Here's yet another lecture on depleted uranium (DU), this one by Leuren Moret. It's a juggernaut!(36-minute lecture, 4 MB MP3 file)
In a study conducted by the Veterans Administration on 251 Gulf War veterans in the state of Mississippi, the veterans had children that were normal before they departed to the Gulf War. Of the children they conceived after the Gulf War, 67% had severe illnesses or deformities. They were born without organs, without hands, without brains,...67%! Heard anything of this in the news? That's information and radiological warfare wrapped into one big crime against humanity. Thanks Laura. Thanks for kissing George goodnight for us all.
“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
-Henry Kissinger
Leuren Moret earned her B.S. in Geology at U.C. Davis in 1968, and her M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from U.C. Berkeley in 1978, her PhD. in the Geosciences at U.C. Davis. She has traveled and conducted scientific research in 42 countries.
She wrote a scientific report on depleted uranium for the United Nations subcommission investigating the illegality of depleted uranium munitions. She has been trained on radiation issues by Marion Fulk, a former Manhattan Project Scientist and retired insider at the Livermore Lab who is an expert on radioactive fallout and rainout.
Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues. She is on the organizing committee of the World Committee on Radiation Risk (WCRR), an organization of independent radiation specialists including members of the radiation committee in the EU Parliament - European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR). She is an Environmental Commissioner for the City of Berkeley.
14 comments:
This seemed so amazing that I thought maybe I'd try tracking down the source of this "67%" statistic.
It wasn't hard.
From http://www.ntanet.net/traprock.html
"I believe this is the common source of the 67 percent figure. It has now made its way into a book [MD]. I wrote Flanders and asked for the title of the VA survey and where it was published. She replied:
'The '94 article refers to a survey which was part of a study not completed and published by the VA until 1996. My source is the Jackson Ledger reporter, somebody Spear, whom I quote in the piece; she'd been writing about the surveys starting a few months before and appeared on FAIR's radio show to talk about it (a detail that got cut in editing.) Statistics being what they are, the '96 report produced a quite different result from the early research. I haven't read it in its entireity (by this time I was not so closely on the case) but it's title is something like VA Finds NO LINK....to birth defects.' [Private e-mail, 4/14/2003]
"I went to my campus library and in 30 minutes, with some help from a kind person at the Government Documents Desk, found a 1997 article in Gulf War Review [GWR] entitled Birth Defects Risk Not Increased. I asked Flanders if this was the study. She wrote back: That's the one! [Private e-mail, 4/15/2003] The study itself was published in the New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM]: In conclusion, this report provided substantial evidence that the children of Gulf War veterans do not have an increased risk of birth defects.
"What can we conclude? Hearsay is valid news. This is why we should not try people in the press. It is also why we should not do science in the media either, and yet there is no "science court" to defer to. One just has to dig. I do not fault Flanders so much for reporting what she was hearing. But that so many others would repeat this story without checking up on the source is shear laziness."
---- Michael C. Sullivan
Thanks Stephen. I also found the 67% stark, but not out of contextual synch with various studies I've been privy to - most of which can be found on the WWW or in the databases of the hidden internet.
I'm also aware of a concerted Pentagon information operation with the sole objective of discounting claimants, claims, and support for the initiation of studies that might point to the use of DU munitions as a hazard for humans. The tactics employs to keep DU safe are as many as they are concerted and well funded. And not few are similar to the approach taken by the so-called M.C. Sulliva, speaking of whom, have you avoided falling into the trap of shear laziness and checked up on who that fellow is?)
No doubt typos, errors, false testimony, and what have you makes it way on occasion into what are legitimate and worrying observations and emerging patterns pertaining to spent DU's interaction with biological systems. This happens in all circumstances of study and communication, especially in instances rife with controversy and well-monied and entrenched interests.
This however does not entail, as is opportunistically claimed by both nasty and ignorant apologists, that elevated risk for the viability of exposed higher biological organisms to spent DU derivatives is a false or unsubstantiable claim. Heck, I can find studies that lay bare many an error in reports claiming the earth is round. That doesn't make our planet flat except in the eyes of a few lowbrow ditch diggers or eager fence sellers.
