Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 199)
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 1999
MR SHAUN
RUSLING, DR
DOUG ROKKE,
MR TONY
DUFF, PROFESSOR
MALCOLM HOOPER,
MR JOHN
DENNIS AND
DR HARI
SHARMA
180. What is wrong with it?
(Mr Duff) What is right with it!
(Professor Hooper) I think the answer is it is too
limited, it is not a scientific study, it is not addressing the
whole question of DU, and the numbers are too small.
Mr Cann
181. It is not addressing the whole question
of DU?
(Professor Hooper) Yes. The whole question is that
people are contaminated. Which people are contaminated? Which
people are likely to be contaminated? People who did vehicle recovery
are candidates for that. People who did battle assessment in situ,
where they were looking at vehicles which had been hit; vehicle
recovery meaning Iraqi tanks and ours. Visiting the Basra Road.
In the United States there was a survey done amongst veterans
there by veterans' organisations. It was a paper questionnaire,
like most of the things which have been done so far. They simply
said: "From this survey of 10,000 people, we estimate that
four out of five were potentially exposed to depleted uranium."
That is what I mean by the whole question.
182. 10,000?
(Professor Hooper) Four out of five. 10,000 people
were assessed, yes.
(Dr Rokke) To go back to that, since I have probably
more experience than anybody in this—I know because I have
been in every United States' struck vehicle to have ever been
hit by DU and I did all the research—having gone through
the Medical Assessment Programme, this is woefully inadequate:
completely, totally, woefully inadequate for DU. The Protocol
that has been published by Colonel Eric Daxon and what the VA
has sent out is woefully inadequate. It does not address the inhalation,
the ingestion of DU. It only addresses those individuals that
have shrapnel. It is not even providing medical care for three-quarters
of those as of today. In 1993, based on our recommendations after
the Gulf War, after health visits from medical staff, there were
specific recommendations for assessing and identifying everybody
who was exposed and who required medical tests. This is from a
message sent out by the Headquarters Department of the Army dated
14 October 1993. This message was based on our team's recommendations
identifying who should be tested for uranium exposures. This is,
and I will quote: "(a) being in the midst of smoke from DU
fires resulting from the burning of vehicles uploaded with munitions
or depots in which munitions are being stored; (b) working within
the environment containing DU dust and residues from DU fires;
(c) being within a struck vehicle while struck by ammunition."
Basically, this covered the whole gambit. What we saw was that
anybody who climbed or crawled on any struck vehicle, unless they
had full respiratory or skin protection they required a complete
medical assessment. Any individual that went within 25 metres—and
this is actually all validated, I will give it to you—of
any struck vehicle, when it was stood up again, without full respiratory
skin protection they required complete medical assessment. It
is still not being done as of today. The Medical Assessment Programme
that was put forward was completely inadequate. When we looked
at what we knew the health problems to be—real basic science
from exposures to uranium, which is both a heavy metal and radiological—and
the areas that needed assessment, (and as a member of the DU programme
at Baltimore which has been trashed) I was in the fight force
and I cannot get all the stuff myself. Neurology, ophthalmology,
urology, dermatology, cardiology, pulmonary, immunology, oncology.
I have members of my team who are dead with cancer, who were deliberately
denied medical care by Dr Bernard Rostker. Gynaecology, gastro-intestinal,
dental, and the psychology. This comes into the question you ask.
It is both neuropsychology, which is affecting brain function,
and it is also the psychology from the stress. So these are the
areas that we have recommended which are not in the Protocol Programme
whatsoever and they are such commonsense that it is like any basic
first-aider or EMT or nurse would know. "I have a heavy metal
or radiological poison, plus all this other stuff. Why am I not
checking these systems?" They are not doing it. They are
deliberately not doing it because they do not want to find out.
They are not going to get down to the real fundamental reasons
as to what it is all about, especially with DU and the lack of
care and lack of full assessment. It is not just about the civilians
and the veterans. What it is about is the overall liability and
responsibility for the non-combatants, the women and the children
in all these areas where DU has been used: Puerto Rico, throughout
the United States, England, Iraq, Kosovo, Serbia. It is the whole
thing. If you did a full physiological assessment on my team,
which has still never been done, the guys are sick or dead. You
could say that then you will have to come back and do an assessment
on all these non-combatants, the women and children in all these
areas, who did not deliberately mean to be exposed to DU but continue
to be exposed to DU, right now.
183. When you are talking about liability you
are talking about something like the asbestos industry—or
further?
