[CPEO-MEF] DU Training

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Have Lessons of the Gulf Been Learned?

Chapter 7: Will it happen again? The Pentagon's new rules for training
and evaluating troops exposed to depleted uranium aren't being followed
in many cases, troops say.

By BOB EVANS 
Hampton Roads Daily pRess
December 17, 2004

When U.S. troops deployed for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, very few of
them had even heard of depleted uranium.

Even fewer received any training about its characteristics or possible
health hazards.

"There was no training for depleted uranium," says Steve Smithson,
assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and
Rehabilitation Division.

In the Gulf War, Smithson was in the 1st Marine Division. Since then,
he's been working to help vets with health problems they think are
related to their service.

There are a lot of them. More than a quarter of the 697,000 men and
women who went to the 1991 war have some form of disability from the
Department of Veterans Affairs, a rate nearly three times higher than
those of previous wars.

Government officials deny that any of those veterans are suffering as a
result of inhaling the toxic and mildly radioactive dust that results
from explosions involving depleted uranium.

But after spending more than $247 million, they also can't say what's
made all those veterans so sick.

...

For the entire article, go to
http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du7,0,5012653.story?coll=dp-breaking-news

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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