In a crass, thoughtless act, Pentagon decides to delay screening troops for head injuries

[maddezmom]

Thu, Mar 20, 2008 (2:05 a.m.)

Fearing the creation of a Gulf War syndrome, Pentagon officials have delayed giving troops returning from Iraq medical screenings for mild brain injuries because, they say, they didn’t want to create distress among soldiers.

Air Force Col. Kenneth Cox told USA Today that screenings for mild traumatic brain injury, which can be caused by exposure to bomb blasts, were put off for two years. Cox, the military’s director of medical assessments, said the Pentagon was fearing a reoccurrence of Gulf War syndrome. Troops in the first Gulf War blamed their service for a number of vague symptoms, and the Pentagon wanted to avoid the costly process of testing soldiers.

Cox said that soldiers may believe they have something they don’t, often “reacting to rumors, things they’ve read about or heard about on the Internet or (from) their friends.”

He said such uncertainty makes treating veterans “much more difficult and more costly.”

The Pentagon could have simply resolved that uncertainty by instituting testing for brain injury on all troops serving in war zones. That would have cleared up any questions and expedited the treatment of injured troops.

more:http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/mar/20/doing-wrong-thing/

[Karenina]

1. It's NOT "thoughtless"

It's INTENTIONAL.

[babylonsister]

2. Jeeze. Doesn't surprise me, but does sicken me. nt

[sce56]

3. They don't test for Radiation poisoning either despite the use of DU munitions and Tank Armor n/t

[caraher]

4. You'd have to eat a LOT of ammo/armor to get radiation sickness!

Uranium simply is not radioactive enough to give anyone radiation sickness. And if you actually ingested enough uranium to get radiation sickness, you'd die of chemical toxicity so quickly that you wouldn't notice the radiation.

Though they definitely should assess how much uranium returns in soldiers' bodies... if only to establish actual exposure levels and facilitate scientific studies of the use of depleted uranium.

(Edited to add last sentence)

[sce56]

5. Maybe you should rethink that thought! Look at the documentary Beyond Treason

http://www.beyondtreason.com/


William Lewis, the director of 911 in Plane Site is after the U.S. government with his latest film Beyond Treason. Beyond Treason focuses into the aftermath of first Gulf war and the fact that American soldiers have been suffering 15 years of post-traumatic stress disorder. Because this explanation doesn't cover all the symptoms that soldiers have had, U.S. Department of Defense's says it's a "mystery disease". The main theme of Beyond Treason is to show what really happened in the Middle-East in early 90's and how the soldiers were exposed to depleted uranium. And like if that hadn't been enough, the same soldiers got untested vaccines. Beyond Treason is a patriotic and critical documentary, that doesn't play guessing games but hits the viewer with cold, hard facts.
Beyond Treason Doug Rokke

Few veterans and experts of Gulf War talk in front of the camera about some serious issues, and tell their views and experiences about the war and origins of the disease - and also the neglects of U.S. Army towards their own people. Doug Rokke, ex-physicist and Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project gets the main share of interview time and with a good reason. He has unquestionable amount information to tell and convinces the viewer with his self-presentation.
Beyond Treason

Although the stories of soldiers that got sick during the war, are very compelling to listen to - the film shows also horrifying images of deformed babies to stress the seriousness of the facts. Is that social pornography? Some might say it is, but my own opinion it is the real option to mainstream media, showing the true and dark side of the war. It is always tough to see mutilated bodies, but some of these people were even alive when the pictures were taken.
Beyond Treason

Besides the theme of Beyond Treason, it tells also the background of dark history of U.S. governments human experiences. Secret documents of this fact has been exposed to public lately. Projects like MKultra and Whitecoat get covered in Beyond Treason - and remember, they are not conspiracy theories but real stuff. Lewis and Riley (spokesperson of American Gulf War Veterans Association) have collected an enormous amount of evidence. Although there are not many people interviewed, there is no use to complain: with DVD, there is also CD-ROM full of real evidence: scanned documents and text that have been the base of this films revealings! A great idea, that gives Beyond Treason even more credibility.

As a documentary, Beyond Treason is very qualified and refreshingly unzealous film. The overall calm mood doesn't get your temperature rise like with Alex Jones' anti- U.S. government documentaries, but this doesn't decrease the "viewability" at all. Highly recommended for anyone.


How some one can say it is a safe thing when it has a half life of 40K years is just incomprehensible! Radioactive is radioactive Depleted Uranium is still poisonous why do you think we have such a problem getting rid of the spent reactor fuel? The Arms industry came up with a fix just use it as a weapon and dispose of it in someone else's backyard!

