NATO HQ
Brussels
10 Jan. 2001
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Briefing
by
Mr. Mark Laity, NATO Acting Spokesman,
Lt. Col Scott Bethel, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick and Col.
Eric Daxon
Mark Laity: (...inaudible...) scientific information
about depleted uranium, its use, the medical effects of
it. I have with me a number of briefers: on my left is
Lt.Col Scott Bethel, he works for SHAPE down at Mons and
he is going to brief on the use of depleted uranium and
then how we safeguard our own troops and the handling
procedures in the use of depleted uranium. On my right
we have two briefers from the Pentagon: there is Dr. Michael
Kilpatrick from the Office of the Special Assistant. Just
beyond him, Col. Eric Daxon. Now these two gentlemen have
just been briefing the North Atlantic Council. In other
words, the briefing they are going to give you is exactly
the same briefing that the Ambassadors of the North Atlantic
Council have just received, so you are getting the same
information. We'll start off with Lt.Col. Bethel, then
we'll take the medical briefing and then we'll take questions
which will be directed through me.
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Lt.Col Bethel: Good afternoon. As Mr. Laity said,
I am Lt.Col. Scott Bethel and I am from the SHAPE Operations
Division and this afternoon I will provide you with some
information on munitions that contain depleted uranium
(...inaudible...). I will first briefly discuss the particular
qualities of depleted uranium and how it's handled, next
I'll describe its operational employment in general terms
and finally I'll briefly discuss its use during operations
in the Balkans. As Mr. Laity said, I will be followed
by Col. Daxon and Dr. Kilpatrick, who will provide some
of the medical implications.
Depleted uranium is a residual metal by-product of the
uranium enriching process. Since most of the radioactive
isotopes have been removed from it in the process, DU
has only about 40 per cent of the radioactivity, but retains
all of the extraordinary density and metallurgical properties
that are characteristic in naturally occurring uranium.
This makes munitions containing DU especially suited as
(...inaudible...) weapons and I'll show you an example
of an A10 30 mm round. This is an actual depleted uranium
around on the top with the proper casing.
Mark Laity: So it is a real depleted uranium round?
Lt.Col Bethel: It is. For those of you who would
like to know, it is inert, it will not go off, etcetera,
so you don't need to flee the room.
Such munitions include rounds fired from main battle
tanks such as the Abrams and the AMX 30, fighting vehicles
and some aircraft cannon. DU is not used in any bombs.
Because of its extreme density it cannot only act as a
penetrator for a kinetic munition, but when used as a
barrier it is difficult to be penetrated. For this reason,
several NATO nations have experimented with incorporating
DU into armour used on tanks. DU has also many commercial
applications: these include use as ballast on commercial
aircraft, and in the keels of sailboats.
DU rounds are handled and stored like any other live
munition. All NATO rounds are stored along with other
munitions inside bunkers until they are loaded into a
delivery system. For the A-10, weapons loaders insert
each round into the A-10 belt loading system, which is
then transferred to the aircraft. These technicians have
been handling these rounds since the A-10 was added the
the US inventory in 1975. DU rounds are never loaded into
the aircraft for non-combat missions. DU is used for combat
missions only. The same is true for tank munitions; it
is part of a standard combat load of the tank and for
combat or contingency operations is stored along with
other types of rounds inside the tank for immediate use
if necessary.
Initially, in both Bosnia and Kosovo operations, the
most significant weapons NATO and Partner forces had to
contend with was armoured vehicles. In particular, VJ
- or Yugoslav army - is very armour heavy. This was particularly
true when the VJ or the MUP - which were the Yugoslav
national police forces - were attacking civilians and
conducting ethnic cleansing operations in both Bosnia
and Kosovo. NATO solicited each nation during a force
generation process to provide its very best resources
for action as directed by the North Atlantic Council.
