State Weighs Hazardous Dust Measure

Lawmakers Eye Challenge To Way U.S. Tests Service Members For Exposure 

THOMAS D. WILLIAMS / Hartford Courant 22jun2005

Louisiana has become the first state to challenge the way the federal government tests U.S. service members exposed to the hazardous, radioactive chemical dust from U.S. munitions used in the Iraq wars.

Connecticut may not be far behind.

Thursday, the state House will debate a bill that includes funding for a scientific search to find the best test to determine whether soldiers were exposed to depleted uranium munitions dust.

If the proposal passes in the House, the Senate will consider it Friday. If the wording remains in the Senate version and is signed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Connecticut and Louisiana officials will be challenging the federal use of urine tests to determine exposure, a method they believe is insufficient.

Once the best test is identified in Connecticut, the state adjutant general and the state Department of Veterans Affairs will be responsible for approaching federal authorities to ensure that test is administered to returning state service members believed to have been exposed.

In Louisiana, the law, patterned after Connecticut's proposal, also requires the best scientific test for exposed soldiers to be administered by federal health authorities. But that law is not as specific about how that test will be selected. It was passed this month by the Louisiana legislature and signed a week ago by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

The Department of Defense currently entrusts the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to give urine tests to service members who believe they were exposed. But relatively few service members have been tested — between 1,000 and 2,000 — and the agencies insist the tests show depleted uranium dust has had little effect on their health.

In fact, Pentagon officials argue the dust can normally be dangerous only to those close to munitions explosions. Nonetheless, military regulations require areas of depleted uranium munitions firings be cleaned and soldiers exposed be tested.

Many veterans advocates, however, say that thousands of service members in both Iraq wars have become seriously ill from the munitions dust. The dust was created from tons of U.S. and British ammunition and bombs fired during those conflicts and in the Balkan wars, as well as by the U.S. in Afghanistan. The depleted uranium dust is also created when tanks protected by depleted uranium shields are destroyed by fire.

The munitions are effective in piercing tanks, bunkers and caves, but they create minuscule particles of deadly dust that can be blown for hundreds of miles. The dust, if inhaled or ingested, can cause a host of maladies including cancers, kidney disease and birth defects.

Millions of Iraqi and Afghan civilians live in areas where the dust flew and settled, but no definitive, overall studies of the health impact on either of the countries have been conducted. More localized studies have revealed, however, that thousands of civilians suffer from cancers and that thousands of children, born to those exposed, suffer from deformities and cancers. United Nations environmental cleanup specialists have asked U.S. officials for locations where the munitions were fired, but they reported receiving no cooperation.

source: http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-dutest0622.artjun22,0,4745378,print.story 22jun2005