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17 0ctober 2011 |
Remarkably high levels of congenital anomaly at birth, together with high
cancer rates in Fallujah, Iraq were previously found in a joint UK Iraqi
epidemiological study published in the International Journal of Environment
and Health in July 2010 and reported in The Independent. The illnesses and
unusual changes in the sex-ratio at birth, were shown to appear following
the US-led attacks on the town in 2004. Many believed that Depleted Uranium
weapons were employed but no evidence of this was available. USA forces
denied using DU. Now, one year after this, the authors have nailed down the
cause of the genetic and genomic effects found in Fallujah. Samira Alaani
and Muhammed Tafash, two paediatricians at Fallujah General Hospital, Chris
Busby, Visiting Professor at the University of Ulster, Malak Hamdan, a
chemical engineer and Eleonore Blaurock Busch, whose laboratory in Germany
carried out analytical work will publish in the peer-reviewed journal
Conflict and Health the results of an exhaustive study of contamination in
Fallujah.
They began by analysing the hair of 25 parents of children with congenital
malformations using highly sensitive Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass
Spectrometry (ICPMS). Metal contamination is excreted into hair at same rate
as it is excreted into urine. There were high values of Calcium, Magnesium,
Strontium, Aluminium, Bismuth, Mercury and Uranium.
However, of these only Uranium, which is radioactive, is associated with
cancer and birth defects. Uranium levels were significantly higher than
those expected on the basis of other published control measurements of
uncontaminated populations, particularly Israel and Sweden. Levels reported
for soil, tap, river and well water were unable to explain the hair results,
but showed, surprisingly that the environmental Uranium was not natural but
was man-made.
It was not, however DU. The ratio of the two isotopes of Uranium U238 and
U235 is always 138 in natural Uranium deposits. For DU, the ratio is always
high: pure DU has a ratio above 400. However, in Fallujah, both in the hair
of the parents and in the environmental samples, the Uranium ratio was
significantly low, implying the presence of Enriched Uranium.
To investigate the source of the Uranium, because the Moslem women in
Fallujah have long hair, and hair grows at a known rate or about 1cm a month,
the team was able to obtain historic exposure information by analysing along
the length of the hair of 5 women. Hair contamination was much higher in the
past. In the case of one woman whose hair was 80cm long, taking the hair end
back to 2005, just after the attack, the Uranium concentration in 2011
defined exposures to very high levels of uranium in the past. In the paper,
the authors introduce evidence that the effects on child health are clear to
see in the whole of Iraq as well as in the children of Gulf War veterans.
This is also true for childhood cancer which was reported in the
epidemiological study to be shockingly high in Fallujah with rates about 14
times those expected on the basis of populations in Egypt. The anomalously
high genotoxic effects of Uranium are also discussed. Uranium binds to DNA
and work by Chris Busby reported in New Scientist in 2009 shows that the
element concentrates natural background gamma radiation into the DNA through
a process termed the secondary photoelectron effect.
Given that man-made Enriched Uranium is found in the Fallujah environment
and that levels were higher in the past, the authors conclude that a uranium
based weapon of some type was employed in the Battle of Fallujah, and is the
main cause of the high levels of cancer and congenital disease. The paper
discusses weapons systems and cites patents which call for the use of
Uranium in shaped charges and other types of anti-personnel weapons (rather
than the anti-tank DU weapons used in GW1). Included also are thermobaric
devices and novel uranium packed explosives which kill by charring victims
and pressure effects which cause lung collapse.
It is of interest that Enriched Uranium signatures have also turned up in
other recent battlefields, notably in the Lebanon, where soil from a missile
crater in Khiam and also dust from an ambulance air filter both showed the
presence of Enriched Uranium in 2006, a finding reported in The Independent
by Robert Fisk. The authors are unable to explain why these weapons contain
or produce slightly enriched Uranium and call for the military to now reveal
the truth about the weapons systems being employed in modern battlefields.
Dr Busby said: What we have found makes it perfectly clear that a new
generation of Uranium based weapons exists, is being employed in all modern
battlefields and leads to shocking increases in cancer and congenital
illness in innocent civilians and soldiers alike. Whether there is slightly
enriched Uranium to cover up the use of Uranium weapons, or whether the
enrichment is an integral requirement of some new weapons system, what we
see is the deployment of a device of indiscriminate effect with terrible and
indiscriminate consequences. It is most likely that this weapon is also
being employed by NATO forces in Libya, and we will wait and watch with
concern for increases in cancer and birth defects following this latest war.
Malak Hamdan added:
This extraordinary discovery of a new uranium weapon should serve as a
wake-up call to the entire world. We cannot keep denying that these
radioactive weapons can discriminate in their effects between military and
non-military targets. Because of this, enormous numbers of innocent people
have died and will die in the future. Countless parents will watch their
children with horror and pity as for several generations children will
continue to be born with congenital anomalies as result of the genetic
heritable effects induced by this exposure to uranium dust.
Contact:
Chris Busby:
+44 1970 630215 ;
Mob +447989 428833
[email protected]
[email protected]
Malak Hamdan:
+44 7903153163
[email protected]
Dr Chris Busby is Visiting Professor at the University of Ulster, Guest
Reseacher at the German Federal Agricultural Laboratory, Julius Kuehn
Institute, Braunschweig, Germany, Director of Green Audit, www.greenaudit.org, and
is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk www.euradcom.org
Malak Hamdan a Chemical Engineer and is President of the London-Based Cancer
and Birth Defects Foundation,www.thecbdf.org.
She is a member of the BRussells
Tribunal Advisory Committee.
Read more:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177876/
For more information please visit www.thecbdf.org