(Dr Rokke) This was a deliberate release and deliberate
use. For example, in Kosovo, in April of this year, Dr Rosalie
Bertell, Dr Dan Fahey, Dr Denise Nichols and myself were called
to Washington DC before the Panel. At that time we gave deliberate
wilful warnings based on all the research of our first-hand experience.
"Do not use DU in Kosovo or Serbia." Lo and behold,
they said on the record at the Department of Defense, "We
will not use it." All of a sudden I get a message from the
Pentagon Public Affairs Officer, who said he had lied to me. "I
am sorry, I apologise, they have been firing it." The warnings
were given because of the known health effects, the completely
inadequate physiology assessments which had never been done, even
though they had been ordered (I do not know how many times) in
the United States and in your country; and they are still not
being done today, based on the known exposures and classifications
from the Headquarters Department in 1993. So when you look at
assessment for those individuals, for the warriors and civilians—and
I have civilians who are very sick right now from DU exposure,
who have been absolutely totally quantified, and so has Dr Hari
Sharma—but it has not been done. What we are looking at
here is something way beyond. Everybody has said, over and over
and over again, that Saddam Hussein did not deliberately release
chemical, biological and radiological weapons in the Gulf War.
From the Command Headquarters who plotted this stuff, let me tell
you, the stuff came wafting down all over the place. The alarms
went off, not because the alarms were faulty, but because they
detected it. The DU stuff exposure was there all over, was solid
100 per cent. The warning went out. The medical care went out.
The assessments were deliberately not done. They were deliberately
not done on myself and my team because if they had been done,
common sense, we would have known right off the bat that we had
a real serious problem. What we have today now with the DU thing
is that the Protocols in that—and I have brought the video
tape with me for other use—in the Protocols, which are currently
put together by the United States Medical Department, it does
not mention any of the stuff that has been known and gone on.
We have a wilful and deliberate effort to deny adequate medical
testing, for the reason of not finding the problems, so that we
can absolve ourselves of liability and responsibility for what
has happened to the veteran, the soldier, to the civilian warrior
that went over there for all cases. We have in this room right
now, I know, sick civilians who were exposed, but much less than
the civilians who are in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Puerto Rico,
Kosovo, Serbia, England, and throughout the United States who
got exposed to this mess.
Chairman
184. If it is serious, if the depleted uranium
does have these side effects, what would you be expecting to be
happening now amongst the population of Kosovo and Serbia?
(Dr Rokke) Your own impressive document did extremely
well on television already. Birth effects are being seen in Iraq.
In the population in Iraq they have seen these, in our children,
and in your own veteran warriors. They are totally documented.
We have the birth effects from the friendly fire, which are totally
documented. We have the birth effects in the offspring of the
recovery team, which is totally documented. It is there. If you
have not seen the videos, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that
you see them because they are there. You cannot visually deny
the evidence and you cannot deny the evidence of the physicians
who have seen this. It is coming back to assessment: inadequate
assessment for deliberate denial and finding of care.
(Mr Rusling) The test that the MoD have offered, they
have only offered them to the 30 members of the veterans or families
who have been tested in Canada by two universities. They have
not offered these tests to all the other associations or members,
just to my members who have tested positive. I do not think that
is fair or proper.
Mr Cann
185. How many members do you represent?
(Mr Rusling) We have 2,200 on the books. Some of them
have not paid up. There is a letter here from Mr Stainton, Assistant
Private Secretary to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces,
1 August 1993, and it refers to: "We are aware of the hazards
of depleted uranium, both in its massive form and on impact with
hard objects where it gives off dust and fumes." It goes
on to talk about the toxicity and low radioactivity. Then it goes
on to say: "Issuing of safety instructions was in some cases
overlooked. This was regrettable." It is regrettable. We
are the ones who are regretting it very much.
(Dr Rokke) It was deliberately overlooked, gentlemen.
186. It would be said by some, of course, that
all this happened in 1990 and it is now 1999. How can you test
for this any more in individual people? Can it be done?
(Dr Rokke) Yes, it can.
(Mr Dennis) By looking at the ratio of isotopes in
the total uranium that you measure in urine; by the insoluble
uranium—and Hari can tell you better than I can—that
is excreted in urine.
187. We were given evidence in a previous hearing
on this matter that we all have a natural level of uranium.
(Professor Hooper) Yes, of course, but we have not
got depleted uranium.