To fulfil the air-to-ground and close-air-support role,
the US offered the A-10. The capabilities and standard
configurations of this aircraft are readily available
in a variety of sources. But its primary weapons system
is the GAU-8 or 30 mm gun. Its performance in The Gulf
War solidified it as a premier armour destroyer, and when
it became necessary to conduct an offensive operations
against ground forces in the Balkans, the A-10s were called
upon to deal with the armoured targets. In Bosnia, NATO
used approximately 10,800 rounds during operations in
support of UNPROFOR. The area where DU munitions were
expended was confined to the so-called 20 km exclusion
zone surrounding the city of Sarajevo. Two sorties were
tasked in August and September of 1994. The majority of
the A-10 sorties were during Operation Deliberate Force
in August and September of 1995. No other DU rounds were
expended in Bosnia. In Kosovo, NATO expended approximately
31,000 depleted uranium rounds. The vast majority were
used against VJ and MUP armour targets along the westernmost
part of the province where these armoured units were engaged
in an aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign against the
Albanian population. Nearly one million ethnic Albanians
were displaced into neighbouring countries at this time.
Most missions flew in the areas between Pec and Prizren,
with the highest concentration near Dakovica.
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In conclusion, let me make four clear points. First,
DU munitions are technically handled like all other live
pieces of ordnance. A special threat assessment from the
medical point of view will be given by Col. Daxon and
Dr. Kilpatrick.
Second, DU munitions are only used during combat operations.
Third, during NATO campaigns in both Bosnia and Kosovo,
the DU round was the most effective weapon to stop aggression
carried out by troops using armoured vehicles.
Fourth, in July 1999, SHAPE received a message provided
by the US joint staff outlining in general terms the hazards
associated with expended DU as a precautionary warning
message for force protection purposes. This message was
forwarded to all KFOR troops and southern command groups
and consequently, together with geographical details,
distributed to UNMIK and to all NGOs. As an airman on
the ground in Kosovo at the time, I can personally say
that the COMKFOR made it quite clear to his staff, and
on down the chain to individual persons like myself, that
KFOR personnel were to stay clear of former target areas
and particularly clear of destroyed vehicles.
In addition, KFOR forces were advised to strongly discourage
Kosovar civilians and particularly children to stay away
from these destroyed vehicles. This was to protect them
from all hazards around former target locations, to include
mines, booby traps, and unexpended munitions that were
part of the arsenal carried by that target vehicle.
Mark Laity: Thank you very much. We'll now hand
over to the medical briefers - Dr. Kilpatrick.
Dr. Kilpatrick: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity
to be able to share with you the facts that we in the
United States have learned from the studies of our Gulf
War individuals to try to understand the illnesses that
they have experienced. I think one of the primary lessons
learned is that it is critical to listen to the health
concerns of personnel who are deployed to a war zone or
peacekeeping zone. It is also imperative to understand
what the expected rate of diseases will be in any population
when you are trying to determine whether there is in fact
an increased rate of disease because of an exposure that
is anticipated or suspected to have occurred during a
deployment. The designs of these research studies need
to really look at the health effects from all relevant
exposures. To try to single in on one or two exposures
may be missing the exposure that is important or critical
for that particular health effect, and then finally, this
medical research must follow the science and must be the
logical scientific progression.