We can argue before layman readers at SMC about the chemical vs radiological hazards of DU derivative particulates on higher organisms or delve into other issues of issue related esoterica but then someone is gonna have to accept my invoices for all the time I devote to the jerk-off session up and above my 15 minute per diem allotment of bloggity schloggity - or at least swing a deal with my hottity hot 5'10" blonde girlfriend that has laid down this repressive 15 minute rule to keep her libido well-nurtured(I'm sure you can empathize with my predicament, right?).
However, if we rely on epidemiological studies conducted by independent researchers (ie not Pentagon affiliated outfits and hacks), the findings are clear - you best put some of your sperm in a repository for use after returning home from an area contaminated by the byproducts of spent munitions instead of trusting VA and Pentagon claims in lieu of studies proving definitive causality between deformed and sick babies and exposure to DU derivatives. 67%, 75%, or 35% - it's a f*cking nightmare anyway it cuts and I'd wish none of those numbers upon the testes of a fellow American kid heading off to theatre. Would you?
The Pentagon has made it abundantly clear that they are not going to abandon DU munitions in favor of tungsten. This adamant investment in DU requires a parallel investment in information operations to suppress and discount anything that might threaten that long-haul position. Nothing new or novel about that.
All my claims can be backed up by resorting to peer reviewed studies and articles (though given, I'm not gonna bet my tricycle on the exact number of 67% or how Rokke's academic background has been presented on a particular website though the hit on Rokke is textbook stuff for killing the general credibility of a threatening message - and your play with it is the precise reaction such hits are designed to elicit. Good work, Steve)
And if your interest in truth and human welfare is genuine and passionate then you won't have to go to one of the world's top medical schools as I have to decipher the available research material on this issue...u can just wade about in the shallows of abstract-ville. You might however consider getting a subscription to PubMed.
PS
Honestly, I never cease to be amazed by the regula' folks who crawl out of the woodworks to back up claims that fly in the face of what the Pentagon happens to find convenient to say today. It's amazing if not disheartening. But then again, I'm a spoiled and rich f*ck and have it made so I don't really have to care if others wanna spend their time trying to breath water. That's their tough luck, as Kissinger might say. And many a times that guy is on the proverbial money.
BTW Steve, I'll take a look at your link and delve a bit into the NTNAT people and Sullivan, as well as the interesting 67% ontology. In the interim, it is interesting hearing the classic defense cry for causality in a world of epidemiological magic.It was but a dozen years or so ago that the causal nature of aspirin and pain relief was discovered. That did not hinder aspirin from working its wonders prior to that - or did it?
"If depleted uranium enters the body, it has a potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with depleted uranium are both chemical and radiological."
--Army Environmental Policy Institute, 1995
A few starting points:
http://www.umrc.net/uranium_basics.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/du_and_ndu.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/radiation_and_the_human_body.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/uranium_and_weapons.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/uranium_analysis.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/dietz.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/conferences.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/papers.aspx
http://www.umrc.net/articles.aspx
Then run over to Pub Med and read up on established health risks of alpha radiation.
So now Rokke is apparently discredited as only being a PhD in Education, and the fucks over at NTAT who live off of cash from Gvt contracts and private nuke facilities that peddle DU are now the sources de jour for discounting spent DU as oncogenic and teratogenic risk factors for humans. Geez, an exposed wobbly and wandering 67% claim and now we're all safe to eat McDU burgers.
Now you might be out to ensure that the issue of DU isn't cluttered by bogus plants that are later used to exploit the validity of the concerns...or you're out to cloud the waters and discredit the validity of serious further studies on the issue while attempting to deny the existence of damning evidence and indicators of the dangerous effects of spent DU. I cannot quite tell.
But again, citing anything on this topic that emanated from NTAT kinda gets a serious meatball concerned.
Meatball- I feel like I've found a friend.
I would have posted a similar reply had I been in your situation. Now I have to check out NTAT. This could go on forever!
As you have seen, I have a similar (but not nearly as original) blog, mostly where I post stuff I've found intriguing or infuriating, or both, with occasional commentary. I find your blog worthwhile because you find stuff that falls into those same intriguing and infuriating catagories, and it's handsomely put together as well.
thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments. I appreciate it.
