MATADOR NINETY-FOUR

Scientific research clearly suggests DU is a factor in the undiagnosed illnesses suffered by veterans

The United States insists that weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) pose no health hazards to exposed populations. This charade persists because an artful propaganda matrix has infiltrated and corrupted certain aspects of the radiation and biological sciences. The facts which follow will introduce how our debilitated veterans are being misinformed of the possible role played by uranium in their illnesses.

1. Within the medical system of the Veterans Administration (VA), veterans are misled into believing that no medical test exists that can determine DU contamination. This stance was echoed in a 2006 study by the Institute of Medicine, lauded as “… the authoritative word on Gulf War Illness.”(1) In the preface of the IOM’s definitive study, this quote appears: “Although there is a blood test that can provide an indication of exposure to Agent Orange and dioxin that occurred many years ago, there is not (sic) biological measure that can be employed today to assess exposures during the Gulf War.”(2)

This statement is a lie. A protocol does exist which can determine DU contamination years after the exposure event. The methodology was published in 2002 by Durakovic, Horan and Dietz.(3) Essentially, it involves collecting a 24-hour urine sample and analyzing the uranium content by means of multicollector inductively coupled plasma ionization mass spectrometry. By this means, the relative concentration of the different uranium isotopes can be measured. This information can then be used to determine whether or not the test subject was contaminated with DU. This test has been reproduced by a number of research groups around the world and has been confirmed as the state-of-the-art means of accurately determining DU exposure. The VA ignores this scientific breakthrough and does not offer it to veterans attempting to come to terms with the cause of their illnesses.

Read the rest of “Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans” by Paul Zimmerman at TruthOut.org

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