CT challenges DU test

[Dan Scanlan <coolhanduke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

State Challenging Tests For Depleted Uranium



By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
Courant Staff Writer

July 6 2005

Connecticut is now the second state in the nation to challenge the
validity
of the tests the federal government uses to check military personnel for
ingested or inhaled depleted uranium dust from U.S. munitions
explosions.

The new law requires the state adjutant general and the veterans'
affairs
commissioner to assist Connecticut guardsmen and veterans in
obtaining "a
best practice health screening test for exposure to depleted
uranium." Last
month, Louisiana passed similar, less detailed legislation demanding
better
depleted uranium testing paid for by the federal government.

Connecticut's bill, signed by Gov. Jodi Rell last week, requires the
state
adjutant general to train guardsmen so they can adequately determine
whether they have been exposed to the dust. It sets up a task force to
study the health effects of depleted uranium and other hazards wartime
service members have been exposed to since August 1990. And it
requires a
registry of sick veterans, a plan to help them and a report on the task
force's operations by the end of January.

Before it became law, the Connecticut bill bounced around from
committee to
committee and its wording was changed several times, but it retained
one of
its central purposes. It challenges a Pentagon and U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs urine testing program that some health experts
insist is
insufficient to detect the effects of depleted uranium, and that
advocates
say has tested only a relative few of those exposed to the dust.

One New Haven veteran, Melissa Sterry, 42, a former U.S. Army
Specialist,
who said she suffered multiple illnesses as a result of cleaning
tanks and
other vehicles during the first Persian Gulf War, lobbied the bill at
every
turn. On several occasions, Sterry thought the bill was dead.

"I'm just stunned. I think it is great!" Sterry said Tuesday when she
was
told Rell had signed the bill. "I'm ecstatic that Connecticut has
chosen to
lead the nation in proactive caring for veterans."

State Rep. Roger Michele, a Bristol Democrat and a veteran of the
Vietnam
War, who shepherded the bill through its final stages, said: "I remember
Agent Orange and the problems our veterans had fighting to get health
care
through the federal bureaucracy. DU is the Agent Orange of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. And our soldiers have made enough sacrifices while
risking their lives over there. We need to support them here in saving
their lives."

Two legislators initially proposed separate portions of the bill. State
Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, called for scientific testing of
those
exposed to depleted uranium dust, while State Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-
West
Haven, chair of the Veterans Committee, proposed the task force to
supervise efforts at helping veterans.

"I'm thrilled. I think it is a good step forward," said Slossberg, who
added that the state has to increase its efforts to help veterans as
federal health services are eliminated. Dillon could not be reached for
comment Tuesday.

Many veterans' advocates say thousands of service members in both
Iraq wars
and the war in Afghanistan have become seriously ill from the dust
from the
explosions of the DU munitions. The dust was created from tons of
U.S. and
British ammunition and bombs used during those conflicts and in the
Balkan
wars, as well as by the United States in Afghanistan. It can be blown
for
hundreds of miles. If inhaled or ingested, it can cause a host of
maladies
including cancers, kidney disease and birth defects.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant