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Buying 9/11 * Bad Wolfowitz * Nuke Waste

May 12, 2007

"I maintain that these observations [of molten metal] are consistent
with the use of high-temperature cutter charges such as thermite, HMX or
RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel.”


– Dr. Steven Jones
, physicist, author of
"Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?”

1) Buying the official story of Sept. 11
- - Potential terror jurors cite 9/11 doubts
- - Steven Jones Replies to Jim Fetzer’s Questions
2) Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz
- - Progress Reports Human Rights: The Stain of Gitmo
- - Particulate Depleted Uranium Is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic
- - Vermont to reopen nuke waste issue

Editor’s Notes:

The top item from Seacoast 9-11 Questions Group takes Bill Moyer’s recent explosive expose to new heights. The next article is on juror jitters when it comes to September 11. The next is special correspondence with Steven Jones disclosing more on the background of the material he is testing, ground zero dust. Item 2 opens with a Greg Palast charming piece: “Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz.” Following that are articles on the Guantanamo Bay prison, on the serious health impact from uranium munitions, and considerations for toxic nuclear power waste in Vermont.

Spring presents time with a forecast of deeper division,
as mild-mannered reporters cloak in the absence of fear
where love shifts magic into a rescue, as tyranny devours
our personal fears dueling in the near time distant future,
under a cloak of separation, with misery, glancing its blows
based on missed opportunities, and in slipping away in a
thousand illusions, consequences with learned knowledge
absent of wisdom



1) Buying the official story of Sept. 11

- - Potential terror jurors cite 9/11 doubts
- - Steven Jones Replies to Jim Fetzer’s Questions

Buying the official story of Sept. 11
Seacoast 9-11 Questions Group
/letter / Foster's / 5-11-07

To the editor:

Last week we saw Bill Moyers on public television ("Buying the War,"April 26 on Channel 11) give an in-depth account of how the mainstream corporate media in this country passed on government propaganda and helped mislead the country into a disastrous war against Iraq.

We saw how it became unfashionable and risky for journalists to dissent from the official line. The few journalists who questioned administration lies were attacked as "anti-American" and "unpatriotic." But we know, now that administration reports of Iraqi WMD and ties to al-Qaeda have been proven false, that those few journalist were right after all.

If the press and the administration had listened to the journalistic dissenters (and the peace movement) over 3,000 Americans and maybe a million Iraqis now dead might still be alive.

Moyers noted that the key component in Bush's justification for the war against Iraq was Sept. 11. "At least a dozen times during this news conference (on March 6, 2003) he will invoke 9/11 and al- Qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked America."

While Bill Moyers didn't go on to question the official story of Sept. 11 he might well have, since Sept. 11 was and remains central to the administration's war propaganda.

Even more vehemently than other war dissenters, those who question the official story of Sept. 11 are vilified as "hating America," "kooks," and "conspiracy theorists." This despite numerous unanswered questions about the events of Sept 11, 2001, questions whose likely answers point to that tragedy having been an inside job with the purpose of justifying resource wars in the Middle East.

The "conspiracy theorist" accusation rings hollow when made by the administration with the worst record of all time for lies, secrecy and deception. In addition, the official story about the 19 hijackers is a conspiracy theory itself. It will take a real investigation to show which conspiracy theory is true.

For more information go to the website http://www.911truth.org or read any book on this subject by David Ray Griffin: "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11," "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions," or "Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory."

Let's no longer buy the deceptions that led to the disastrous Iraq war. Let's also no longer buy the official story of Sept. 11, which is being used to justify a never-ending so-called "war on terror" and "preemptive" strikes against any country the Bush administration chooses to crush.

David Diamond
Jason Howard
Becky Burton
Marika Wilde
William Woodward
Pat Galloway
Dover

Seacoast 9-11 Questions Group

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- - Potential terror jurors cite 9/11 doubts

Posted by 911truth.org Friday, May 4 2007:

There are so many things to comment on in the short piece below, but we'll only mention a couple of them.

First, isn't it interesting that a person's views about the 9/11 attacks are now the basis for peremptory challenges during jury selection? It's certainly an effective way of weeding out opinions that don't conform to the official line - just as those who don't support the death penalty are automatically dismissed from juries.

