Iraq: Cancer emerges as major cause of death in south

[Barrett808]

Source: IRIN

BASRA, 31 May 2007 (IRIN) - Recent studies by medical colleges, and statistics from local morgues and hospitals, have shown a higher than expected number of cancer-related deaths in Iraq's southern provinces. According to specialists, the main causes are the increased use of unsafe products in agriculture and the long-term effects of war on health.

Psychological stresses and strains engendered by years of conflict, violence, displacement and uncertainty have weakened people's natural resistance to disease. This has been compounded by the lack of skilled medical staff and poor facilities and equipment.

"Lack of treatment for cancer patients and outdated radiotherapy and chemotherapy techniques have led to lower survival rates of patients. The shortage of oncologists, who have fled to neighbouring countries, has worsened the situation," said Hussein Abdel-Kareem, an oncologist and senior official in the Basra Health Secretariat.

"Exposure to radiation from old cluster bombs, the high use of chemicals in agriculture as well as water contamination is having a serious impact on the health of local people, since these factors are important promoters of cancer related diseases. Many of the patients could have been treated but they died because of lack of facilities," Abdel-Kareem added.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/95c94996aae662245c6cc0696f62e3cb.htm

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Any reference to depleted uranium?

Was it not southern Iraq that saw most of the DU shells used by American troops?

[tom_paine]

3. DU (depleted uranium) is one of the forbidden topics in Amerikan State-Controlled Media

Of course the spreading of a million or so tons of vaporized DU is a contibuting, if not a primary, factor.

No one is allowed to talk about it if they might reach an audience of 100,000 or more.

[TheWraith]

4. It was less than 200 tons, not a million.

Before you ask, it's a matter of public record what weapons and how much have been expended. Depleted uranium has only ever been used in shells and rounds intended to pierce vehicle armor, such as tanks. Only about 200 tons of such weapons were used in Iraq, basically all in the initial invasion, so a quantity significantly less than 200 tons of depleted uranium was released. FYI. Furthermore, when you go off paranoid talking about "state controlled media," you just make your cause sound even more tin-foilly.

[tom_paine]

7. I really don't care what you think is tin-foilly

I will admit that "a million or so tons" was a flip, off-the-cuff comment not intended to be a serious estimation of the amount of DU used in Iraq.

As to "state-controlled media", I stand by that remark. I am simply tired about being right about 80%+ of predictions, not to mention that of the 20% wrong, at least 5% of it has never been investigated (such as LIHOP or MIHOP 9/11, or the unmetered Iraqi oil pipelines or exactly WHERE that 300+ tons of $100 bills went after the Bushies shipped it to Iraq), then continuing to be called a tin-foiler.

My 80% correct predictions, many of them "conspiracy theories" at the time like Enron being FULLY AWARE of it's Great California Energy Theft of 2001 or Bush not caring what Blix and the UN Inspectors found (proven by The Downing Street Memo, which has been vetted by an allied government as authentic) but was going into Iraq no matter what...all of 'em are archived here at DU, including the 15% I was wrong about and the 5% that have never been looked into in any way, shape or form, stand for themselves.

It ain't tinfoil if it turns out to be true.

[Doctor_J]

9. Whaaa?

Tom was obviously using hyperbole with his "Million tons" remark, and yes, DU is highly toxic and carcinogenic. The only places it's ever mentioned are non-mainstream vehicles like The Nation, Mother Jones, and Democracy Now.

If you don't think the mainstream newspapers and weeklies and TV and radio are highly censored by the GOP and others in the ruling class, you should get out of your cave once in awhile.

[TheWraith]

14. And then, hyperbole is recited by someone else as fact.

If you don't think somebody else would regurgitate that "million tons" line as a fact later on, you're not very well versed in the bad science that surrounds and permeates the depleted uranium issue.

"DU is highly toxic and carcinogenic."

That's hardly news. It's a fact which is true about almost all heavy metals, like uranium, lead, mercury, et al. What that does NOT translate to is the total insanity that people start displaying, directly equating depleted uranium to nuclear weapons, radioactive bombs, and all this other crap.

"The only places it's ever mentioned are non-mainstream vehicles like The Nation, Mother Jones, and Democracy Now."

Has it occurred to you that there's a better reason for that than that every journalist, at every newspaper, every TV station, every single human being in the media got a memo not to mention depleted uranium? Those same vehicles are also the same ones that play fast and loose with accuracy in the media compared to respectable people like Keith Olbermann. The vast majority of "evidence" on the subject of depleted uranium is basically hearsay, or based on logical fallacies that because one thing happens after another, one caused the other.

