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What to Do About DU?
- Begin with the Golden Rule. How do we respond if others use uranium or poisonous weapons against US?
- Be familiar with a few web sites & resources to learn more.
- Most veterans & active service members have not been provided required DU safety training, and have no clue they may have been exposed without their knowledge or protective gear. Spread the word.
- Help stop recycling radioactive wastes into military & commercial products.
- Know that:
· DU IS URANIUM –a substance highly regulated because of its known environmental & health hazards. Calling it “depleted” doesn’t make it safe. It is still a toxic radioactive heavy metal.
· The Govt. has known, by its own studies, DU can cause cancer, birth defects, & diseases, yet conceals this knowledge to avoid probable liabilities, or lose a coveted weapon system.
· DU munitions are not like “dirty bombs”, they are dirty bombs! The Dept of Homeland Security & NRC definitions of dirty bomb – “a radiological agent dispersed by a conventional explosive” - exactly fits DU munitions.
· The V.A. DU Testing Program is flawed. Too small & insensitive to conclude anything, YET these false negative results are used to conclude DU is “safe”, perpetuating its use.
· Internal exposure from DUst is NOT the same as exposure from natural uranium dust, and much more consequential when internalized. Commonly, info for vets is blurred intentionally.
- Press for a moratorium on production; sales; & use of Uranium weapons by joining groups already in place; by becoming politically active; & by learning enough to inform others .
- Insist the VA use the most sensitive testing methods for detecting very low levels of DU. At this point they admit their test “will not support documentation” of samples from those with level 2 & level 3 exposures (hundreds of thousands in these sets, almost none know enough to consider testing).
- Encourage any veteran who served in duty areas where DU was used to consider screening & testing (start @ their local VA clinic). This especially for those with unexplained illnesses.
- Testing for DU may be gotten by private, non-VA methods that are more accurate for some exposures.
- If motivated, support state & especially federal legislative efforts that would curtail the use of radioactive weapons NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE CALLED.
- Seek environmental remediation for all war & peacetime sites.
- Tell young people considering military life they may not be told they could be exposed to poisons & have no choice in the matter.