Where do you find the time to dig up this stuff? Here I am at 2am, typing away, when I should be asleep. The internet will be the death of us all.
speaking of Meatballs, have you ever heard of Creeping Meatballism?
(a short time later)
Ok, it's Ntanet.net, for Nevada Technical Associates, Inc., and their roster is pretty impressive.
http://www.ntanet.net/instructors.html
Now we get down to the problem I mentioned somewhere -- who do you believe? These guys credentials seem to be in order...
Oh, Im sure they are impeccable by many a standard and for many a situation.
I just wonder how reliable they are when dealing with this issue in an academically honest manner. To catch a whiff of the nature of the answer, I'd like to see a list of their biggest clients and the companies they in turn subcontract out work to.
At a glance, it appreared that they in all likelihood were in the nuclear industry loop and it is from such vested pockets they would then be collecting coins to whittle away at mortgages, orthodontic bills, and shareholder exectations of reasonable returns.
But I'm just guessin' like a meatball.
In my PS comment above, I wrote the opposite of what I intended to say. I meant to write:
PS
Honestly, I never cease to be amazed by the regula' folks who crawl out of the woodworks to back up claims and counterclaims fielded by the Pentagon when the generals are faced with revelations that fly in the face of whatever truth happens to be convenient for them on any given day. It's amazing if not disheartening. But then again, I'm a spoiled and rich f*ck and have it made so I don't really have to care if others wanna spend their time trying to breath water - though per defect I still do. That's their tough luck, as Kissinger might say. And many a times that guy is on the proverbial money, though I hate his guts.
Here's a bragging list of clients provided by NTAT. I think it speaks volumes when affording oneself leeway for speculating where their loyalties might lie in addressing issues pertaining to the safety of spent DU munitions:
Our customers include many of the major organizations in the nuclear industry. A partial list of customers includes:
-Military customers include all branches of service.
-Martin Marietta Energy Systems
-The Boeing Corporation
-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
-Los Alamos National Laboratory
-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
-Westinghouse Savannah River
-Sandia National Laboratory
-The Environmental Protection Agency -Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
-EG & G Inc.
-Raytheon Services Nevada
-health departments of Texas, Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico and Ohio.
-Foreign customers include the research and regulatory agencies of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, England and Bulgaria.
This can be indicative of two different things, I think.
One is that these clients are the heart of the Evil Empire, necessarily contaminating all they touch, even as DU does. Even as the media are polluted by the Evil Empire's sponsorship. Ok, that's one point,.
The other is that even Darth Vader himself has the need for reliable measurements, if nothing else, just to see if he himself has been contaminated. And, just from a cursory reading of the expertise of their crew, this Nevada group seems to have the expertise to measure radioactivity reliably, and a purported expertise in the physics of health. Purported.
One would think that even Darth Vader needs a reliable speedometer to know how fast he's racing towards oblivion.
One, however, might be wrong.
It comes back to the old veracity problem. Who can we believe? And just because sensible people need reliable data, how can we apply this to obviously non-sensible people? Just because reasonable people would like to know if they're also contiminated, these folk have proven themselves over and over again to be unreasonable, inhabiting a fantasy world of their own creation.
And how can I justify all the time I spend typing these things? But I'll do it anyway, because it's really really fun contacting a live thinking brain.
Well I'm guessing that these NTAT boys & girls only conduct studies for which they have been tasked per revenue generating contract with the previously shortlist of government and nuclesr industry clients.
Thus any credible expertise on this particular issue would reasonably be a result of having been contracted to conduct exhaustive and longitudinal studies on the health hazards of spent DU munitions. And even as such, any findings would per contract in all likelihood be the proprietary property of the client - as opposed to a case where findings conducted by independent research institutes are up for automatic public and peer reviewed dissemination.
NTAT would not be free to release results to the general public unless they had been provided contractual leeway for such dissemination. I have found no publicly released NTAT research whatsoever that has specifically addressed the DU issue at hand - have you?.
I do not question their technical capabilities one midgetized iota - on the contrary I am sure they are quite the stellar crew of technical competents and kno just how to apply their skills as directed by their task masters.
