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DU Death Toll Tops 11,000
Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public
Ignorant About This Important Story
By James P. Tucker Jr.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html
The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as
depleted
uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing scandal may
be the reason behind Anthony Principi’s departure as secretary of
the Veterans
Affairs Department.
This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive director of
Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, writing in Preventive
Psychiatry E-Newsletter.
“The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never
given,” Bernklau said. “However, a special report published by
eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the
definitive cause of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal
about the continued use of uranium
munitions by the U.S. military.”
The “malady [from DU] that thousands of our military have suffered
and died from has finally been identified as the cause of this
sickness, eliminating the guessing. . . . The terrible truth is now
being revealed,” Bernklau said.
Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now
dead, he said. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent
medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56
percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems.
The disability rate for veterans of the world wars of the last
century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.
| “The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,”
Bernklau said. |
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| “He and the Bush administration have been hiding
these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, it is far too big to
hide or to cover up.” |
Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently
reported that veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on disability
total 518,739, Bernklau said.
“The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,” Bernklau
said. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the Lawrence
Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved in the
Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the
soldiers [from the second war] as ‘spectacular’—and a matter of
concern.’ ”
While this important story appeared in a Washington newspaper and
the wire services, it did not receive national exposure — a compelling
sign that the American public is being kept in the dark about the
terrible effects of this toxic weapon. (Veterans for Constitutional
Law can be reached at (516) 474-4261.) |
