WHO ‘Suppressed’ Scientific Study Into Depleted Uranium Cancer Fears in Iraq

WHO ‘Suppressed’ Scientific Study Into Depleted Uranium Cancer Fears in Iraq:

 Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf war pose long-term health risk

by Rob Edwards

An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret.

The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.

Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year's war, and to clean up afterwards.

Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.