I think it's also extremely important that you understand
the medical definition of a syndrome. Because I know that
the individuals and patients all want to know what their
diagnosis is, and when medical science can't make a diagnosis
of symptoms oftentimes people jump to using the words
syndrome. But a medical definition of syndrome is a set
of similar symptoms that occur in all people who were
affected and that there is a similar progression of these
symptoms over time and then finally there is a similar
outcome of the people who were experiencing these symptoms,
such as death or disability. In our Gulf War veterans
there are no unique symptoms that they have that people
who did not deploy are not experiencing, so there is nothing
unique from a disease or symptom standpoint of Gulf War
veterans, and there are no increased rates of hospitalisation
or death in Gulf War veterans, and so we are not able
to meet the medical definition of a syndrome in those
who served in The Gulf. And I think trying to apply those
criteria to people serving anywhere else in the world
is extremely critical. We know in the United States since
the Civil War that people who serve in war oftentimes
after that service will have symptoms that cannot be explained
by medical science and so you expect to see symptoms after
service but that is not a syndrome. DU - and again this
is 40 per cent less radioactive than the natural uranium
that is in the environment around us; in a square kilometre
of soil one foot deep you can expect to find somewhere
between two and seventy tons of natural uranium and depleted
uranium is forty per cent less radioactive than that,
and we're talking about very small quantities. There is
no medical evidence in the literature or any scientific
studies that have been done, that natural or depleted
uranium causes cancers or any kind of leukaemia. And,
finally, it is important that you understand that DU is
also a heavy metal and has chemical properties. And, if
someone has a large intake of that heavy metal as they
would with lead or tungsten or any other munitions metal,
you can have chemical effects and the kidney is the most
sensitive organ to that chemical toxicity.
Let me talk a little bit about the medical surveillance
we have been doing on Gulf War veterans who were in or
on armoured vehicles that were struck with depleted uranium
munitions in friendly fire incidents in The Gulf. Those
who were seriously injured at that time certainly had
the highest exposure. They breathed in the dust, they
had the dust in wounds, about a third of those individuals
affected have small fragments of depleted uranium still
in their body too small to take out without causing further
damage to these individuals. We have seen no cancers or
leukaemia in this group, which has been followed since
1993. There has been no evidence of any subsequent medical
problems that can be attributed to that DU exposure. Some
of these people were burned at the time, they have wounds,
amputations, so that they do have medical problems, but
they have no subsequent problems that are as a result
of that DU exposure. As I said, one third of these individuals
still have DU fragments in their bodies giving very high
levels of depleted uranium in their urine, but there is
no indication of any kidney damage since this time and
that's since 1993. Obviously the injuries took place in
1991. Those who do not have fragments in their body have
also had urine uranium samples done and they are all in
the normal range. As I said, it's in the environment,
we all excrete uranium in our urine normally.
Finally, leukaemia...looking at statistics in the United
States, the rate of leukaemia are two cases per every
100,000 people per year and that "per year"
is extremely important. If you look at five years after
an event, exposure you would expect to see 10 cases per
100,000 people total. The causes of leukaemia are often
not known. And yet we do have medical evidence after the
atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima that there were an increased
number of cases of leukaemia starting about two years
after that exposure and peaking at about four to six years.
You also see an increase in cancers and leukaemia and
people who were being treated for cancer with chemotherapy
agents, and again there is a latent period of a couple
of years after treatment with chemotherapy agents before
we see leukaemia. And, finally, we know that toxic solvents
such as Benzene have been linked to subsequent leukaemia,
and with toxic solvent the latent period is much shorter
than with the other exposures.
I'm going to now turn the rest of the briefing over to
Col. Daxon to talk about the science behind the depleted
uranium.
Col. Daxon: My name is Col. Eric Daxon and I've
been working with depleted uranium since about 1983. The
first point that I would like to make is that all of us
in here right now are breathing natural uranium. If you
drank some water today you drank natural uranium. If you
ate food, you ate natural uranium. If I were to take a
urine sample or a sample of your lung from anybody in
this room, I would find levels of natural uranium both
in the lung tissue and in the urine sample. The average
person has about 90 micrograms of natural uranium in his
or her body just because of the natural uranium that's
in the soil, so this is not a new substance.
We, and by "we" I mean the United States and
the rest of the world, have intensively studied the health
effects of uranium since the early 1940s. In the US, DOD
and non-DOD organisations have been studying the health
and environmental impacts of depleted uranium since the
1970s - about the first time that we started considering
using these weapons - and these studies are continuing,
but the one point that I really want to make is all health
effects are related to the amount of a substance that's
internalised. I've already told you that all of us here
have uranium in them so the amount is really the key.
