Mirrored, with permission, from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear
Responsibility web site, where the original exists at
http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_book.html
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                    Gulf War Syndrome, Depleted Uranium
                   and the Dangers of Low-Level Radiation


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    Desert Storm veterans along with the people of Iraq and Kuwait were
     victims of one of the latest military experiments on human beings.
          I believe that the ignorance was culpable and criminal.
           ------------------------------------------------------

                           by Dr. Rosalie Bertell

                           [ Biographical Notes ]


     Introduction:

     I first heard about the military using depleted uranium for
     bullets from the Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE)
     in Gore, Oklahoma. Kerr Magee was operating a factory there, and
     in a liquid waste spill a young man, about twenty-one years old,
     was sprayed with the mixture and died. Many members of the public
     were also exposed, and were taken to the University in Oklahoma
     City for medical examination and feces analysis. It seems that the
     liquid waste contained primarily uranium and other heavy metals.

     Local people had found this factory to be very polluting. When I
     visited the town to see what was happening and to decide whether
     or not I could help, they showed me rust marks scattered over the
     surface of their automobiles where the toxic corrosive spray
     released from the factory routinely had impacted on the paint.
     People complained of burning throats and eyes, some with even more
     serious complaints, but little systematic information which would
     show that the factory was the source of their problem.

     I met a young boy who showed me a frog he had caught--the frog had
     nine legs. It was in a bottle of formaldehyde. I wanted to take it
     for some tissue and bone analysis but it was his prize possession
     and he would not part with it.

     I learned that the Kerr Magee plant had been disposing of its
     waste by deep-well injection in this rural, primarily farming
     area. The people, becoming alarmed at this practice which
     threatened the water table, got a court injunction to stop it. In
     an action, which seemed to the local farmers to be a retaliation,
     Kerr Magee had applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
     call their waste an "experimental fertilizer" and just spread it
     over the top of the land. The stories were quite strong evidence
     that this so-called fertilizer was sometimes just released into
     the local river, or released in one place on the factory property,
     with no pretense even to spread it.

     The young boy had found his nine-legged frog on the hill which
     served as the "experimental plot." Hunters had found a rabbit with
     two hearts, and the local taxidermist told me that he had tried to
     mount two deer heads and the fur came off in his hands in clumps.
     He had never seen anything like it in his whole career.

     As local people became sick and started to complain, Kerr Magee
     bought them out, and took over their land. The Native people, who
     were determined to preserve their land, formed a Coalition of
     White and Natives Concerned, and began the long legal fight with
     the company. They learned about environmental assessment hearings,
     licensing hearings, etc. and began to seriously participate. They
     also undertook a human health survey of all families -- there were
     about four hundred of them -- living within four miles of the
     factory. Every family was included in the survey, which was very
     comprehensive and carefully administered.

     The International Institute of Concern for Public Health agreed to
     analyze this data for the citizens. The outstanding illnesses in
     the area were respiratory and kidney problems. There were
     significantly more persons with respiratory illnesses down wind of
     the plant, and significantly more with kidney problems down stream
     of the plant.

     We intended to do a clinical follow-up of this survey, and
     designed the study with the cooperation of the Occupational Health
     and Respiratory Units at the University Medical School of New
     Jersey. We were not able to obtain funding for this study.
     Nevertheless, with the health survey and a great deal of local
     perseverance, Kerr Magee moved out. A second multinational tried
     to take over the factory--I think it was General Dynamics--but it
     failed.

     I learned many things about the uranium bullets in the process of
     this research:

        * They are incendiary, that is after piercing the object they
          can burst into flame.

        * They are fragmentary, they disintigrate into small fragments
          inside the body, and cannot be removed.

        * They are more dense than lead, and can pierce a bullet- proof
          vest, or a light armored car or tank.

        * Because the "enemy" might also use them, the military made
          uranium armor as a protection.

        * They were cheap, because the depleted uranium was a waste
          product of the nuclear-bomb program.

        * They were radioactive, which meant that even handling them
          was risky, but no one seemed to be worrying about this!


     Research into Gulf War Syndrome

     Six years after the Gulf War there is still deep controversy over
     the causes of the severe health problems observed in the veterans.
     Reluctantly, the U.S. government has been slowly releasing data on
     possible Iraqi chemical exposures of the veterans, but many
     physicians, some of whom have reported that their jobs are being
     threatened, have said that this information does not explain the
     variety of symptoms observed.

