The Kosovo Syndrome

Great Debates
1

We have all heard about the Gulf War Syndrome. I recently was listening to NPR, which I consider to be massively liberal and they were doing a story on the Kosovo Syndrome.

They began the story by mentioning that very few news media are giving this Syndrome much coverage in America, but that they have found that it is a farily big story over in Europe. I don’t know if that is true, but I have to give NPR credit for covering a story that could reflect at least somewhat poorly on the Clinton administration.

Unfortunately, I was unable to listen to the entire story, but here is the gist of it. It has to do with radiation and has apparently caused cancer, or at least pre-cancerous tumors in some soldiers. Italy has been claiming the most sufferers from it.

Here is what I want to discuss.
[list]
[li]What is this disease? What have you guys heard about it?[/li]
[li]Is it true that Europe is covering the story pretty heavily? I can fairly safely say that there is next to no coverage of it here.[/li]
[li]Why is the media not covering it over here? Are they staunchly liberal and don’t want to complain about something Clinton did?[/li]
[li]Is there a “vast left-wing conspircacy” to cover up a terrible syndrome?[/li]
[li]Does anyone actually know anyone who suffers from this? Fill us in![/li]
Well, that should be enough fodder for a reasonably smart debate. Have fun and as always, play nice.

2

Small highjack then I’ll shut up…

Is NPR liberal? I’ve been listening to them for awhile now and haven’t noticed a particular slant on anything they cover. Of course I only listen to and from work 5 days a week. Gee, which NPR program is liberal? I’m especially interested now in light of the fact that I live in Richmond, Virginia and the media around here (particularily print media) leans so far to the right it’s mowing down the weeds on the side of the road.

Needs2know

3

I dunno what “kosovo Syndrome” is.

NPR does seem a bit defensive about liberal causes, though.
And I listen morning and evenings too. Kids like the Classical music, and it doesn’t bother me.

4

Newsweek has a small item on it this week. It’s about the use of depleted uranium in armor-piercing rounds, and the possibility that people are getting cancer from it.

5

Some info here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/01/12/uranium/index.html

It seems like paranoia. The “Kosovo Syndrome” is supposed to be an increased likelihood of cancer in UN Peacekeeping Forces, caused by the depleted uranium shells that the US used during bombing. The REAL numbers show that the occurances of cancer among the UN peacekeepers are pretty much the same as the rate of the country the peacekeeping troops are from.

Paranoia, partly inflated because of general dislike of the US from several affected countries.

6

There are several theories about KWS, which have been compared with GWS.

The main suspect is the use of depleted Uranium in armour piercing weapons, selected for its high density thus its ability to carry lots of kinetic energy.

When such DU tips strike anything solid it can shatter sending clouds of DU dust into the immediate area causing low level contamination.

The various groups in support of ex-servicemen allege that the illnesses in those persons are strikingly similar to radiation poisoning at a low level.

The various national governments involved say that the levels of radiation are so low that the risk of contamination is minimal.

DU dust can be breathed in but it is carried away by body processes and excreted fairly rapidly, too rapidly to cause long term damage, however this is only true for rough edged irregular particles.
When a DU tip hits an object at the kinds of speeds required to penetrate armour tremendous heat is also generated which causes the DU dust to turn into a ceramic aerosol.This is apparenlty far more dificult for the body to remove, it does not dissolve into body fluids and is only removed by the actions of the lung ciliates whose job it is to remove dust particles.
Some European governments have decided to set up study groups, these might be just delaying tactics or genuine attempts to discover if there is a problem.

The British government has flatly denied the possibility of any such adverse link between DU and Kosovo /Gulf war vets and immune deficiency or chest complaints citing reports by experts it has commissioned.

The embarrassing thing as far as the British government goes is that a previous report from around 1997 said that there was a definate and likely danger and that protective measures must be taken and reccommended reviewing the use of DU weapons. This report was commissioned by the British governement too.

There has been a large damage limitation excercise trying to dismiss the 1997 report as ‘bad science’ and that it was carried out poorly by junior staff.

Knowing the British government’s paranoia about anything radioactive(they took nearly 40 years to admit the seriousness of a fire at Windscale nuclear power plant) it is hard to imagine that such a commission would be delegated to a mere mop bucket floor washer.
If the report was so inacurrate then it seems odd that it was not criticised at the time of publication, indeed it is surprising that it was published at all.

There is no definate proof but ex-servicemen are simply demanding of their governments that their health be monitored for epidemialogical studies just in case.

That’s about where it stands at the moment.

7

Never heard of it myself. However, on the issue of NPR being liberal, well I listen to them every day too. They are clearly not conservative, but they aren’t terribly left either. They are biased, but probably in the sense of a moderate democrat, not much more left than that. Lets call em left of the middle for the sake of argument:D.

8

Here’s a news story from today’s Chicago Tribune, involving scientists who say depleted uranium couldn’t be responsible for leukemia:

Uranium Theory Contested

9

Listen, I’m not saying that shooting refined nuclear waste at people we don’t like is a Good Thing, but I will be a much happier person when the General Public, and more important, the media, figures out that you take any large segment of a population, including:
[ul]
[li]People who served in the Gulf[/li][li]People who have breast implants[/li][li]People who live near power lines[/li][li]People who enjoy wearing plaid[/li][/ul]
in a given period of time a few of those people will get cancer. Some of them will become seriously ill for no apparent reason. This sucks. This is not fair. This is, nonetheless, true.
Look at the stats. Are more people in the population of interest getting sick than in a randomly-selected control population? No? Then stop making a “syndrome” out of it. Stop insinuating that the more extreme and horrible the suffering of any given victim, the more likely it is that your pet scapegoat is the cause. Stop parading vets in wheelchairs and increasing the public hysteria. People get sick for no reason. That’s one of the sucky things about being mortal. Blaming someone or something for emotional and/or political reasons will not help, and will divert attention and funding away from finding the real cause and the real cure.

10

According to ‘The Independant’(a good link to save as well)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Science/2000-01/gulf250100.shtml

The following is from todays issue and is not yet on their site.

For some information issued by the British Radialogical protection board to travellers to visitors to Kosovo.

http://www.nrpb.org.uk/D-uran.htm

The following site tells you more than you ever wanted to know but the most important part in the whole article is that studies are not being carried out despite preliminary evidence that there is something that might be worth examining.

http://www.kaapeli.fi/~tep/vipu/00-1/hooper/lectfinal.html

Podkayne
I am not saying that there is definately a problem with DU but there is increased incidence of certain types of illness, above and beyond what would be expected in a control population, and that cause should be isolated.
In that last link toward the bottom, the author states that there might be other causes for gulf war syndrome we should attempt to discover it and hopefully implicate or eliminate DU.

A study of Kosovo vets would be useful because the the multiple possible causes present in the Gulf are not to be found there.

11

The Economist has a leader about this issue in this weeks’s issue. http://www.economist.com It calls for the end of the use of DU unless it is proven safe.

I generally trust The Economist. I may disagree with it on occasion, but it doesn’t publish something until it is sure of its facts.

Sua

12

When, precisely, is something “proven” to be safe?

13

There’s an article in Slate pointing out that it is a tad ironic that we want our deadly weapons to be “safe”. DU rounds obviously weren’t very safe to Iraqi or Serb tank crews.

14

Hey, you never hear those tank crews complaining about leukemia, do ya?