DU Death Toll Tops 11,000
Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public Ignorant About This
Important Story
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html
By James P. Tucker Jr.
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. “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.)
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