What I'm going to talk about now is what the US has done
to actually determine the amount of depleted uranium that
folks can internalise either by eating, breathing it or
in wounds and shrapnel.
Right now we are using depleted uranium in our Abrams
battle tanks, in our anti army munitions. The arrow that
you see in the middle of that (slide) is solid depleted
uranium, and that is what makes up the depleted uranium
round. It is just a solid arrow - that is a 105 mm tank
round and those depleted uranium penetrators are about
that long, and those depleted uranium penetrators in the
munitions that were fired in Kosovo are about that long
and there about as thick as, I guess, a pencil.
Well, these depleted uranium munitions hit their target,
pieces of it basically fragment off and depleted uranium
ignites and it burns, and as it burns it creates a depleted
uranium dust that is carried in the air, it's inside the
crew compartment and it's on the vehicle and on the ground
among the depleted uranium target area.
In order to characterize the amount of exposure, the
amount of dose that can be internalised, the US has done
over 35 studies that actually measure the amount of uranium
in the air around the vehicle. There was actually one
study that tried to measure the amount of uranium that's
inside the vehicle that's actually penetrated and we've
done a lot of environmental studies to try to measure
the amount of depleted uranium that is released when these
penetrators strike.
What we've found is that only personnel that are in on
or near a vehicle at the time that vehicle was struck
may internalise depleted uranium in excess of safety levels.
That means crewmen inside a vehicle, somebody standing
on top of a vehicle at the time it was struck.
The safety standards may also be approached by maintenance
people. These are people that go inside the struck vehicle
on a routine basis and do work inside that causes the
depleted uranium to be re-suspended. We recommend routine
precautions inside the vehicle not just because of depleted
uranium but because of some of the other toxic substances
inside the struck vehicle. It's just good hygiene and
good practice to take the precautions that we are recommending.
This is just a listing of some of the key US consensus
documents that talk about the health effects of depleted
uranium. All these are readily available, either on the
Web ,or probably in the library right outside I would
assume.
Our decision to use depleted uranium has been reviewed
several times, especially post Gulf War, first by the
US National Institute of Health, Institute of Medecine,
and all of these people have reviewed the health and environmental
effects and impacts of our use of depleted uranium and
have concurred with our basic conclusions on the use of
these things, and there have been multiple US DOD panels,
starting in the early seventies, that have been studying
the health effects studying the exposure effects, for
a very long time, and as we find a data gap we do work
to fill that data gap. And I'll be talking about one of
those data gaps in just a minute.
The UN Environmental Programme's 1999 report came up
with conclusions that are very similar to ours. The top
one I think is the main one this group (...inaudible...)
and the same literature we're using came to the first
conclusion - the presence of DU is not an obstacle to
(
inaudible...). We also found significant risk limited
to personnel immediately and around the target. That's
basically what I said in the conclusions, and personnel
in the immediate vicinity during and immediately after
an attack are the people who could receive exposures that
are in excess of our safety standards. And that's the
UN Environmental Programme's report, and I know they are
actually taking samples at the moment in Kosovo, and as
soon as those samples are analysed, the report will be
written, and we're anxiously awaiting the outcome of that
report.
These are some of the ongoing US efforts - the data gap
that I was talking about - as we have found out we don't
know as much as we thought we did about depleted uranium
fragments, so we've had ongoing research since between
1993 and 1994, and as Dr. Kilpatrick mentioned, we've
been following the veterans that had embedded depleted
uranium fragments in them since the 1993-1994 timeframe.
We have a (...inaudible...) task that's going on as we
speak, there's a shot going on today and this is designed
to verify our earlier measurements of the amount of depleted
uranium that's actually (
inaudible...) inside a
vehicle, so they (...inaudible...) air samples in the
middle of an explosion and around that vehicle.