[caraher]

7. I never called it "safe"

My only point was that uranium is not itself very radioactive. Now DU might have other radioactive contaminants; my understanding is that it can vary, and only a contaminant would have a half-life of 40k years (uranium isotopes have half-lives more like a billion years - which is why it is NOT very radioactive - it takes the average nucleus a long time to "decide" to decay!). And I am a physicist, so I don't need to watch a documentary to make up my mind about the physics.

I do know about the economic and military factors that make DU use so attractive to generals and counters of beans, which in turn does create a motive to minimize the harm of its use in a wide array of applications. And I have done some casual research (downloaded reports, things like that) on the links between its use in weapons and the whole range of ills.

The problem I have is that people generally don't understand radioactivity, ionizing radiation, etc. and have fears that are often (not always!) disproportionate to the magnitude of the hazard. In terms of damaging radiation exposure the proliferation of CT scanners is a much greater radiation exposure problem from a public health perspective.

And unfortunately, many people have a knee-jerk reaction to these issues. To overgeneralize, people on the left accept more readily claims of nuclear hazards. On the right, of course, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger ;) Which makes an issue like this very sticky; if the problem is that the DU used has significant quantities other nuclides with shorter half-lives that merely builds a case for holding weapons manufacturers to account for creating a defective product and demanding better quality control. "Oh, that was just a bad batch; there's nothing fundamentally wrong and we just need to be more careful." If you build your case on the hazard of uranium's radioactivity, that focuses attention on a risk that any reasonable physical model would say is quite small. Given that, it ultimately weakens the broader case against DU use in weapons by focusing unwarranted and distracting attention on just one aspect - and possibly one of the least significant - of a much more complex problem.

Frame this in a broader context. Yeah, it's radioactive, but even if you breathe the air on the battlefield immediately after a DU round destroys a nearby tank you simply can not receive enough radiation exposure to cause acute symptoms. When you use language that implies you might, you lose credibility and consequently your other health concerns will not get a fair hearing from even open-minded people. And those concerns (chemical toxicity, elevated risk of cancer) are very real and well-founded.

In short, crying "OMG - it's RADIOACTIVE" might animate some activists and scare lots of people, but it detracts attention from a sober analysis that might convince people across the political spectrum that this is a serious issue that must be addressed. (Well, at least the ones who are still willing to listen to the "fact-based" community. Clearly the "20 percenters" still backing Lord Pissypants are beyond redemption...)

[nealmhughes]

8. Indeed, it is the toxicity of U 238 itself, especially when powderized/atomized upon explosion of a

munition that is the main threat from the U, not the radioactivity. U 238 is an alpha emitter, which means that a piece of paper or clothing will stop the radiation, as an alpha has a double plus charge.
However, ingesting an alpha emitter is another deal: it will lodge in the lungs/digestive tract/body and emit highly charged alphas when it decays.

A nuclear technician wears only a pair of white cotton gloves to handle the fule bundles before they go into a rector. This is not for a radiological concern, rather to keep oils off one's hands.
DU is effectively U 238. However, there is no way to keep every easily fissile and ionizing fission products from the spent fuel that is used to create it. The odds say that there will be some, presenting an ionizing radiation hazard on top of a chemical one.
A 40K halflife is incredibly long in human terms: half of the activity would be gone in 40 000 years. 5 halflives is considered "over".

They chose DU because it is dense and easily handled and also gets rid of some spent fuel. DU is used for other things, besides projectiles. It is widely used as radioactive shielding, for example when handling sources, as it is denser than lead.

The problem is not a radiological one, from the physics, it is a bio-chemical one. Heavy metals poison the blood stream. That is the problem, not increased cancers from ionizing radiation from DU usage, unless it is ingested by nose or mouth or insertion into the flesh.

Now should it be used due to a chemical danger from its aerosolization? No, probably not. But then again, does anyone really want to atomize DU and use the as a test group to test the toxicity when the effects of lead and other heavy metals are well known?

[sce56]

9. The film does show what has been done research wise and covered by DOD's researcher

http://www.beyondtreason.com/tom_cahill.htm
For more than a decade, many Americans have known about--even via the
corporate media--the danger of uranium munitions. On Feb. 22, 1994, NBC
Dateline aired “Deadly Fire” and showed, among other American casualties of
Desert Storm, Darryl Clark and his daughter, Kennedy. If still alive
today, Kennedy would be 13 and probably having a difficult time living with
the purple welts on her face and body, not to mention internal physical
problems including no thyroid.

A photo of Paul Hanson in uniform with beret holding his armless son,
Jayce illustrates the cover story for the Nov. 1, 1995 issue of “Life” with
the headline, “The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm. Has our country ABANDONED
THEM?”