I do however have queasy qualms when they use their technical merits to address the DU issue as credibles manner without for a moment providing any forensics of having adequately researched this specific field of inquiry. Technical prowess is one thing - how it's directed and applied is quite another matter. And certainly if it's been applied to this issue at hand is incredibly pertinent to the discussion they have delved à Deus ex machina into.
In reading their (Sullivan's) hit on Rokke & Co, I notice that they lend their technical credentials to attack the credibility of Rokke & Co in a slickly circumscribed manner - attacking the messengers and peripheral factoids with insinuative rectifications without addressing the central theses of DU related concerns. I suppose the trick is to veil the forest with a strategically planted dilettantish tree or two.
Now I kinda have to wonder given the fact that this is a private and for-profit outfit, why the heck are they delving into the DU issue and lending corporately sponsored web space to do so - and why do they take such an aggressive stance without providing any serious research findings negatingly addressing the central claims of spent DU munitions hazards? Who has tasked them for this service or is this just an expression of a benevolent and idealistic rogue in their midst on a coffee break doing some pro bono public service within the confines of an otherwise stringently run defense contract outfit?
Anyways, it's not uncommon for a lettered genericist to flout his opinions on everything between here and the cheesiest of moons. So I ask, what is NTAT's specific expertise on what is claimed by them to be a fuzzy and inconclusive area of deadly claims? Why is NTAT so eager to discount per ad hominems what by their own indirect admissions is an area with spurious study and inconclusive evidence.
I'm afraid I smell a big dick a loyal swingin' for some of it's weightier clients and the interests they share with these same lucrative clients - and these clients are the very entities with the deepest vested interests in the DU industry.
Kookifying phrases the likes of evil empire become superfluous in addressing the dynamics at play when employing this rather commonplace and Harvard-sanctioned perspective. It's just basic corporate dynamics at play. I'm sure all of the NTAT boys love their daughters and wouldn't dream a passive-aggressive sec of breaking any local ordinances. And I feel quite quite confident in assuming that most if not all of the Moms at NTAT fight tooth 'n trimmed nail to get off work an hour or so early here 'n there to shuttle their sons and daughters around in a Chrysler Voyager to soccer practices and games.
And hey, as long as you're screwing and painting as much as opportunity and desire allows for then you're not spending too much time trolling for clarity and gratutious porn.
Exactly the problem. I haven't painted anything this year! There's been lots of music, but only my one-night-per-year grad-nite all-nite portrait gig.
Three years ago I got a digital camera, my main reason being to take reference photos. Since then, the frame counter says I'm over 14,000 pictures. I've painted about three paintings. I have to strike more of a balance!
Trolling for clarity would be a good name for a blog...
Ok. Another problem. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Believe them until my BS Detector goes off. Sometimes, even then, if it looks like I can tolerate them and get the job at hand done and be done with them, I'll put up with it just out of expediency.
That's what I mean about never really knowing what's up. Someone mentioned the other day that Jon Stewart on the Daily Show said that what the show was really about is that we don't know what's true.
If I have to call a plumber, and he manages to get the job done, I just trust that he knew what he was doing and the pipes won't explode next week. We have to trust those we come in contact with, or else we turn into the Unabomber, living in a shack, eating canned pork and beans and SPAM.
We'll have to continue this on a newer post, or else this thread will soon disappear into the archive cybervoid.
Leuren Moret does not have a PhD. She flunked out of the program. Those of us who worked with her continue to be amazed that so many people wearing tin-foil hats continue to listen to her incredible rants.
Quaint, and perhaps even pertinent in some situations. But there are enough top notch folks out there lending credence to her claims and theses that a truncated PhD program doesn't precisely undermine the generic case against the deployment of DU munitions.
And by the way, who the fuck are you calling a tinfoil hat wearer. I have Ivy Leaugue and Eurostar degrees coming out of my steel ass and not a few of those degrees are laced with titanium hard science under the tutelage of Nobel prize winners. You sound like one of those dime a dozen gloaters that are all to eager per way of personal corruption and negligent personality management to chuck the baby out with the bath water.
You're a stooge, baby.Make some real money so you can afford yourself an independent voice. Till then you'll just be another cliché-spewing subservient pauper, scared shitless of not making the next mortgage lest you toe your real and imaginary bosses' line.
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