(Dr Sharma) Everybody has some in-take or up-take
of natural uranium through natural sources. Nowadays we encounter
three types of uranium because of new technology for separating
isotopes of uranium from each other. We have enriched uranium,
natural uranium, and depleted uranium. So we have signature isotopic
ratios for each type of uranium, uranium-238 to-uranium-235, as
498. The reason why we are able to go back to 1991 is because
we have the signature ratio of depleted uranium that was used
in the Gulf War. That uranium had a definite isotopic ratio for
the two isotopes of uranium. Now, when we test for uranium in
urine, at this time we have a mixture of the two: that is, natural
uranium and depleted uranium. Now natural uranium exists in a
form which is excreted through urine readily. Within a week it
is all flushed out. Whatever small amount we take in, we expect
the normal population to be excreting something like 30 billionth
or thousand millionth (I do not know what you use as billion,
we have trillion—
188. Thousand million.
(Dr Sharma) Thousand million. So it is one in a thousandth
of a million. We excrete about 30 or 40 nanograms every day. Every
human being does more-or-less because the food is barely homogenised.
On top of that, we find there is depleted uranium and there again
the question arises, why do we find depleted uranium after nine
years, when we say it is flushed out within a week? The reason
for that is that there are two types of uranium compound. One
is very insoluble in body fluid and the other is soluble. The
soluble kind is readily eliminated because we have carbon dioxide
in our body.[5]
It carbonises them and then excretes them out. So having done
this, first we have to see that the insoluble type of uranium
is uranium dioxide, that is in ceramic form. Because at a very
high temperature it becomes even more insoluble, when we want
to treat it we have first to look for this particular type of
uranium, and then to dissolve it. Therefore, we have to have a
methodology. No-one has a methodology so far. So this is the handicap
we have. They keep telling us that it is harmless because it is
not there, but it is there, and I have no doubt from the determinations
I have done. I have done a lot of soul searching, so that I do
not mislead the veterans in this regard because it is a very important
issue. I find absolutely no cause to see that we are wrong in
any way.
189. Dr Sharma, we were expecting you to publish
a report on your findings into this matter, were we not? When
is it likely to come out?
(Dr Sharma) I have been saying this for the last six
or eight months that the report would be complete `shortly'. In
fact, I sent a letter to the heads of NATO countries telling them
the problems associated with the use of depleted uranium based
munition. In the meantime, some things did happen at my university.
I am not there any more, I am retired, so there were no more efforts
made to get back to the university. But this disrupted my work
and I have not been able to complete the report so far. However,
I intend completing the report very shortly. I have made up my
mind to complete it specially after having heard the evidence
at this meeting.
190. Do you think you need any further tests
on individual people before you produce your report, or have you
got all the data basically that you require?
(Dr Sharma) No, I do not think I need to analyse urine
samples any more. I am quite convinced that depleted uranium is
present in veterans' specimens.[6]
There are reports which state that 97 per cent of the population
excrete natural uranium, so I need not worry about the presence
of depleted uranium from natural sources, food and water, in the
general population. Now, there is a question of sources of contamination.
I have seen that contamination which comes only from natural uranium,
not from depleted uranium.[7]
Some soil samples do contain depleted uranium.[8]
I think somebody has said that 11 per cent of the soil does have
it but it is to a minor degree and not in a major way. I am hoping
to get some tissue samples from veterans, so that I can also establish
pathways leading to excretion of insoluble type of uranium. I
have a hypothesis with respect to the type of uranium compound
that is being excreted by the veterans now. Dr Rokke alluded to
the fact that most of the depleted uranium had already been excreted
and should not be present in urine samples. But I have a suspicion
that the biological half-life for this type of uranium is very
long, maybe 20 years, or even longer than 20 years. So we need
to know now how it is going through the body. For that I need
tissue samples. First of all, we have to find out which compartment
of the body stores depleted uranium. It is most likely to be the
lungs. Then in the lymph nodes the concentration can be as high
as ten times what it is in the lungs. Since depleted uranium dioxide
is highly insoluble, it presents other problems as well, that
it may not be distributed uniformly all over the lungs, but only
accumulated in some parts of the lungs, mainly the upper bifurcation
of the lungs. If that is so, then the radiation dose is going
to be much higher in tissues in the upper bifurcation of the lungs.
There are several issues which I shall wish to tackle if I do
get tissue samples from exposed veterans. If we do get that, then
we can see in what form the depleted uranium oxide is being excreted.
I personally think it is being pulverised inside the body itself
into smaller and still smaller particles. It is inhaled in 1 or
2 micron sized particles and in the body it becomes sub-micron
particles. Then it moves to the cells and before it is excreted.
