Soldier Health Scare Back in News
By Audrey Parente
Daytona Beach News Journal
Sunday 15 April 2007
Lori Brim cradled her son in her arms for three months before he died at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Dustin Brim, a 22-year-old Army specialist had collapsed three years ago in
Iraq from a very aggressive cancer that attacked his kidney, caused a mass to
grow over his esophagus and collapsed a lung.
The problems she saw during her time at Walter Reed, including her son screaming
in pain while doctors argued over medications, had nothing to do with mold and
shabby conditions documented in recent news reports. What this mother saw was
an unexplainable illness consuming her son.
And what she has learned since her son's death is that his was not an
isolated case.
Lori Brim has joined other parents, hundreds of other sick soldiers, legislators,
research scientists and environmental activists who say the cause of their problems
results from exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive metal used in the manufacture
of U.S. tank armor and weapon casings.
Health and environmental effects of depleted uranium are at the heart of scientific
studies, a lawsuit in the New York courts and legislative bills in more than
a dozen states (although not in Florida).
News stories claiming negative signs of depleted uranium's impact, including
death and birth defects, are surfacing from Australia to England to the Far
East. The controversy rages within government bodies and underlies the theme
of TV shows like a recent episode of the medical series "House."
While the military continues to deny the connection of depleted uranium to
sicknesses plaguing returning servicemen and women, a newly mandated study stemming
from legislation signed by President Bush in October is just getting under way.
Opposition
The new study, which began in March, follows several that have been completed
by the military into depleted uranium, a byproduct left when enriched uranium
is separated out for use in nuclear power and atomic weapons. The Department
of Energy gives it to arms makers, where its extreme density is valuable in
the manufacture of armor and casings.
Despite a 1996 U.N. resolution opposing its use because of discovery of health
problems after the first Gulf War, the military studies have concluded there
was no evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses.
To the military, the effectiveness of weapons and armor made with depleted
uranium outweighs any residual effects. Their bottom line: Depleted uranium
saves soldiers' lives in combat.
Robert Holloway, president of Nevada Technical Associates Inc., a firm that
specializes in radiation safety training, disputes any concern over depleted
uranium.
"I have no financial interest in promoting depleted uranium," Holloway
wrote in an e-mail to The News-Journal. "There really is no substitute
for depending on the judgment of professionals in this field."
Holloway and others who believe depleted uranium is safe to use say the best
authority in the scientific community would be individuals connected to the
Health Physics Society.
Doug Craig of Ponce Inlet, a retired radiation biophysics scientist, is such
a person. He doesn't believe low doses of radiation from depleted uranium
are a problem.
"Uranium occurs in a lot of places," Craig said, "and man has
been exposed to low concentrations of uranium for a long time."
Laws and Lawsuits
But Brim and others think there will not be enough known until soldiers are
tested for exposure. They compare the debate over depleted uranium to the controversy
surrounding Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used to defoliate the jungles
of Vietnam. Speculation over its effects continued for more than two decades
before the Defense Department agreed to compensate veterans who suffered from
ailments linked to its use.
Brim often comforts other mothers whose sons and daughters are suffering from
unexplainable, aggressive cancers, like a Michigan mother Brim met on the Internet.
The Michigan mom says she believes malignant tumors that resulted in removal
of her Marine son's ear, ear canal and half his face may be linked to
depleted uranium. But the woman asks that her name not be used because her son
still is a Marine - battling cancer, not bullets. And he has not been
tested for DU exposure, she says.
In addition to consoling other mothers, Brim has tried unsuccessfully to raise
awareness of the issue either through legislation or a lawsuit.
She recently traveled to Tallahassee with cancer lobbyists and left plate-size
booster buttons with her son's image, trying to raise the consciousness
of Florida legislators. But she says she has not been able to interest anyone
in creating a bill similar to one passed last year in Connecticut - the
first state law in the nation aimed at helping National Guard personnel returning
from Iraq to get tested for exposure to depleted uranium.
Other veterans are seeking help from legislators in states around the country,
like Melissa Sterry, 44, of Connecticut, who served during the Persian Gulf
War and suffers from multiple symptoms, including chronic headaches, infections
and multiple heart attacks.
Sterry is an activist who keeps track of more than a dozen states that have
introduced bills. That includes her home state, where a veterans' health
registry is being created as a database for the federal government. Among the
current list of states working on individual legislation, Arizona has state
Rep. Albert Tom, a Democrat. For three years he introduced the issue of testing
National Guardsmen, each time a bit differently. He patterned a bill after the
Connecticut law this year.
"Again it was heard (in committee), but it just didn't go anywhere,"
Tom said.
Veterans might have better luck in court. Brim is closely following a trial
in New York, where - despite a precedent that prevents military personnel
from suing the government for injuries resulting from their service -
eight National Guard veterans have won the right to be heard about their depleted
uranium exposure.
One veteran in that suit, Gerard Matthew, says not only is he sick, but contends
his little girl's birth deformities are related to his exposure to depleted
uranium. The deformity, Matthew said, is similar to many being reported within
the Iraqi population since the first Gulf War.
Depleted Uranium News Update
Oct. 2006: President George W. Bush signed the Department of Defense Authorization
legislation. The House amendment was authored and introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott
(D-Wa.) ordering a comprehensive study - with a report due in one year
- on possible adverse health effects on U.S. soldiers from the U.S. military's
use of DU - Depleted Uranium. The Senate companion bill was backed by
Joe Lieberman of Conn., a democrat at the time. (McDermott's Web site:
www.house.gov/mcdermott)
Feb. 6, 2007: The New York newspaper, The Post Chronicle, reported that U.S.
government scientists at the Ames Laboratory in Iowa say they are close to developing
nanostructured material of tungsten and metallic glass to eliminate the use
of depleted uranium in ammunition. In a recent phone call by The News-Journal
to senior scientist Dan Sordelet, reported to be leading the research team,
he said he is "no longer working on that" and declined to give any
further information.
March 23, 2007: The Tico Times of San Jose, Costa Rica, reported that the U.S.
and Costa Rican activists are lobbying to enlist Costa Rica's Nobel Peace
Prize winner and disarmament defender to lead their uphill battle against the
military use of a popular radioactive weapon.
April 3, 2007: ABC News Online, Australia, reports that the Australian Veterans
Affairs Minister Bruce Billson says he is concerned the group "Depleted
Uranium Silent Killer," which is opposed to the use of depleted uranium
weapons, is using Gulf War veterans to run an anti-uranium scare campaign. The
group says overseas tests confirm two Sunshine Coast veterans from the first
Gulf War - one in the Army and the other in the Navy - were exposed
to the heavy metal during their service 15 years ago.
April 10, 2007: Star Tribune (Minn., Mn.) reports a state Senate committee
OK'd a bill providing for testing veteran national guardsmen returning
from Iraq to see if dust from spent-uranium munitions has harmed them. Link:
www.startribune.com/587/story/1112856.html.
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