-Caveat Lector- : The URL for the article is : http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/10/stirevnws02002.h : tml : One man's Gulf war threatens to go nuclear : NINE years of obsessively pursuing re-search that could have huge : implications for Britain and America have taken their toll on Dr Asaf : Durakovic. As he looked out over a packed auditorium, he railed against : the "government conspiracy" that prevented his paper being highlighted : as one of the best at the European conference of nuclear medicine last : week. Afterwards, the truculent 60-year-old tells me: "It is a miracle : they accepted the presentation in the first place." : Why? Because Durakovic has spent most of the past decade trying to : persuade his peers that there is a possibility that America's new : super-weapon, the depleted uranium shell, is killing veterans of the : Gulf war years after it was first used in combat. : If Croatian-born Durakovic is able to prove his hypothesis the : consequences would be staggering; billions in compensation to veterans : who claim they have been made sick by service in the Gulf war and : billions more on clearing up Kuwait. The American government admits : firing 300 tons of depleted uranium (more than 740,000 rounds) during : the war. : The vested interests that line up to dismiss Durakovic's work are : myriad. Thinking about them would make even the most intelligent and : worldly man paranoid. Conspiracy theories abound when you are talking to : him but they are counterbalanced by his credentials. : He is currently head of nuclear medicine at the King Faisal Specialist : Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is life : professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University hospital, : Washington DC. : As former head of nuclear medicine at the Veterans' hospital in : Wilmington, Delaware, he was asked to examine soldiers showing symptoms : that suggested they had been in a radioactive environment. : "In June 1991, shortly after the Gulf war, a colleague from the Ventnor : clinic in New Jersey called and asked my opinion about 28 patients. When : I took their medical history it was clear they had been exposed to : radioactivity," Durakovic explained. He immediately presented a detailed : plan of action, including a range of tests. He claims all his : recommendations were ignored. : After he suggested the veterans should be tested for uranium : contamination by inhalation he began, he says, to receive telephone : calls from colleagues asking him to stop. "When I asked one of them why, : he replied, 'I have to save my career. I've been instructed to influence : you to stop work.' " : When Durakovic persisted, he was told that the government would no : longer support his work and his career was in jeopardy. "I pursued my : medical judgment. I have a duty to treat the sick." : In January 1994 he got into his two-month-old Buick, drove down the icy : hill from his Washington home, put his foot on the brake and crashed : into a fence. "I thought I had made a mistake on the ice until the : mechanic showed me the brake cord had been cut." : In 1997 he claims the authorities had finally had enough of his : in-quiries and fired him. The Department of Veteran Affairs claims he : was simply made redundant as part of cost cuts. Durakovic doggedly : continued his research and privately funded tests on veterans. But at : least two volunteers, including one British soldier, Jim Glennon, : withdrew from the tests, labelling him a self-serving egomaniac. : Then, to add to his paranoia, last February his home in Washington was : burgled minutes after his wife Tania had received a phone call telling : her to expect a fax with the results of tests on the bones of a dead : Canadian intelligence officer. : Tania switched the fax on, walked out of the door and in the space of 20 : minutes burglars had gone through every book and paper but taken : nothing. The fax never arrived - the sender's machine had broken. : Durakovic has tested the urine of 16 American, Canadian and British : veterans and the bone tissue of one. His results show "excess levels" of : depleted uranium in 70%. : The excess presence of depleted uranium in veterans nine years after the : Gulf war - which is the only place they could have come into contact : with it - is worrying because normally excess uranium is flushed out of : the body within 24 hours. Durakovic's tests provide evidence that : veterans have retained it. Why? Nobody knows for sure. One theory is : that, contrary to conventional wisdom, depleted uranium was light enough : to be inhaled when it turned into a milky white dust after impact. : Nobody knows what happens if you breathe in depleted uranium. : However, in The Invisible War, a forthcoming book on Durakovic and the : use of depleted uranium in the Gulf, Martin Meissonnier will use secret : American army documents to show that, prior to the war, the army was : aware that depleted uranium was potentially harmful. : In a study of the effectiveness of depleted uranium shells it : states that the material is a "low-level alpha radiation emitter : which is linked to cancer when exposure is internal, and chemical : toxicity causing kidney damage". Another document warns about the : release of "bombshell" reports on depleted uranium. Officials are : ordered to "flag up" anything that might generate unusual public : interest. : Durakovic just wants to deal with the science. "Let someone give me the : money. I'll do the research. I am not trying to prove people have been : poisoned. I'm a scientist trying to eliminate a possibility; but as : things stand we just may have contaminated a huge area of the planet, : and killed our own soldiers by mistake." : http://www.sunday-times.co.uk : Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ : Before you buy. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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