If that is so, then the methodology for the evaluation of radiation
dose has to be very different. We want to learn as much as we
can.
.
Laura Moffatt
191. It seems to me, Dr Sharma, that this work
is a long way off. That is an awful lot to be doing in the short
term. I wondered what effect it would have. I need to know if
we were sold a pup, as a Committee, when we were told on the work
on depleted uranium, that we have to exclude uranium as we would
find it naturally, before we can even go on to work properly.
What you have been telling me is that it is not necessarily true.
Even though we can accuse people of not explaining properly to
those who have gone for their depleted uranium tests, as they
thought at the time—and, goodness knows, we know doctors
cannot explain properly anyway wherever they are, that is a common
complaint—it is not true that this work cannot be done separately,
and it can be done long term?
(Dr Sharma) This is referring to the report. As I
said, I did this work out of my personal interest. I have been
doing it from 1980 onwards. I have done it for workers who were
involved with several uranium plants. So from my point of view,
and from the point of view of recent reports, I do not think I
need any more samples to be done for estimating depleted uranium.
Now for veterans, of course, you need to have that. That is how
you can get data to see what DU does inside a person's body. So
that answers your question.
(Dr Rokke) Let us go back and talk about the insoluble
and soluble fractions. During the Gulf War, before the Gulf War
research was done, a report was sent to us, as we started cleaning
this up, that during an impact and the possible inhalation—let
us stick with the inhalation first—because shrapnel is getting
right in there. 57 per cent is insoluble and 43 per cent of the
fraction is soluble. That is all solid research as far as the
DU acts with the dust. What we have reported from the friendly-fire
casualties and what I saw during the researches, I had totally
clean vehicles. We fired a round of DU round. We were firing the
120 millimetres and the 25 millimetre rounds. Those are the tank
rounds. Those are the Bradley Fighting Vehicle rounds. When we
fired a round we were in the vehicles within minutes. I do not
need to explain this. You can see the videos. Rostker has these
videos. We fired a round at that range. Myself and my two team
members were in these the vehicles within a minute or two minutes
after the impact. They were still burning. Cute little story.
I was doing an Irish jig on top of the 272 as it was burning,
minutes after it was hit by a 120 round. Inside these vehicles,
and we climbed up, there was so much uranium oxide dust that you
could not see the sidewalk. I am going to repeat, you could not
see three feet from the amount of oxide dust that was inside the
tank after the impact. It is important to understand this. The
120 millimetre round, each individual round is over 4500 grams
of uranium 238. Each 105 millimetre round is over 3500 grams of
uranium 230. Each individual round. So when we had all these vehicles
hit two, three, four times, the quantity of uranium that becomes
airborne then contributes the 57 per cent which is insoluble,
which gets into the lungs and causes all kinds of problems; and
the 43 per cent, which is soluble and goes into the body, that
is astronomical. What we also found, by deliberate researches,
was that no matter how long this impact, and they went back and
climbed into these vehicles, it was resuspended, again with 57.3
per cent in our ratio. You could not see the sidewalk again and
I did this within minutes, hours, days, during and after the research.
The most phenomenal part of this stuff is that when we have this
57 per cent insoluble going into the lung, and 43 per cent soluble
going into the lung during inhalation, the problems that this
was going to cause serious health effects were known as early
as 1943 in a direct message sent to General Lester Groves on 13
October 1943. This is during the Manhattan Project. I am going
to quote this again. "Particles larger than 1 micron in size
are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then
be brought up with the mucus on the walls at the rate of one half
to 1 cm/min. Particles smaller than one micron are more likely
to be deposited in the alveoli where they will remain indefinitely
or be absorbed into the lymphatics or the blood." There you
go, with your biological hat on, Dr Sharma. "The probability
of the deposition of dust particles anywhere in the respiratory
tract depends upon the respiratory rate, particle size, chemical
and physical nature, and the concentration in the atmosphere."
So, ladies and gentlemen, we are seeing so much dust in these
tanks that you cannot even see three feet. "Hence the probability
of products causing lung damage depends on all of these factors.
