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NATO Says No Link Between Depleted Uranium, Cancer |
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(Source : NATO ; issued Jan. 24, 2001)
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 Briefing by NATO Acting Spokesman Mark Laity and
Statement By Ambassador Daniel Speckhard
Chairman, Ad Hoc Committee on Depleted Uranium
Brussels, January 24, 2001
BRUSSELS---Briefing reporters on the findings of NATO's Ad Hoc Committee on Depleted Uranium, Committee Chairman Daniel Speckhard said January 24 that based on the data today, no link has been established between depleted uranium and any forms of cancer."
The Committee involves some 50 nations and five international organizations, and has met twice to share "copious amounts of information," Ambassador Speckhard said. No nation has found evidence of an increase in illness among peacekeepers in the Balkans, compared with soldiers who didn't serve in the region, he added.
Research is continuing and will be shared with the Ad Hoc Committee, Speckhard said. Researchers are studying the health of the local populations as well as the soldiers who served in areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo where depleted uranium (DU) ammunitions have been used, he said.
"Most NATO members have actually got at least one kind of study or investigation of some kind," said NATO Acting Spokesman Mark Laity.
Asked whether traces of uranium-236 and plutonium or other contaminants might be found in Balkan soil samples, Laity said it is "quite possible" but "we are not predicting it." These contaminants are known about and are in minute amounts, he stressed. "Those trace elements have been found to be too small to add to the existing low-level health risk that there is, so if they find them, we will not be surprised, and I will not be worried."
Speckhard reiterated that "there are countries looking at blood samples and urine samples of soldiers [who served in the Balkans] and they have found no indication of anything unusual" compared with "their normal military populations in their countries."
The full text of the press briefing and statement is posted on the NATO web-site, at:
http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s010124a.htm
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