Veterans to be tested for uranium

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The New Mexico Department of Health will be testing New Mexico veterans and active duty military personnel beginning next week to determine whether they have high concentrations of natural uranium and/or depleted uranium in their urine.

The department’s Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau is offering the tests free of charge at its Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque for military personnel and veterans who may have been exposed to depleted uranium in the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan conflict or the current war in Iraq.

The Department of Health will make appointments to test individuals in every county of the state from Nov. 13 to the week of Dec. 10. Tests will be conducted the week of Dec. 10 for individuals from San Juan, McKinley, Cibola, Sandoval and Los Alamos counties.

“The New Mexico Legislature gave us funding to test veterans and active duty military who may have been exposed to depleted uranium,” said Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil. “We encourage military personnel to take advantage of these free tests.”

At the appointment, a Department of Health staff member will give a brief questionnaire and take a tap water sample, which will also be tested for total uranium. The water is tested for uranium because New Mexico, on average, has a higher concentration of uranium in drinking water than the rest of the country.

If the urine sample tests high for uranium, the department will offer a follow-up test to determine if this uranium is depleted or natural uranium.

Depleted uranium is used for bullets, tank armor and explosives. One of the possible side effects of having high levels of depleted uranium is kidney damage.

Another possible consequence of exposure to depleted uranium is diabetes, according to Leuren Moret, a geoscientist and international radiation specialist who formerly worked as a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore laboratories.

In an article published in 2006, Moret said data from Japan, the United States, India and Europe confirms her discovery of “a global epidemic of diabetes which began with Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and has continued to increase during atmospheric testing, nuclear power plant operations, and very sharply since depleted uranium was introduced in 1991.”

“The major radioactive pollutant from atmospheric testing was uranium. There is an established link in the scientific literature between uranium and diabetes. Diabetes has also been linked to radiation exposure in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl survivors,” Moret said.

Her theory has been corroborated by Dr. Ernest Sternglass, professor emeritus of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, a pioneer in the study of the health effects of low-level radiation, and other health experts.

In an article first published from last December through Valentine’s Day 2007 in the San Francisco Bay View, “From Hiroshima to Iraq, 61 Years of Uranium Wars,” Moret wrote that the conduct of secret nuclear wars since 1991, through the use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States and Great Britain with their allies, has taken place in the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

“It has been carried out for the express purpose of destroying the public health and mutilating the genetic future of vast populations in oil rich and/or pipeline regions,” she said.

“Carpet and grid bombing with depleted uranium weaponry in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan has guaranteed permanent radioactive terrain contamination. The recent discovery that U.S. depleted uranium bombs dropped by Israel on Lebanon in 2006 contained enriched uranium suggests covert testing of fourth generation nuclear weapons,” in violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Poison Gas Protocol.

“For populations that must continue to live in contaminated areas, the long-term effects are lingering illnesses and mutilation of their DNA. … Mutations induced in the DNA of a single egg or sperm which form a fertilized egg are expressed and repeated in every cell of the developing organism, and defects are passed on to all future generations.

“Global atmospheric pollution from depleted uranium particulates will result in massive depopulation on a global scale. By increasing death rates and decreasing birth rates globally, more than 2 billion people will be eliminated,” Moret predicts.

“Not only are U.S. and allied soldiers exposed and civilian populations genocidally targeted, but the depleted uranium pollution is now global. In reality, we are all Gulf War veterans.”

Information: To volunteer or find out more, contact the Department’s Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau at: DOH-EHEB@state.nm.us or call toll-free, 888-878-8992.