We've done a lot of environmental monitoring at all of
our active test ranges, we've been monitoring some of
our ranges for the past fifteen years. The Department
of (...inaudible...) Affairs, Medical Surveillance Programme,
Dr. Kilpatrick, talked about that already and we're starting
a programme to introduce inter-laboratory comparisons
to make sure that everybody's techniques are basically
given the same (...inaudible...) it's a standard inter-comparison
order, the same sample is sent around to labs and we basically
see if the results are the same.
First of all, I can't emphasise enough that uranium has
been extensively studied from both a radiological and
toxological point of view and the intensity really picked
up in the 1940s because of the Manhattan project. It has
been shown not to be linked with leukaemia in humans.
The medical surveillance of our highest exposed people
- and those are the folks that are actually inside a vehicle
when that vehicle is struck, so they have inhaled it and
some of them have it in their lungs and some of them have
embedded fragments - have shown no adverse health effects
related to DU. And, again, we've had reviews by multiple
US and non-US scientific organisations that come up with
consistent (...inaudible...) that DU radiation in chemical
doses are below safety standards and again the DU (...inaudible...)
are on the way and we're going to verify that one more
time, and the research on embedded fragments is continual,
so that's the one data gap that we have. All the results
of the current things, capstone tests, the embedded DU
fragments and the medical surveillance are being published
in the (...inaudible...) literature.
Mark Laity: Now I know a lot of that stuff is
fairly undramatic, but it's what it's about, it's the
calm, careful, scientific study. There's been a lot of
fuss, a lot of copy, a lot of material written about DU,
but the answer lies in the kind of studies being referred
to here - careful, calm study. Look at it and draw your
own conclusions. Now, we've actually put some of these
reports being referred to today...we've put them in a
document pile, which we're distributing now. It includes
in it the Rand report, the UNEP report, WHO, you may find
them useful, they are unedited; we've just basically compiled
them and put them out. Look at them, read them ,make your
own mind up. There are also a few media reports there,
newspaper correspondents who are science-based and so
on, what they're saying. Again, they're unedited, we've
put them there, read them and make your mind up, but I
think it's time to read, think and then decide what you
are going to say. I think there's an awful lot being said,
and rather less thinking being done by some people, so
I think - look at the issue, assess the issue - and we're
now very happy to take your questions. Direct them all
to me and wait for the mike to get to you.
Mia Doornaert, De Standaard: The question you
get when you come with this scientific material, you get
the question "well, if the study isn't dangerous,
why then do you have to take precautions even after it
has been used in approaching vehicles which have been
struck with DU munitions"?
Col. Daxon: The precautions that we're recommending
are standard hygiene precautions, they're used basically
throughout the industry. If you take a look at some of
the other industries, maybe the manufacture of cobalt
or other comparable heavy metals, you'll see the same
type of precautions. It's just the standard thing you
would do. If you got dust on you, you would dust it off.
If you're going into a place with very high dust loading,
we'd recommend you put something - a mask - over your
face, or some sort of respiratory protection, to keep
the dust from getting into your lungs, and we're saying
it's not just because of depleted uranium in the vehicles,
but because of the other things that are in these struck
vehicles. This is just standard industrial hygiene practice.
Lt.Col. Bethel: In addition, having crawled inside
every struck vehicle in Kosovo, there are all kinds of
dangerous and potentially toxic debris adjacent to these
vehicles, including lost fuel that was in the vehicle
when it was hit, unexploded ordnance, sharp edges where
rounds may have gone in or explosions may have happened,
a variety of toxic and very dangerous things that are
around all these vehicles, and it just is not a place
that you need to find yourself.
Mark Laity: The emphasis here must be the risks
are not absolute, they are relative, there are some things
that are very dangerous, some things that are not so dangerous
- all of them require handling at the appropriate level
- and I think that there's been a perception that, because
you have to take the appropriate precautions at appropriate
times with regard to DU, that that makes it very dangerous.