This is an unjust and pernicious practice. By denying those who don't agree with death sentencing a place on juries, the true breadth of public opinion on the subject cannot be represented on juries. It creates an ideologically lopsided jury pool heavy with conformists. Seems the same thing is in danger of happening with 9/11.

Second, while professor Terrelli's point rings true, he doesn't mention that heightened skepticism is warranted in this case, and that that's just as likely the reason for the opinions being expressed as is some general proclivity among potential jurors. People don't trust the government, and they don't trust the media - with very good reason. When they are asked a direct question by an official source about 9/11, they cannot bring themselves to lie about the degree of uncertainty they have. The view that "oh, well, people are always more skeptical in these circumstances" is hardly the only or most obvious explanation for this.

Finally, how depressing is it to hear people say that they try not to pay attention to the news, or that Saddam Hussein may have been responsible for 9/11? It's a good reminder of just how effective the propagandists have been at putting us all to sleep. Ordinary human judgment, which has been under assault for decades now, is showing signs of the pounding it's taken. It's as many people believe that, 'hey, if I didn't see it, then all of the opinions on what happened are equally possible.' That's a dangerous situation, but we're living in it.

­ Ed.

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 3, 2:31 PM ET

Many potential jurors in the Jose Padilla terrorism-support case say they aren't sure who directed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because they don't trust reporters or the federal government.

"There are too many ifs, too many things going on," one male juror said. "I don't know the whole story."

Others say they just don't pay close enough attention to world events to be certain.

read more
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2007050492057335
Source URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_re_us/padilla_terror_charges_1

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- - Steven Jones Replies to Jim Fetzer’s Questions

At 01:00 PM 5/4/2007, (anonymous) wrote:

Replies to Jim Fetzer’s questions are given below..

JIM FETZER (JF)

I am fascinated with the seemingly unqualified endorsement of Steve
Jones' thermite/thermate hypothesis. I hope that some of the members
of this list can help me figure this out, because I must be missing
something not to recognize that his approach holds the key to under-
standing what happened at the World Trade Center. Please ask your
list if someone could help me figure out what I have wrong. Thanks!

STEVE JONES (SJ)

The latest evidence supporting the use of thermite analogs in the destruction of the WTC Towers and WTC 7 comes from the iron-aluminum-sulfur (Fe-Al-S) rich droplets which I found in the WTC dust sample provided by Janette MacKinlay. I reported the existence of these metal droplets based initially on my visual observation of shiny droplets in the WTC dust at the Arizona 9/11 conference in February 2007, and showed electron-microscope micrographs. (Perhaps Jim missed the discussion somehow?) The next month in Irvine, I showed micrographs of Fe-Al-S microspheres which I found in the dust along with elemental spectra using X-EDS analysis (X-ray Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy).

In my talk at the University of Texas at Austin on April 14, 2007, I showed empirical results from this ongoing research, including comparative X-EDS spectra from the WTC microspheres and thermite-control microspheres. In particular, I emphasized the remarkably close matching of the chemical signatures which we discovered using state-of-the-art methods (electron microscopy coupled with X-EDS). This presentation can be seen here:
http://www.anomalytv.com/site/archives/1737

I ask Jim if he saw my UT-Austin presentation of data before making his disparaging remarks about the “thermite/thermate hypothesis.” If not (as I suspect), then this is evidently what he has been missing, perhaps among other things – such as the numerous fine papers in the Journalof911Studies.com. There are several papers which deal with the directed-energy beam and no-planes-hit-Towers hypotheses, for example, which Fetzer, Wood and Reynolds recently promoted.

Note that I have never said that ONLY thermite analogs were used to bring down the WTC buildings. Quite to the contrary, in my early paper on the WTC collapses, the reader finds this statement:
“I maintain that these observations [of molten metal] are consistent with the use of high-temperature cutter charges such as thermite, HMX or RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel.”
http://journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/Why_Indeed_Did_the_WTC_Buildings_Completely_Collapse_Jones_Thermite_World_Trade_Center.pdf

Following my talk in that academic setting, I am now working on two papers to provide detail in the usual manner of publishing important discoveries.

JF:

(1) Some time ago, I contacted Professor Thomas Eagar of MIT, who
advised me that sulphur could have been produced many ways relative
to the destruction of the towers, including from gypsum board. Has
this alternative been excluded in establishing the Jones' hypothesis?