If you have read this far and are still not moved to action, you need to
see some stats and facts.

* Desert Storm 1991 lasted little over four days and less than 150
Americans were killed in action. It was touted by the Pentagon as the
“greatest military victory in US history.”

* Since 1991, between ten thousand (10,000) and fifteen thousand (15,000)
American veterans of that battle have died from the “depleted” uranium used
to harden the steel in munitions and armor.

* Almost a half million (425,000) Desert Storm 1991 vets are chronically
ill and dying from what US Army doctors call a “mystery disease” or “Gulf
War Syndrome” which in reality is sickness primarily from radiation.

* More than two hundred thousand (209,100) Desert Storm 1991 veterans of
the above listed half million are already receiving disability benefits
from the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is one of the hidden costs of
the war covered up by the Department of Defense. Already the Iraq War is
the fourth most financially costly (in 2005 dollars) conflict in US
history, more expensive than WW I.

* The tons of uranium waste from US nuclear power plants used in uranium
munitions and armor, still being used in Iraq during the occupation today,
is the equivalent of almost a half million (400,000) atom bombs dropped on
Nagasaki in 1945, according to Leuren Moret, a scientist and leading
whistleblower on uranium munitions. It seems Dr. Stranglove is alive and
well spreading his madness in America’s ruling class.

* Sandstorms are blowing the fine uranium dust all over the Mid East
including Israel. If it gets into the jet stream, why couldn’t it spread
all over the world like after Chernobyl blew up in 1986?

* I was in Iraq only six weeks and tested positive for radiation when I
returned home. At the very least, cancer is knocking at my door. Imagine
what the American soldiers in Iraq for six months and longer will have to
deal with. In the near future casualties of Gulf War 2003 and the
occupation could dwarf those of Desert Storm and could be a third torpedo
if the second one doesn’t finally sink the country.

Knowledgeable about DU and responding to an earlier draft of this
review, a friend e-mailed me, “If my assessment is correct, the use of
uranium munitions is a bigger problem than the war itself.” I replied that
if anything his “assessment” might be an understatement. We are talking
about billions of years that the radioactive dust will be working its
misery on the people of Bosnia, Afghanistan and especially Iraq.

[sce56]

10. How about this thread go explain how it is not DU to this guy who went blind!

To those few generous souls who have noticed my silence and absence from any medium over the past year, I have for some time now felt I owed an explanation. The reason I am thus dictating the following one is that, since last November, I have lost the sight in both my eyes.

I am blind.

Holes began appearing in the retina of my right eye in May, 2007, which several operations failed to repair. Six months later, the left eye followed a similar path. Causation in retinal disintegration is not clearly understood – stress? Poor diet? 14-hour days too close to a computer monitor? Syphilis? Diabetes? Bad luck? Voodoo or malevolent discarnate entities?

None of these is discounted, but two specialists – the two unaccountably free from a conviction that their patients have no need nor right to question them on issues too arcane for any but retinal experts to comprehend – agreed that my own suggestion the eye problem might be another side effect of the prolonged exposure to depleted uranium I was treated to by the Pentagon while in Iraq during 2003 and which has been causing various bodily ailments since 2004, debilitating flues, nausea, and chronic fatigue being previous highlights.

Since only the Pentagon has detailed data on D.U. exposure, which of course are unavailable to civilians and even most soldiers for reasons of national security – usually meaning it would shock and appall the American public who unwillingly fund such military barbarisms – it is impossible to learn much about its consequences, let alone find any form of treatment. I did, however, watch an enlightening video produced by the U.S. military for troops in the field. If you suspect you have been exposed to D.U., it said, try not to be, have a shower, and cover any surfaces that might be contaminated with duct tape or virtually anything else available. Then fill out a detailed report using the template available from unit medics. It must be comforting to discover the tender concern CENCOM has for your welfare and safety. On the same DVD was a US Navy recruiting ad showing what a hectically exciting life awaits those bold enough to sign up. It concluded with what I assume to be the new US motto: “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of all who stand in their way”. Great copy, as they say on Madison Avenue.

[libodem]

6. They are also denying PTSD

saying that soldiers had a past medical history of mental illness such as depression before they entered combat. Life means nothing to these Pentagon wonders. They want to use these men up and discard them as trash. The War Department doesn't want to accept the cost of a life time of care for these individuals. Use 'em up and throw 'em away. No wonder 2100 men have come home and killed themselves. One last heroic gesture to save Uncle Sam the cost of medical treatment for closed head injuries. Bastards.