234 and U-235 to make nuclear bombs and reactor fuel.

The remaining uranium, which is 99.8% uranium 238, is called depleted uranium. The term depleted implies it isn't dangerous, when in fact, it is deadly. This waste product is disposed of by producing weapons, armor, and concrete (DUCRETE).

Uranium-235 is converted into Uranium-236, which almost always splits into two smaller atoms. When it splits, it releases a huge amount of energy as heat. When this process occurs in water, it causes the water to boil intensely and creates a large amount of high pressure steam, which is launched at turbines; the energy produced by the turbines spinning creates electricity.

Depleted uranium is the waste product of a nuclear refinery. No use in a generation III reactor, yet one cannot simply throw it away. U238 is radioactive and like any heavy metal, can cause heavy metal poisoning. Bombardment of U238 with neutrons can turn this into plutonium.

DU is radioactive. It is used to make armour piercing bullets, DU is the casing, it then vaporizes or atomizes. The dust is radioactive.

All uranium, whether natural, depleted or enriched, is a toxic radiological element. Each differs from the other in atomic structure by less than one percent. DU emits three types of ionizing radiation: alpha and beta particles and photons

Du ammunition, is u235 either coated bullets or with an u235 core. When this ammunition hits anything the u235 heats up, and then slice anything in its way. Once it hits target it releases u235 dust, which has an earth decay time of 4,5 billion years, which either spreads in the air, up to 45km from the hit point, or settles in the earth and stays there.

Uranium oxide produced from DU rounds looks like a very fine powder that you can easy breathe in. Furthermore uranium oxide is slightly soluble in water, with an increase in solubility if the ground water is lightly acidic. So uranium will get into your system, if you breath in the powder, or if you drink water come into contact with uranium oxide powder, such as in river water or from well water.

Uranium occurs naturally in the environment, and this is true. When it is a ore, it doesn't do anything. DU ammo when it isn't used doesn't pose much of a threat; however, when it is used the projectile gets broken into tiny particles. When this gets into the lungs and blood stream, it can lead to adverse health effects. DU has pyrotechnic characteristics. It gets very hot when fired from a gun, and it can melt thru any kind of armour, and for this reason DU are used mostly against hard armoured targets.

"Some forms of uranium can be absorbed if placed in direct contact with unprotected skin, such as with picking up objects containing uranium.

This type of exposure could be easily avoided with simple precautions, such as not picking up fired DU munitions without wearing protective gloves."

Although try telling a child living in these areas where this ammunition has been used, not to pick up or play with a piece of metal they have found.

Depleted Uranium IS radioactive, its half-life is 4.5 BILLION years. In its nano-particle form, the DU penetrates the human body through breathing or ingestion, and through skin contact. The nano-particles spread around the body and enter individual cells where they wreak havoc with the DNA, leading to various kinds of cancer as well as to severe malformations in offspring.

The NATO soldiers in Iraq were told not to drink water, or eat food from the place they were stationed, as a precaution, because of this precaution they did not become sick.  

Human watch organizations are alarmed because birth defects from DU are already taking place not only in the next generation of Iraqi and Israeli children, but in the children of soldiers who have been exposed to it.

People should stop calling it DU, just call it what it is: URANIUM. U-238 is an Alpha & Beta particle emitter; while this isn't as serious if it’s outside your body; it becomes a BIG problem once the material is ingested or inhaled. 

Uranium is an extremely heavy metal, making it ideal for munitions casings as it can pierce very heavy armour. It is also radioactive.
When a uranium shell punches through another metal, like a tank, the casing vaporizes into dust. It is this dust that critics say is harming soldiers, their families and exposed civilians.

 The American government openly admits to using DU in anti-tank weapons in the gulf war. They're still used widely today,

American soldiers would pose for pictures inside destroyed vehicles, not knowing they were exposed to radioactive danger. Many have since died/grown sick.

Some American troops are so concerned about a new Gulf War Syndrome caused by the effects of DU they have begun to bank their sperm before they head to the Middle East. The sperm banks are now offering discounts to troops.

In 1991, the United States military blasted vehicles with armour-piercing shells made of depleted uranium as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare --.
The Pentagon sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium.