     Shortly after the Gulf War, at the request of Staff Sargeant Carol
     Picou, San Antonio, Texas, who was herself a victim, Patricia
     Axelrod undertook research into the possible causes of this
     illness.

     The research was jointly sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes
     of Health, Office of Women's Health. It was submitted to the
     Department of Health and Human Services on May 10, 1993, and was
     labeled: for internal distribution only. The research was intended
     to be a guide to further research into the problem, so its
     limitation to internal distribution did not make sense.

     Our journal, International Perspectives in Public Health,
     published the document in full in 1994.

     At the time, the U.S. Department of Defence was treating this
     illness as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and advising
     military doctors to treat it with muscle relaxants and sleeping
     pills, while ordering a mental illness assessment. Most of the
     information in Ms. Axelrod's Guide to Gulf War Sickness comes from
     interviews with Dr. Thomas Callender, a toxicologist; Dr. Barry
     Wilson, of Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories; and
     Commissioner Rudy Arredondo, Maryland's Commission on Black and
     Minority Health. Ms. Axelrod also interviewed many veterans and
     reviewed the journal articles and reports available in the public
     press. Information on leishmaniases was provided by the World
     Health Organization.


     Potential Causes of Gulf War Syndrome

     In this complex situation, any or all of the following factors may
     have interacted to bring about specific symptoms in veterans.
     Obviously, the combinations of factors differ with individuals,
     hence it is likely that there is not one single explanation of the
     whole spectrum of symptoms. However, the following main categories
     are candidates for causal relationships with illnesses reported by
     veterans:

        * Administration of three vaccines intended as protection
          against nerve and biological warfare agents. These were:

            1. Pyridostigmine, normally prescribed for myasthenia
               gravis and known to have serious side effects,
               especially when the person taking it is exposed to heat.
               It is also known that exposure to pesticides and
               insecticides (Baygon, Diazinon and Sevin) should be
               avoided when taking pyridostigmine because they can
               accentuate its toxicity. Some women who took this drug
               during pregnancy and have breast-fed infants have seen
               side effects in their child.

            2. Botulinum Pentavalent, an unproven vaccine intended to
               counteract botulism. It is unlicensed in the United
               States.

            3. Anthrax, to protect against the disease anthrax. This
               was apparently selectively administered to troops during
               the war, and women receiving it were warned not to have
               children for three or four years.

        * Depleted uranium was used for the first time in this war. It
          was incorporated into tank armor, missile and aircraft
          counterweights and navigational devices, and in tank,
          anti-aircraft and anti-personnel artillery. The scientific
          information on this deadly chemical has been reported in
          "Radium Osteitis With Osteogenic Sarcoma: The Chronology and
          Natural History of Fatal Cases" by Dr. William D. Sharpe,
          Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 47, No. 9
          (September 1971). There was no excuse for this human
          experimentation because the effects of this exposure were
          known.

        * Smoke and chemical pollutants released by the continuous oil-
          well fires. Levels of soot, carbon monoxide and ozone have
          been studied by an Environmental Protection Agency Task
          Force. The National Toxics Campaign, Boston, Massachusetts,
          found five different toxic hydrocarbon products in the smoke
          (1,4-dichlorobenzine, 1,2-dichlorobenzene, diethyl phthalate,
          dimethyl phthalate and naphthalene), any one of which could
          induce serious health effects.

        * Old World leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by
          the bite of many species of sand fly indigenous to the
          region. Non-indigenous people who enter an infected area are
          known to be more seriously affected by this parasite than the
          inhabitants. If left undiagnosed, and therefore untreated, it
          can be fatal. Diagnosis requires bone and spleen biopsy, and
          the disease can have a three-year incubation period without
          causing symptoms. It can be transmitted by blood transfusion,
          and transmitted by a woman to her unborn child. Leishmaniasis
          was reported as widespread in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This
          disease is thought to be responsible for the Pentagon ban,
          November 1991, against blood donations from Gulf War
          veterans. This ban was lifted, for unknown reasons, on
          January 11, 1993.