It's a limited risk in limited circumstances and that
requires safety precautions but that is not an absolute
danger, it is just being precautionary. All sorts of things
have safety precautions.
Alex Nicholl, Financial Times: A question first
of all, which I guess is directed to Dr. Kilpatrick. You
mentioned toxic solvents, I wondered if you could just
elaborate on that a little bit? I wasn't clear whether
it was related to depleted uranium or whether you were
talking about something completely different? And, I suppose
the broader question related to that is, if there is something
causing a cluster of illnesses in the Balkans or anywhere
else, is it possible that it is something else that is
causing it and not depleted uranium?
Dr. Kilpatrick: You've asked a very difficult
question that scientific researchers need to be asking.
And, when you have a cluster of illnesses, there is very
commonly a hysteria that goes on, saying "why is
this happening"? In the United States we have parents
who have children with leukaemia, they all live near high
tension power lines, they believer the high tension power
lines are causing leukaemia in their children. Our Center
for Disease Control took seven years to do a very controlled
study, and after seven years, proved that children living
near high tension power lines did not get leukaemia at
a higher rate than children who lived far away from high
tension power lines, and so these studies are very difficult
to design and conduct. When we do see diseases that raise
a concern of a cluster, you have to go back and find out
what is the normal rate of that disease you would expect
to see. So people say "well three people in the same
unit came down with the same disease within six months",
is that just a random odds chance or is that statistically
a random number? And that's why you need to have the denominator
- how many people were involved - and then how many people
have the disease and then a control group that didn't
participate in that kind of exposure. I f you do find
you have an increased rate of the disease then you have
to try to figure out what do we know medically that can
contribute to those diseases and that's where with leukaemia
we know that there tends to be a higher rate on exposure
to toxic solvents like Benzene. There's a higher rate
after people get treated with chemotherapy agents for
other cancers like cancer of the lung, they come up with
a second cancer or leukaemia. And, certainly after the
atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima, there was an increased
rate of leukaemia in those people who survived the blast.
And so we look back historically for the individuals who
are ill today. It's critical that their physician be informed,
inform himself or herself of the scientific data, and
work on a compassionate way to take care of the patient
and inform the family members of what we know scientifically.
So, that's a very complicated issue that I'm trying to
condense.
Mark Laity: On the issue of leukaemia, we do know
quite a lot about - and you've seen it demonstrated here
- that there is no causal link being demonstrated between
depleted uranium or natural uranium and leukaemia, so
I think the science is pointing very clearly in one direction.
So, it's not an unknown factor, there's a lot of work
been done on leukaemia, a lot of work been done on uranium,
and the conclusion of the science is very clear on leukaemia
- that most people have been talking about - especially
in the cases of some of the countries like Italy, where's
there's been most interest in this subject.
Radio Belge : Est-ce que votre réponse
veut dire finalement qu'il n'y a pas de problème
spécifique de santé vécu par les
contingents dans les Balkans qui présenteraient
une similitude avec les problèmes vécus
par les vétérans du Golfe ; autrement dit
le syndrome des Balkans n'existe pas?
Mark Laity: I think you're asking them to draw
(...inaudible...) cannot be diagnosed with a recognised
medical disease. Symptoms of headaches, fatigue, muscle
aches, joint pains, memory loss, multiple symptoms and
the rate of those symptoms is about three times higher
in people that went compared to people that didn't go,
and this is after many years of medically assessing these
individuals. We do not have the same sort of data from
people who served in Kosovo or Bosnia. We do not have
the same sort of assessment medically so I really can't
make comparisons. We would expect to see symptoms, as
I said before, in anyone who was deployed, and that's
where medical assessment is so important for those who
deployed to have done, to answer their medical concerns.