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At least 18 countries are thought to have weapon systems with DU in their arsenals. These include: UK, US, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, China, India and Taiwan. Many of them were sold DU ammunition by the US while others, Including France, China, Russia, Pakistan, UK and India are thought to have developed it independently. 

World depleted uranium inventory 
Country Organization Estimated (tonnes)

United States DOE 480,000 2002 
Russia FAEA 460,000 1996 
France Areva NC 190,000 2001 
United Kingdom BNFL 30,000 2001 
Germany
Netherlands
United Kingdom URENCO 16,000 1999 
Japan JNFL 10,000 2001 
China CNNC 2,000 2000 
South Korea KAERI 200 2002 
South Africa NECSA 73 2001 
TOTAL 1,188,273 2002 

The use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium is a crime. And, DU contaminates our water supplies potentially for thousands (millions?) of years.

During the Iraq War the U.S. use of radioactive DU weapons increased from 375 tons used in 1991 to 2200 tons. Geiger counter readings at sites in downtown Baghdad record radiation levels 1,000 and 2,000 times higher than background radiation. The Pentagon has bombed, occupied, tortured and contaminated Iraq. Millions of Iraqis are affected. Over one million U.S. soldiers have rotated into Iraq. Today, half of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf War troops from the 1991 war have reported serious medical problems and a significant increase in birth defects among their newborn children.

The effects on the Iraqi population are far greater.

Iraqi doctors believe that DU is a major cause of the significant increase in and severe health problems such as cancer and birth defects in the region. The director of the cancer ward at Basra's Saddam Teaching Hospital

Iraqi medical experts say pre-war cancer rates have increased eleven times. Of course, the Pentagon and the White House will deny this.

 Many other countries and U.S. communities near DU weapons plants, testing facilities, bases and arsenals have also been exposed to this radioactive material which has a half-life of 4.4 billions years.

·         All Weapons must pass these tests.

·        
(1)TEMPORAL TEST. Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is over.

·        
(2)ENVIRONMENTAL TEST. Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the environment.

·        
(3)TERRITORIAL TEST. Weapons must not act off of the battlefield.

·        
(4)HUMANENESS TEST. Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanely.

·        

·         Depleted uranium weaponry fails all four tests. For that reason it is illegal under all
Treaties, all agreements and all war conventions: DU fails the tests 

·         The Geneva Convention has classified depleted uranium ammunitions as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' due to their high radioactivity and toxicity

Increase of cancer rates – shortly after the war in Bosnia

At that time people had fled to Bratunac in East Bosnia because of the air raids on Hadzici, a district of Sarajevo. The doctors found an enormous increase of cancer incidence in the refugees but not among the inhabitants of Bratunac.  Dr. Slavica Jovanovic, director of Bratunac hospital, had said some years  ago that the cancer rate among the refugees three years after the war in Bosnia had to be put into causal connection with the bombardments.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations announced it had found evidence of radioactivity at eight of 11 sites tested in Kosovo after they were struck by NATO ammunition with depleted uranium during 1999 bombings. 

The discovery of radioactivity at the sites was a preliminary finding of testing at laboratories in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Britain and Austria by the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), a U.N. spokesman said. 

NATO has come under increasing pressure from several European governments over claims that depleted uranium used in NATO weapons had caused death or illness among Balkan peacekeepers, a condition dubbed "Balkan Syndrome".

REPORT FROM 1991

Vieques,  Cancer Rate Increase Confirmed by the Puerto Rico Health Department. Caused by DU.... 

An increase in birth defects among newborns in the Gaza Strip - first documented in the Palestine Telegraph - has become apparent, despite claims to the contrary by some doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital.

Dr. Jehad Hisain, who works at the neonatal intensive care unit at Al-Shifa Hospital, confirmed that these deformities are increasing,

Experts regard the most recent birth defect in Gaza as a result of the last one sided war launched by Israel. The Israeli war "massacre" claimed the lives of thousands while DU weapons and white phosphorous targeted only areas populated by civilians in Gaza.

In December, Al Dameer Association for Human Rights published a position paper titled, "Health and Environmental Problems in the Gaza Strip that Lead to an Increase in the Number of Babies Born with Birth Defects, Abortion and Cancer Diseases due to the IOF Use of Radioactive and Toxic Materials during its Latest Offensive in the Strip." The paper concluded that Israel is responsible for an environmental and health disaster in the Gaza Strip, pointing to the spike in birth defects.