        * Pesticides and insecticides were used extensively throughout
          the war to protect against pestilence. It is known that large
          quantities of DDT, malathion, fenitrorthion, propuxur,
          deltamethrin and permethrin were used. They are all toxic
          nerve agents, and many are suspected carcinogens and
          mutagens.

        * Destruction by allies of Iraqi chemical, nerve and biological
          warfare weapons resulting in widespread distribution of these
          toxins in the environment. This problem has now been, at
          least in part, documented by the U.S. Department of Defense.
          They are focusing on this potential cause as if it were the
          only candidate cause.

        * The electromagnetic environment which permeated the
          battlefield during the war. Veterans were exposed to a broad
          spectrum of electromagnetic radiation created by electricity
          generated to support the high-tech instruments, thousands of
          radios and radar devices in use. This intense electromagnetic
          field causes both thermal and non-thermal effects, and
          potentially interacts with the other hazardous exposures and
          stresses of the battlefield. Electromagnetic radiation can
          alter the production of hormones (neurotransmitters),
          interact with cell membranes, increase calcium ion flow,
          stimulate protein kinase in lymphocytes, suppress the immune
          system, affect melatonin production required to control the
          "body clock," and cause changes in the blood-brain barrier.


     The Hazards of Low Level Radiation

     In the past few years the information available on the health
     effects of exposure to low levels of radiation has increased. We
     are no longer dependent on the commercial or military nuclear
     researchers who since 1950 have claimed that studies of the
     effects of low-level radiation are impossible to undertake. The
     new information is unsettling because it proves the critics of the
     industry to have been correct as to its serious potential to
     damage living tissue.

     There have also been significant new releases of findings from the
     atomic bomb research in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the self-acclaimed
     "classical research" of radiation health effects. I will list
     these findings toward the end of this article, along with studies
     from the nuclear industry.

     In reviewing these research papers one is struck by the high-dose
     response when the radiation is delivered slowly, with low total
     dose. The conventional wisdom has claimed that at low
     dose/slow-dose rate the body is well able to repair most of the
     harm caused by the radiation. Some nuclear apologists go so far as
     to claim such exposures are "beneficial."

     Because the nuclear industry has always maintained that the
     effects of low-dose radiation exposure are so small that it is
     impossible to study them, they proposed extrapolating the effects
     from those observed at high dose, using a straight line to zero
     (zero dose, zero effect), together with "correction factors" for
     low dose/slow-dose rate.

     The effect of this "correction" is to reduce the fatal cancer
     estimates calculated by D.L. Preston, then Director of the
     Radiation Effects Research Foundation at Hiroshima, using the new
     dosimetry, from seventeen fatalities per million people per rad
     exposure, to five fatalities per million people per rad exposure.
     The corresponding estimates based on actually observed rates for
     nuclear workers is between ten and thirty fatalities per million
     per rad. Obviously, for the adult healthy male, the dose-response
     estimate should be about twenty for fatal cancers per million per
     rad.

     However, although we can make a strong case for increasing the
     "official" estimates of harm by a factor of four, this fails to
     deal with non-fatal cancers, depressed immune systems, localized
     tissue damage (especially the respiratory, digestive and urinary
     tracts), damage to skin, and reproductive problems. Radiation can
     cause brain lesions, damage to the stem cells which produce the
     blood and, when the radiactive material is carried in a heavy
     metal (uranium) it can be stored in bone, irradiating body organs
     and nerves within its radius.


     A Book by Dr. E.B. Burlakova

     Detailed studies of dose-response at the low dose/slow-dose rate
     level:

     Dr. E. B. Burlakova has provided me with a copy of the book, of
     which she is editor: Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe:
     Human Health. In one Chapter of this book, Dr. Burlakova and
     fourteen other scientists publish their findings on animal and
     human studies of the health effects of low dose/slow- dose rate,
     exposure to ionizing radiation. They examined carefully the
     following biological phenomena under ionizing radiation exposure
     situations:

        * alkaline elution of DNA of lymphocytes and liver

        * neutral elution and adsorption of spleen DNA on
          nitrocellulose filters

        * restriction of spleen DNA by EcoRI endonuclease

        * structural characteristics (using the ESR spin probe
          technique) of nuclear, mitochondrial, synaptical, erythrocyte
          and leukocyte membranes

        * activity and isoforms of aldolase and lactate hydrogenase
          enzymes

        * activity of acetycholine esterase, superoxide dismutase, and
          glutathione peroxidase

        * the rate of formation of superoxide anion radicals

        * the composition and antioxidizing activity of lipids of the
          above mentioned membranes

        * the sensitivity of cells, membranes, DNA, and organisms to
          the action of additional damaging factors.

