Selfish Hedonist

Louisiana: Historic legislation would ensure uranium testing for local soldiers

According to Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who has worked around the world on radiation issues, depleted uranium is coming back into the U.S. "in veterans' uniforms and trophies and bags." It's also coming back in their bodies, transferred through semen.

Moret cited a U.S. government study, conducted by the VA on post-Gulf War babies in a group of 251 soldiers in Mississippi who all had normal babies before the Gulf War. The study found 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. Some were born without eyes (anophthalmos), ears, with missing organs, missing legs and arms, fused fingers, thyroid or other organ malformations. Moret said that in some families, the only healthy members are those born before the Gulf Wars.

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The health repercussions in Iraq are unprecedented. In babies born in 2002, the incidence of anophthalmos was 250,000 times greater (20 cases in 4,000 births) than the natural occurrence, one in 50 million births.

The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of DU shells in Iraq last year, according to Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick, in an interview with the New York Daily News. "Because of its density, it is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Kilpatrick said.

Okay. So. We're using depleted uranium. We know about the adverse effects. We apparently don't fucking care. Anything goes as long as we can hide behind the "support the troops" war cry. Is that how it works?

I cry now.

# posted by Jonathan Kelley @ 2:31 PM