Now when it comes to depleted uranium in The Gulf we have
not been able to see any indication of any medical problem
from those who had the highest exposure, who were in or
on a vehicle which was struck with depleted uranium -
about half the crew survived those hits, half died - and
among those that survived we've not been able to see any
medical problem now, nine years later, and they had, we
know, the highest exposure to depleted uranium of anyone
who served in The Gulf.
Mark Laity: I think, again, before we get too
carried away, the issue around here has mostly been with
leukaemia, where there isn't a range of symptoms, we know
what leukaemia is, and the linkage just simply isn't there
according to the science.
Question: This isn't strictly a medical question,
but what other material that has this high density characteristic
that might work equally well - tungsten or something like
that - what is the comparison in terms of what other materials
might be used for penetrators like this?
Lt.Col. Bethel: No, there's not anything that's
better than depleted uranium.
Question:
. I'm talking on economics of
it, on strictly metallurgical terms.
Lt.Col. Bethel: No.
Question: Why?
Lt.Col. Bethel: Well, we wouldn't use it otherwise.
As far as I know, there's not an equal metal that does
as good a job of penetrating armour as depleted uranium.
Col. Daxon: I can help out on that a little bit.
The primary reason is depleted uranium actually self-sharpens
as it penetrates because of its metallurgical properties.
Tungsten on the other hand mushrooms, so a depleted uranium
penetrator starts out about that thick and as it's penetrating
it becomes about that sharp. A tungsten penetrator starts
out about that thick and as it's penetrating it starts
to mushroom and that means the difference between a single
shot kill at 3000 m for a DU round versus 2000. The numbers
are over magnitude, they are not exact. It's a significant
tactical advantage.
Lt.Col. Bethel: And there's been a significant
amount of effort as far as development goes to find the
best. If something were to surface that way we would use
it.
Dr. Kilpatrick: And if I could just add from the
medical standpoint, we know that the heavy metal chemical
toxicity of things like nickel, tungsten, titanium are
very similar to depleted uranium, and so if we were to
have people exposed to that heavy metal we would still
be faced with the potential of that chemical toxicity.
Mark Laity: Yes and the same limited risk in limited
circumstances.
Jonathan Marcus, BBC World: Yes, you quite rightly
pointed out that before we can really proceed here any
further we need to know is there actually a medical problem
that has to be addressed? There are clearly people that
are ill, including a lot of hysteria and concern in the
media, is it possible yet to tell whether the incidence
of leukaemia among the Italian servicemen, or indeed in
some of the other countries that have claimed to have
similar illnesses, is it possible to say whether the incidence
of leukaemia in those cases is higher than one would have
expected among a similar age group in those countries?
Dr. Kilpatrick: I can't provide you an answer
because I don't know the data from the region where the
people came from, and those are the critical issues. If
you have a national healthcare database that is electronic
you can get those answers very quickly.
In the United States, healthcare is in the hands of private
physicians, there is no national database. If a disease
is not reportable to the national interest then you are
struggling uphill, and so I wouldn't try to answer that
question, it would be best given to the people that have
national health concern in the country involved.
Mark Laity: I think the point too is that epidemiological
studies take a long time, and it emphasises that the answers
to some of the questions raised can't be answered overnight.
Careful science takes time.
Mr. Krasniqi, Kosovo newspaper: All we hear is
talk about one side of the story - is DU causing illness
in the soldier or not - but the other side of the story
is - what is the cause? Can you give an answer to that?
Mark Laity: No, NATO is a military alliance, we're
being asked (...inaudible...) approached about issues
such as depleted uranium - that is our issue - but there
are a whole variety of organisations involved in things
like environmental health, this is not just NATO. Depleted
uranium is the issue here today.
German press agency: You would expect that the
Serbian soldiers that were exposed to most of the uranium
dust when they were sitting in their vehicles or around
their vehicles, is there any figure about leukaemia cases
from the Serbian point, any figures given from the Yugoslav
Foreign Minister this morning?