     "For all of the parameters a bimodal dose-effect dependence was
     discovered, i.e. the effect increased at low doses, reached its
     [low-dose] maximum, and then decreased (in some cases, the sign of
     the effect changed to the opposite, or "benefit" effect) and
     increased again as the dose was increased" (Burlakova, page 118).
     Dr. Burlakova has speculated that at the lowest experimental doses
     used in this research, the repair mechanism of the cells was not
     triggered. It became activated at the point of the low- dose
     maximum, providing a "benefit" until it was overwhelmed and the
     damage began again to increase with dose. This may well be the
     case.

     However, the unexpected effects of low dose/slow-dose rate
     exposure to ionizing radiation can also be attributed to
     biological mechanisms, other than the direct DNA damage hypothesis
     usually used by radiation physicists. These secondary mechanisms
     are specific to the low-/slow-dose conditions. Three such
     secondary mechanism have been observed by scientists: the Petkau
     effect, monocyte depletion, and deformed red blood cells.

        * The Petkau effect: discovered by Abram Petkau at the Atomic
          Energy of Canada Ltd. Whiteshell Nuclear Research
          Establishment, Manitoba, Canada in 1972 (Ref.1). Dr. Petkau
          discovered that at 26 rads per minute (fast-dose rate) it
          required a total dose of 3,500 rads to destroy a cell
          membrane. However, at 0.001 rad per minute (slow dose rate),
          it required only 0.7 rad to destroy the cell membrane. The
          mechanism at the slow-dose rate is the production of free
          radicals of oxygen (O2 with a negative electrical charge) by
          the ionizing effect of the radiation.

          The sparsely distributed free radicals generated at the
          slow-dose rate have a better probability of reaching and
          reacting with the cell wall than do the densely crowded free
          radicals produced by fast-dose rates. These latter recombine
          quickly. Moreover, the slight electrical charge of the cell
          membrane attracts the free radicals in the early stages of
          the reaction (low total dose). Computer calculations have
          shown that the attraction weakens with greater concentrations
          of free radicals. The traditional radiation biologist has
          tested only high-dose reactions, and looked for direct damage
          to the membrane by the radiation.

        * Monocyte depletion: Nuclear fission produces radionuclides
          which tend to be stored by humans and animals in the bone
          tissue. In particular, strontium-90, plutonium and the
          transuranics have this property. Stored in bone, near the
          stem cells which produce the white blood cells, these
          radionuclides deliver a chronic low/slow dose of radiation
          which can interfere with normal blood- cell production. A few
          less neutrophils or lymphocytes (the white blood cells which
          are most numerous, and are usually "counted" by the
          radiophysicist) are not noticeable. In the normal adult,
          there are about 7,780 white cells per microlitre of blood. Of
          these, about 4,300 are neutrophils and 2,710 are lymphocytes.
          Only 500 are monocytes.

          If, for example, stem cells in the bone marrow are destroyed
          so as to reduce total white blood count by 400 cells per
          microlitre due to the slow irradiation by radionuclides
          stored in the bone, this would represent a depletion of only
          five percent in total white cells, an insignificant amount.
          If all of the depletion was of neutrophils, this would mean a
          reduction of only 9.3 percent, still leaving the blood count
          well in the normal range. The lymphocytes would also be still
          in the normal range, even though they were depleted by 400
          cells per microlitre, or 14.8 percent. However, there would
          be a dramatic depletion of the monocytes by 80 percent.
          Therefore, at low doses of radiation, it is more important to
          observe the monocytes, than to wait for an effect on the
          lymphocytes or neutrophils (as is now usually done). The
          effects of serious reduction in monocytes are:

             o Iron deficient anemia, since it is the monocytes which
               recycle about 37-40 percent of the iron in the red blood
               cells when they die;

             o Depressed cellular immune system, since the monocyte
               secretes the substance which activates the lymphocyte
               immune system. [2]

