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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Depleted uranium from Gulf War 2 "Shock and Awe" bombing in 2003 spread   
   across Europe and reached Britain within 9 days.   
      
   This is fresh evidence that uranium armour piercing weaponry is illegal on   
   account of its indiscriminate effects.   
      
         European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics has published a paper: Did   
   the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe?   
   Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment,   
   Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK. Chris Busby, Saoirse Morgan. Occasional Paper   
   2006/1, January 2006 Aberystwyth: Green Audit   
      
           Abstract   
           Uranium weapons have been increasingly employed in battle action   
   since their first use by the US and UK forces in the Persian Gulf War in   
   1991. Since then they have been used in the Balkans in the late 1990s, then   
   Kosovo in 2000, probably in Afghanistan in 2002 and then also in the 2nd   
   Gulf War (GW2) in March and April 2003. On impact, uranium penetrators burn   
   fiercely to give an aerosol of sub micron diameter oxide particles which are   
   largely insoluble and remain in the environment for many years. There is   
   considerable public and scientific concern that these radioactive particles   
   may remain suspended for long periods, or may become resuspended and are   
   therefore available for inhalation by non combatants at some distance from   
   the point of impact. Little research seems to have been carried out on the   
   distance travelled by the uranium aerosols. The military maintain that the   
   uranium remains near the point of impact, and the Royal Society report   
   (2002) also states that the material does not travel more than some tens of   
   metres. On the other hand, measurements of uranium in local populations in   
   Kosovo some nine months after the use of uranium weapons all tested positive   
   for depleted uranium in urine (Priest 2004) and The United Nations (UNEP)   
   found uranium particles in air filters in Bosnia some years after its use.   
   The question of the dispersion of uranium aerosols from the battlefield is   
   of significant legal interest, since if a radioactive weapon resulted in the   
   general contamination of the public in the country of deployment or   
   elsewhere, the weapon would be classifiable as one of indiscriminate effect.   
   There is now conceded to be no safe level of exposure to radiation. Further,   
   there are major scientific questions over the risk models used to assess the   
   health effects of uranium particle exposure from weapons use. In addition   
   there is evidence of ill health in many of those exposed to uranium   
   particles from Gulf veterans to the population of Iraq. In this paper we   
   examine the trend in uranium shown by the measurements made on high volume   
   air sampler filter systems deployed by the Atomic Weapons Establishment   
   (AWE) Aldermaston Berkshire UK. AWE have been routinely monitoring uranium   
   in air since the early 1990s but since 2000 have carried out filter   
   determinations from high volume air samplers (HVAS) every two weeks. They   
   were required to set up these monitors in the late 1980s following the   
   discovery of a child leukaemia cluster near the plant. There are monitors   
   onsite but they also deploy them at various other sites some 15km distance   
   from the plant. We have obtained their results using the Freedom of   
   Information Act. Examination of the trends in uranium reported here show   
   that there was a statistically significant increase in uranium in all the   
   filters beginning at the start of GW2 and ending when it ended. Levels in   
   the town of Reading exceeded the Environment Agency Reporting threshold of   
   1000nBq/m3 twice during the period. We report the weather conditions at the   
   time and show that over the period there was a consistent flow of air from   
   Iraq northwards and that the UK was in the centre of a anticyclone which   
   drew air in from the south and from the south east. On the basis of the mean   
   increase in uranium in air of about 500nBq/m3 we use respiration data on   
   standard man to calculate that each person in the area inhaled some 23   
   million uranium particles of diameter 0.25 microns. We suggest that health   
   data, particularly birth data be examined for possible effects from this   
   exposure. As far as we know, this is the first evidence that uranium   
   aerosols from battle use have been shown to travel so far.   
      
         Keywords: uranium, depleted uranium, particles, Gulf War 2,   
   geophysical, dispersion, Aldermaston   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)