While only fragmentary information is available, it is felt that
the injury would be manifest as bronchial irritation coming on
in from a few hours to a few days,..." Ladies and gentlemen,
the friendly fire and my team had irritation and respiratory problems
within days, and it was serious within weeks. It is totally documented
in medical records. "It would not be immediately incapacitating
except with doses in the neighbourhood of 400 or more hours..."
which we did not exceed, so the radiation is not there. "The
most serious effect would be permanent lung damage appearing months
later from the persistent irradiation of retained particles, even
at low daily rates." The United States Department of Defense
told General Lester Groves during the Manhattan Project—and
the people who wrote this letter are the foremost physics experts
in the world—Conant, Compton and Urey. Anybody who is not
aware of the stature of these men in the world of physics, these
are the top three. In 1943 it would be known that these were the
health effects. The permanent lung damage. We saw it in friendly-fire.
We saw it immediately in all the recovery people. This document
was sent to me by the United Nations just a few weeks ago prior
to coming over here and presenting it to Cambridge last month.
What it gave to me was unequivocal evidence known in 1943 and
it has been proved since that the implication of uranium will
cause all the respiratory problems. Now to me it is clear why
my team members are dead from lung cancer. Three of those who
have died because they worked with me. This is what has happened.
So when we look at the problems, and Dr Sharma down there is saying
that we are looking at it probably through a biological half life,
it was known in 1943; and the greatest scientists in the world,
working on the Manhattan project, told General Groves at that
time. This memorandum was a memorandum where they were suggesting
that uranium be used deliberately as a terrain contaminant, as
a gas warfare agent, to contaminate water and soil, which is now
known to have occurred world-wide. Here it is in 1943. No question.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr Cohen, do you
want to follow this up?
Mr Cohen
192. Thank you for that quote from 1943 but
I would like to ask Dr Sharma: in his study, what level of exposure
would be needed? What did he find was the minimum level of exposure
needed to depleted uranium before adverse health effects set in?
(Dr Sharma) I have done some assessment of adverse
health effects from inhalation of particles of depleted uranium
dioxide. In the area of radiation, I believe that the Committee
may be aware that this (radiation carcinogenesis or oncogenesis
in man) is a stochastic (random) process. It may be started, or
induced, by a single radiation. On the other hand several rays
may not induce it. So we evaluated the radiation dose from inhaled
depleted uranium and what Dr Rokke was saying, his immediate report
also indicated that the inhalation of the depleted uranium dioxide
by the veterans would be causing radiological hazard to them.
On the basis of that, and on the basis that the veterans have
somewhere close to 3 or 4 micrograms of depleted uranium as the
excretion rate per day, and by taking the appropriate biological
half life which we need to know, we can evaluate the radiation
dose. It turns out from our calculations, if one veteran is excreting
one microgram of depleted uranium per day, we will have a risk
factor of about 2.4 per cent. This means that if a population
of one thousand veterans is exposed to that much of uranium such
that they all have the excretion rate of DU as one microgram per
day, 24 veterans in the population of veterans will die from fatal
cancers. If we have, for example, on average, five micrograms
per litre at the excretion rate, then correspondingly 120 out
of 1,000 would be dying from fatal cancers. For this type of assessment
of adverse health effects, the radiation dose has been integrated
over a 50-year period. It will not occur today, but gradually
it will.[9]
(Professor Hooper) Chairman, could I
just add to that point as well that the impact of uranium is not
something that happens on its own; it will activate biological
mechanisms that operate—this is in Vicker's paper that I
quote in my evidence where it says that "low-level radiation
invokes biological mechanisms which will transmit the biological
consequences of the ionising radiation into other parts of the
body", so it is not just something that is associated with
uranium, but the body responds extensively to this kind of insult,
using other mechanisms, not just the radiological mechanisms,
but mechanisms like peroxidation and free-radical oxidation processes
which are known to affect, for example, nerve sheaths and things
like that and membranes. So it is a composite again; it is not
just taking a thing on its own, and it is important to see that
it does actually enmesh with these other things.
Chairman: Thank you and we return to
questions of epidemiological studies.
Mr Colvin
193. These studies were called for by this Committee
in an earlier report and it has taken quite a long time for the
MoD to get round to setting them up, and I express some disappointment
that the results are going to be so long in coming forward. Can
you just comment first on the methodology of the two surveys being
undertaken? You have got Professor Cherry first of all at Manchester
University comparing 9,600 Gulf veterans with 4,800—that
is half the number—of service personnel who did not serve
in the Gulf. Now, are you happy with the method being used to
conduct these surveys? Are they actually going to give us information
which really is going to tell us whether people who served in
the Gulf experienced circumstances which have led to particularly
adverse results? Are the samples big enough? I am not an expert
on market research.
(Professor Hooper) I think I would preface my remarks
by saying that first of all the first epidemiological study was
funded by the DoD. That was Wessley's and that is the only one
that has reported.