What of the cleaning up ... removing the destroyed properties, rebuilding their lives

well someone has to clean up the mess left behind, the rubble, who will do this, the local civilians of course , they are the ones living there, therefore they are the ones needing to rebuild and with no new materials available, they have no option but to clear and reuse the contaminated rubble, which involves moving every thing by hand, no heavy machinery or protective clothing available, they are breathing in the dust ... contaminated by..... YESSS URANIUM !!

ABOUT THE CLEAN UP OPERATION IN GAZA

weapons containing uranium have been analysed by a US expert. A British Prof Chris Busby has also obtained samples from Gaza (an air filter from an ambulance and also a missile crater) and reported his initial findings as follows: "I have had these analysed here, at Harwell and in Sweden and they show the presence of uranium at levels higher than the Lebanon filter. There is both enriched and depleted uranium in different portions of the material, very strange; the actual isotope ratios vary and we are also using CR39 analysis. The results are not fully written up yet and need some thinking about, but there is certainly uranium in Gaza from weapons usage”. We have (over many years) experienced the gross neglect by those who pollute to carry out their obligations (under international law) to decontaminate and clean up respective locations around the world. One can draw reference to Iraq which has probably witnessed the worse ever contamination by weapons containing uranium. It has left them with an almost impossible decontamination task with unprecedented levels of suffering by its people with extremely high levels of many forms of cancer, diabetes and birth defects etc. The United States has totally refused to accept its responsibility in cleaning up the contamination it has left behind.

We are now seeing a dramatic rise in cancer, diabetes, mental problems, still births and terrible birth defects in all the past and current areas of conflict. We have seen the use of these evil weapons in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Gaza, and now they are affecting Pakistan. This contamination does not identify international borders and is totally indiscriminate. 

There has been a serious change in the health of populations downwind of these conflicts areas. In the case of Afghanistan the aerosols from these weapons have now crossed into Pakistan, India and beyond with dramatic increases in all of the above areas especially the Punjab region of North India. This cancerous growth is as a direct result of weapons used by the above forces. Most of these weapons are designed and manufactured by the United States. 

 It is obvious that the genetics of Iraq has been grossly affected by uranium contamination. Many weapons used contain both DU/EU isotopes and this directly attacks the DNA of humans. 

Pregnant women with diabetes, that is untreated, produce very weak babies that develop cancer, heart defects and other birth defects and illnesses. 

Uranium exposure causes a web of diseases such as neuro muscular disease, diseases of the brain, gastro intestinal illnesses, heavy metal poisoning, skin rashes and dermal contact with the skin causes high increases in melanoma and other skin cancers. 

The greatest damage from radiation exposure is to the unborn foetus and this genetic damage to the foetus is passed on to all future generations. Basically uranium exposure is a slow painful death from long lingering illnesses. 

It is also interested to note that the IDF also used these weapons in Gaza and as a result of their actions have also contaminated their own country with dramatic rises in cancer, diabetes etc The people in India's Punjab are now seriously affects by this same contamination that has crossed borders from Afghanistan.

Studies in 2005 and earlier have concluded that DU ammunition has no measurable detrimental health effects."

That's because those researches are done by people working for those who produce and use it. It's no unbiased research.
There are also reports that prove the opposite, there is evidence and documentaries of mainstream journalists of mainstream dutch tv and others that documented this well that interviewed experts, Including doctors working in countries that are DU contaminated.

DU IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY  illnesses that have appeared in war veterans and Peacekeepers  these illnesses are now known by ... Gulf War Syndrome, Balkans Syndrome, amongst other terms.

 I think history will look on our governments several years from now with disgust.

DU IS INDESCRIMINATE IN ITS VICTIMS, THEY ARE CIVILIANS, WOMEN, CHILDREN, and THE OLD THE, YOUNG, SOLDIERS OR PEACE KEEPERS... DU HAS NO CONSCIENCE...

ISNT IT TIME IT WAS BANNED, STOPPED, NEVER USED AGAIN...

What are we leaving for our children, our Grandchildren?

Hasn’t DU’ CONTAMINATED THE HUMAN GENE POOL ENOUGH?