Mark Laity: We've had discussions this morning
on it, but I wouldn't want to reveal what those were,
but the Serbians have said publicly and it's just a matter
of record - you can go through the wires and so on in
the same way as me - but they've not detected any problems.
They've got depleted uranium sites that they want our
help with, but they have not detected any problems, and
if their VJ and civilian spokesmen are on record as saying
that, so they can speak for themselves. As a point of
information I can pass that on to you, but I'd advise
you to go to them direct.
Question: I want to know if you shared the information
that you have been studying depleted uranium since The
Gulf War, and I want to know if you shared it with the
other 19 Allies, because you talked about precautions,
and especially in Italy, the Italian army is lamenting
that it knew too late, only in December 2000, so they
are a bit worried?
Mark Laity: I don't know - if you don't have a
specific answer or whether it's generally shared information.
Dr. Kilpatrick: All of the data collection that
our organisation has done has been put on the Internet
under www.gulflink.osd.co, we have shared that with again
our people that participate in organisations like NATO,
the UN, with any of the Allies, it's been shared with
the coalition that was involved in The Gulf War, so that
information wasn't tucked away anywhere. How it could
have been used or was used - I don't know the answer to
that - by the different nations that had concerns about
depleted uranium, but that information has been in the
public domain.
Mark Laity: Essentially this is science. It's
not military, it's science and this is open-sourced information,
it's available to anyone who wants it and it's all there
and that's why they came and they've been so frank with
you and that's why we've put documentation outside. There's
no mystery about depleted uranium, it's a common material.
If you flew here, then the airplane you flew in probably
had some depleted uranium. If you were lucky enough to
sail in a yacht, it might well have had some depleted
uranium. Depleted uranium is common and therefore there's
no mystery about it, and I think people are trying to
make a mystery of a product that is not mysterious and
to also make mystery about science which is essentially
open. Scientists talk to each other and they use the internet.
There's a lot of information out there.
Nicholas Fiorenza, Armed Forces Journal: Which
NATO countries use depleted uranium in their munitions
and the countries that don't use it, why is that?
Mark Laity: It's up to individual countries to
say that. Individual countries make individual choices.
NATO's an alliance, if you want to go to individual countries
that's fine, but you've heard what's said about the effectiveness
of munitions, no-one is denying its effectiveness and
countries decide whether they want to use it or not.
Question: On a notamment émis en France
l'hypothèse de mauvaise administration de vaccins
dans le cas de la guerre du Golfe. On en parle aussi dans
le cas des Balkans. Est-ce que c'est une piste que vous
avez exploré?
Dr. Kilpatrick: As far as The Gulf War, we've
explored many possible events where people were concerned
that could cause illnesses. Vaccinations were one of those
and we have not been able to find anything related to
vaccines, either number of vaccines or types of vaccines
that were given and subsequent illnesses or symptoms in
Gulf War veterans. Further, we took a look at (...inaudible...)
bromide, which was given to protect people against nerve
agent exposure - we did not see any association there.
We looked at low level nerve agent that occurred at a
place called (...inaudible...) where our troops blew up
rockets filled with this nerve agent - nearly 100,000
US troops were exposed to very low levels of nerve agent
- we've not seen any negative medical consequence equalling
that area of exposure. So we've looked at about 12 different
things, we've looked at combinations, the research still
goes on. Some 190 projects have been funded and 155 million
dollars are being spent to try to get answers to a science
which literature doesn't have answers today, but we do
not have any exposure to date that we can say is causally
linked to the symptoms in any of our Gulf War veterans,
so science takes time
if we had answers faster, it's
been 10 years now and we still have a lot of unexplained
symptoms.
Mark Laity: Ok, I'm afraid we're going to have
to wrap it up now, we've given you a fair wallop, so thank
you very much. I'd like to thank the briefers. I'd like
to remind you though Internet is there, we have taken
stuff off it, there is objective information out there
to be read and you can read the stuff we've collated for
you. Thank you very much everyone.

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