194. That is the American one?
(Professor Hooper) No, that was a British study funded
by the DoD through King's College, and that was reported in January
of this year in The Lancet. That identified exactly what
the Americans have found, that there was a two to three-fold increase
in the symptoms amongst Gulf War veterans compared with other
veterans, that it was vaccine-related, which was the first time
that it seemed to have been picked up, that there were defects
in his questionnaire, because it was all questionnaire work and
no one has been seen by doctors, so people have been asked questions
and there are limits to the value of these sorts of questionnaires.
I think the numbers need to be as large as possible and so it
is an open question, but what Nicola Cherry is looking at is mortality.
There is a study in the States of mortality amongst Gulf War veterans
which shows that the mortality is higher and they have put it
down to road accidents, which begs all the questions about why
do people who are veterans have more road accidents, and the answer,
I think, is to do with the poisoning they have undergone. There
is sleep disturbance, there is neurological disturbance, there
is cognition awareness, but those questions have never been asked.
I have said in the submission I have made that I think in Britain
we are running around the same track as the Americans, but we
are about two or three laps behind.
195. So we are going to find the same results,
you think?
(Professor Hooper) Well, I think that we shall find
the same results. I think Nicola Cherry's questionnaire particularly
was quite seriously flawed.
196. Well, I think it would be quite useful
for this Committee to have a note of where you see the flaws so
that we can take them into account. You mentioned deaths and I
have mentioned the number earlier, being 413 in all to date, but
they have analysed the deaths as 387 and you are quite right,
traffic accidents are 119 of those. One cannot argue with that,
quite frankly, but whether Gulf War illnesses have caused them
to be more prone to traffic accidents, I do not know, but you
have seen presumably the results of that analysis, have you?
(Professor Hooper) Of Nicola Cherry's analysis?
197. No, the Gulf War veteran deaths, the reasons
for them dying. You have seen that?
(Professor Hooper) I have not seen the analysis of
our deaths, no, not the breakdown of the causes of death.
Mr Colvin: Well, I do not think it is
any secret. The information is available in Annex A of the memorandum
we have had from the MoD.[10]
Chairman
198. Which will be available, we are told, as
soon as it gets on the Internet.
(Mr Rusling) Is this being published because we asked
why the deaths of the 400 have not been included in the Wessley
Report?
199. Well, if you write an anonymous letter
to the Ministry of Defence, they may tell you.
(Mr Rusling) Mr George, I have written so many letters
over three years to the Ministry of Defence asking them to reply
to me and we are not laughing about it.
Chairman: The Ministry of Defence asked
us permission to publish this document which we have given, so,
as Mr Barton says, as soon as it gets on the Internet. From what
you have said, it might be some time, but I am sure it will be
very, very quick and then if you want to make any comments on
that document, please feel free to find somebody to communicate
it to us.
5 Note by witness: the presence of carbon dioxide
in body fluid leads to formation of bicarbonate ions that, in
turn, form soluble complexes with uranium compounds. Depleted
uranium, if present in a urine specimen now, must be of the insoluble
type. The likely candidate is uranium dioxide formed at very high
temperature on impact with an armoured vehicle (battle-field tank).
It is sometimes called the ceramic uranium dioxide that is highly
insoluble in body fluids. We now have a methodology for the determination
of depleted uranium in specimens. To the best of my knowledge,
nobody had determined depleted uranium quantitatively in urine
specimens earlier. However, we do have some handicap. Nobody has
tried to determine depleted uranium in human specimens, yet they
keep telling us that depleted uranium is harmless to humans. But
our determinations of the amount of uranium isotopes leave no
doubt that depleted uranium is present in urine samples from the
Gulf war veterans that were exposed to depleted uranium during
the Gulf conflict. I have done a lot of soul searching concerning
this matter so that I do not mislead the veterans in this regard.
It is a very important issue. I find absolutely no cause for finding
depleted uranium in a sample because of some contamination from
glassware or from picking dust particles that may have uranium
in microgram quantities. Back
6
Note by witness: we have looked at the sources of contamination
that may have led to the presence of depleted uranium in the specimens Back
7
Note by witness: in the main, contamination from other
sources like laboratory wares can add natural uranium to a specimen
but not depleted uranium. Back
8
Note by witness: however, the degree of depletion is not
as much as is found in depleted uranium deployed in the Gulf. Back
9
Note by witness: All 24 or 120 veterans in their respective
population are not expected to die today but over a period of
fifty years they will. Back
10
See appendix p 27. Back
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