        * Deformed red-blood cells: Dr. Les Simpson, of New Zealand,
          has identified deformed red-blood cells, as observed under an
          electron microscope, as causing symptoms ranging from severe
          fatigue to brain dysfunction leading to short-term memory
          loss. He has identified such cells in elevated number in
          chronic fatigue patients, and speculated that because of
          their bloated or swollen shape, they are obstructed from
          easily passing into the tiny capillaries, thus depriving
          muscles and the brain of adequate oxygen and nutrients. The
          chronic fatigue syndrome has been observed both at Hiroshima
          and Nagasaki, called bura bura disease, and at Chernobyl. [3]

     In the official approach to radiobiology, only direct damage to
     DNA has been recognized as "of concern," and only high
     dose/fast-dose rate experiments or observations have been accepted
     for use in estimating the dose-response rate. As was noted, it is
     the "common wisdom" that effects of low doses/slow- dose rates
     cannot be studied, but must be extrapolated from the officially
     accepted high dose/fast-dose rate studies. This approach is
     rejected by the work of Dr. Burlakova, and the other research
     noted below.

     Basing one's theory on claims that is impossible to study the
     phenomenon is certainly a peculiar way to do science! This myth
     has now been clearly shown to have been rash and criminally
     negligent.

     Unfortunately, the Desert Storm veterans were victims of one of
     the latest military experiments on human beings. The people of
     Iraq and Kuwait were also the victims of this misguided
     experiment. I believe that the ignorance was culpable and
     criminal.


     Recent Reports on Low-Level Radiation

     I would like to bring your attention to the following significant
     new reports on the effects of low-level radiation:

        * Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident, Results of the
          IPHECA Pilot Projects and Related National Programs,
          Scientific Report, World Health Organization, Geneva 1996.

        * Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: Human Health, E.B.
          Burlakova, ed. Co-published by the Center for Russian
          Environmental Policy and the Scientific Council on
          Radiobiology Russian Academy of Science, ISBN 5-88587-019-5,
          Moscow 1996.

        * Volume 137, Supplement, Radiation Research 1994, which
          published for the first time the dose-response data on cancer
          incidence rate observed in the atomic bomb survivors of
          Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prior to this publication, only
          cancer death data was reported.

        * Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation V (BEIR V), U.S.
          National Academy of Sciences, Washington 1990. This provides
          new radiation risk estimates based on the newly assigned
          doses of radiation in this atomic bomb survivor study.

     Also available now are the long term follow-up of workers in the
     nuclear industry. This industry has now been operating more than
     fifty years in the United States and about fifty years in the
     United Kingdom. These include:

        * "Inconsistencies and Open Questions Regarding Low-Dose Health
          Effects of Ionizing Radiation", by R. Nussbaum and W.
          Kohnlein. Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 102, No. 8,
          August 1994.

        * RERF Technical Report TR9-87, by D.L. Preston and D.A.
          Pierce, Hiroshima 1987.

        * "The Effects of Changes in Dosimetry on Cancer Mortality Risk
          Estimates in Atomic Bomb Survivors" Radiation Research, Vol.
          114, 1988.

        * "Mortality and Occupational Exposure to Irradiation: First
          Analysis of the National Registry for Radiation Workers" by
          G.M. Kendall. British Medical Journal, Vol. 304, 1992.

        * "Mortality Among Workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory" by
          S. Wing. Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.
          265, 1991.

        * "Reanalysis of the Hanford Data, 1944-1986 Deaths" by G.W.
          Kneale and A. Stewart. American Journal of Industrial
          Medicine, Volume 23, 1993.


     References:

       1. The Petkau Effect, Revised Edition, 1990, by Ralph Graeub,
          Translated from German by Phil Hill, and Published by Four
          Walls Eight Windows, New York, 1994. ISBN: 1-56858-019-3.

       2. Bertell, R. "Internal Bone Seeking Radionuclides and Monocyte
          Counts", International Perspectives in Public Health, Vol. 9,
          pp 21-26, 1993

       3. Les Simpson has published several papers in the New Zealand
          Medical Journal, and wrote a Chapter in the Medical Textbook
          on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (MI), edited by Dr. Byron Hyde.

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