[porque no]

17. How much in the first gulf war, smartypants?

Shove that tin foily shit up your arse.

[Lithos]

12. Extremely unlikely

DU was used against very specific front line assets such as tanks, vehicles, etc. and not against the interior assets which is where the population resides. Unless you breathe in the aerosolized version (were there when it was used), then you will not receive any statistically meaningful dosage.

My question is why not the more rational thought that all of the fires caused by the burning of the Kuwait oil fields during 1991 could have released far more carcinogenic material into the air and that this is the cause? No one brings that up.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0321kuwaitfire.html

These Landsat- 5 images show Kuwait before, during and after the 1991 oil fires. During the air and ground war of January-February 1991, 700 oil wells were damaged, of which more than 600 were set on fire.

The August 1990 image shows the capital city Kuwait in the upper part of the image. In the February 1991 image the Kuwaiti coastline south of the city is obscured by smoke plumes from burning oil wells. The November 1991 image was acquired after the fires had been extinguished.

Besides affecting the oceans and atmosphere, this oil had a severe impact on Kuwait's environment. The sand and gravel on the land's surface combined with oil and soot to form a layer of hardened "tarcrete" over almost 5 percent of the country's area. Over 300 oil lakes also formed; though covering only about 0.1 percent of Kuwait's area. The Kuwaiti Oil Minister estimated these lakes to hold 25 to 50 million barrels of oil. They are visible in the images as black pools within the dark gray tarcrete.

These image are courtesy of the USGS and NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio.

5% of Kuwait was covered in tarcrete?

Add to this the fact that Iraq's own infrastructure took a massive hit during the 1991 war which meant that most water facilities were affected for years afterwards. It took Billions to address what happened in Kuwait, obviously none of that was spent in Iraq and people essentially had to live with this crap for years.

That's your source of cancer.

L-

[TechBear_Seattle]

15. You are probably right

Sorry, my knee jerked. :hi:

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Magistrate]

20. Certainly The Most Reasonable Explaination, Sir

[softwarevotingtrail]

2. The bitter irony

Using WMDs (radioactive bombs) in a war justified on the basis of destroying WMDs that didn't exist.

[TheWraith]

5. Bombs don't contain depleted uranium

Which is only minimally radioactive in the first place.

[Massacure]

8. Well that depends. Depleted uranium is used on some missiles.

Depleted uranium is very dense and makes a good counterweight to balance aircraft, and in some cases, large missiles.

[TheWraith]

11. Actually, no service-active cruise missiles ever used it as a weight

Only some Tomahawk test units where they use a big chunk of depleted uranium to simulate the mass of a warhead for testing purposes.

[Massacure]

23. How sure are you about that?

I just browsed some websites and two of them mentioned that Tomahawk's contain about 30 kilograms of depleted uranium as ballast. While the sites are pretty slanted toward the anti-radiation paranoia and there is no doubt in my mind that they use the fact to make some pretty outrageous claims, I'm not so inclined to doubt that 30 kilogram figure.

[Pavulon]

24. I can tell you

the only tomahawk that contains any uranium was discontinued. It carried a thermonuclear warhead. The weapon system does not carry 60lbs of du as ballast.

Some sailboats do.

I handles it, unless you eat it is no more toxic than lead.

[porque no]

18. DU apologist, and I don't mean

the Dem Underground. How radioactive is it exactly? How long does that radioactivity last?

[Barrett808]

6. I'd expect a big cluster around Tuwaitha

Where the nuclear sites were looted.

[Rydz777]

10. Is there any more miserable country on the face of the earth?

[spanone]

13. The gift that keeps on giving....depleted uranium.

[libodem]

16. I had thought they used

DU in Faluja or was that JUST white phosphorus and Napalm? I'm surprised that we have not heard of a surge in birth defects.

[BikeWriter]

21. IMHO, Iraq is one huge bio-hazard and radioactive ammo dump.

The health of its people and those stationed there will be affected for many years.

[Vidar]

22. Obviously depleted uranium has nothing to do with this.

[Pavulon]

25. The token du thread, how about hotspots in Bosnia

we shot a good bit into the ground there..

cluster bombs do not use DU.

Radiation exposure triggers certain types of cancer. You dont get melanoma from DU for example.

It is a great weapon system and will stay in the NATO arsenal for decades.