[A-List] UK military: DU's indiscriminate "collateral damage"

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

First award for depleted uranium poisoning claim
MARTIN WILLIAMS
The Herald, February 04 2004

A SCOTS ex-soldier has become the first veteran to win a pension appeal
after being diagnosed with depleted uranium (DU) poisoning during the 1991
Gulf war.

A Pension Appeal Tribunal Service hearing in Edinburgh accepted medical
evidence provided by Kenny Duncan, of Clackmannan, previously dismissed by
the MoD, which revealed he had become ill after service in the Middle East.

Mr Duncan, 35, a driver with 7 Tank Transporter Regiment, helped move tanks
destroyed by shells containing the poisonous dust.

He says he has evidence that his children's health problems are linked to
his service. Kenneth, 10, Andrew, eight, and six-year-old Heather, have
symptoms similar to those suffered by some Iraqi children, including
deformed toes, and low immune systems making them susceptible to asthma, hay
fever and eczema.

Mr Duncan has suffered increasing breathlessness and aching joints which he
has linked to DU.

During the conflict, US and British troops fired an estimated 350 tonnes of
DU weapons at Iraqi tanks.

Doctors in southern Iraq have reported a marked increase in cancers and
birth defects, and suspicion has grown that they were caused by DU
contamination from tank battles.

DU has been linked to a leukaemia cluster around the MoD range at
Dundrennan, near the Solway Firth. Communities close to the range show the
highest rate of childhood leukaemia in the UK.

Mr Duncan's appeal was launched after he was awarded only about £40 a week,
half the full pension, when he retired from the Army through ill health in
1993 after nine years' service. His pension will now be reassessed.

The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA) said the
tribunal decision added weight to its call for a full independent inquiry
into Gulf war illnesses and supported its view that the government should do
more financially to help the victims.

Mr Duncan's case relied on blood tests carried out by Dr Albrecht Schott, a
German biochemist, which revealed chromosome aberrations caused by ionising
radiation.

Dr Schott's research formed part of a study of 16 British veterans of
conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which found that they had 14
times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes, raising
fears that they will pass cancers and genetic illnesses to their offspring.

The test results were dismissed by the MoD as "neither well thought out nor
scientifically sound".

Mr Duncan said yesterday: "It is just a huge relief to have someone in
authority say that you have been poisoned by this stuff and that you are not
telling lies. It is now time for the MoD to tell us what went wrong.

"For all those veterans who have been going to the doctor with these
ailments and are being told there is nothing wrong with them, this is for
them, and I hope it will help them.

"I doubt that I will benefit much financially from this, but it wasn't about
the money, it was about the principle of the thing."

The ministry said yesterday: "Once we have seen the decision, we will
consider the implications it might have on the MoD."