The possibility that U.S. tank-piercing ammunition used in the Balkans wars contained more than just depleted uranium has prompted scientists to re-examine their skepticism about health risks to veterans.
Experts' opinions that cancer cases reported by European veterans were not linked to depleted uranium assumed the material came from raw ore. But now the Pentagon says shells used in the 1999 Kosovo conflict were tainted with traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium -- byproducts of nuclear reactors that are much more radioactive than depleted uranium.
"If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium," said Dr. Michael Repacholi, the World Health Organization's radiation expert. "It all depends on the amounts."
The main new concern, experts say, is plutonium, a highly toxic radioactive metal.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson reiterated NATO's position that Balkans peacekeepers have not been shown to suffer health damage from depleted uranium ammunition. U.S. officials have said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm.
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But WHO experts asked the U.S. government this week to clarify exactly how much plutonium and other radioactive material was in the ammunition.
Countries that sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo have been looking for links between the depleted uranium ammunition and illnesses contracted by veterans. A wave of fear swept across Europe and beyond after Italy announced it was screening its soldiers because 30 Balkans veterans had become ill, including five who died of leukemia. Scores of countries began testing soldiers for radiation poisoning.
U.N. environmental experts are examining radiation levels at sites targeted by NATO in the Balkans and NATO has set up a special committee to investigate claims of a link. The WHO expects to start new studies in the next six months.
"Minds have to be kept open on this," said Malcolm Grimson, a radiation expert at London's Imperial College of Medicine.<
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