SJ:

Gypsum is comprised of calcium sulfate, so that when sulfur is associated with gypsum as suggested by Eagar, then calcium will also be present. In my talk at UT-Austin one finds that sulfur is present in the Fe-Al-S-rich microspheres with an absence of calcium­thus ruling out the gypsum-origin notion. I specifically looked for Ca, but it was absent in these iron-rich microspheres.

JF:

(2) It has seemed to me that, if the building was loaded with thermite/thermate, then it should have been running randomly from the building, not merely from one location on the 80th floor. Is it possible that something about the 80th floor could account for this phenomenon?

SJ:

Yes, the plane entered the building on the south side of Tower 2 at about this height so fires were prevalent on this floor. It is quite possible that these fires “accidently” set off the initiator for the thermite charge. Indeed, the appearance of this orange flowing matter just minutes before the collapse of this Tower is remarkable evidence for the use of thermite analogs, as explained in my paper and the UT-Austin presentation (as well as other presentations in recent months, such as at Univ. of California at Berkeley). My paper cited above explains that the rest of the cutter-charges were likely set off using radio signals for the destruction sequence.


JF:

(3) The photo of the workers peering into the cavern of molten metal
has bothered me for some time. Since it would have to be more than
3,000*F, if this photo is authentic, should not the intense heat be
melting the flesh from their skulls? Could this be a phony photo?


SJ:

During the final peer-review process for my paper, questions about this photo arose and this photo has long since been replaced by the published photo, shown below:

It is labeled “Red Hot Debris” and is published in LiRo News, Nov. 2001, http://www.liro.com/lironews.pdf . Moreover, there is recorded eyewitness testimony of the molten metal pools under both Towers and WTC 7; see: http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-there-molten-metal-under.html
Video clips provide eye-witness evidence regarding this metal at ground zero: http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/red_hot_ground_zero_low_quality.wmv
&
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3060923273573302287 .”

Note that I along with Kevin Ryan have repeatedly asked Jim Fetzer to not publish any of our writings at his 911Scholars web site. I renew that firm request. He may, of course, link to my publications – for instance at the Journalof911Studies.com

JF:

(4) The photo of the back-hoe holding the chunck of glowing steel is
also suspicious. Isn't steel an excellent conductor of heat and is
it not the case that metals expand when heated? So should not the
hydraulics be frozen if this photo were genuine? Is it also fake?

SJ:

Copper and aluminum are excellent heat conductors; steel by contrast is not. There are two photos in my paper actually, showing the glowing metal some distance below the jaws of the hoe. Furthermore, as stated in my paper: “A video clip provides eye-witness evidence regarding this metal at ground zero: http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/red_hot_ground_zero_low_quality.wmv .”

As you watch that video clip, you will notice that the “chief” describes the appearance of the hot debris and he also explains that WATER is being directed onto the operation, water spray which will keep the equipment from getting too hot.

JF:

[NB: snip portion to be answered in part 2]

Since I don't know what I have wrong, I would be much in your
debt if you could share my concerns with the members of this
list in the hope that they might be able to help me to grasp
what I have misunderstood. That you have distributed such a
powerful endorsement of the thermite/thermate hypothesis that
includes Alex Jones' additional certification suggests to me
that I must be missing something important here. Many thanks!

Jim

SJ:

Again, much of what you’ve evidently been missing, Jim, can be seen here: www.anomalytv.com/site/archives/1737

I also urge you to read the fine papers in the Journalof911Studies.com. You are invited to reply in writing by submitting a Letter to the Journal. I think this is the third or fourth time I have extended this invitation to you and your colleagues. I think you are missing a lot actually, based on your questions.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Jones

PS – Regarding the chain of custody of the WTC dust:

The provenience of the dust sample used in my study is from an apartment at 113 Cedar St. in New York City. This fourth-floor apartment was the residence of Janette MacKinlay, and was approximately 100 meters or so from the closest Tower, the South Tower. During the collapse of the South Tower on 9/11/2001, the windows of this apartment broke and the apartment was flooded with dust. About a week later, she re-entered the apartment and began clean-up and preserved some of the dust in her apartment.

In this way, the dust represents a snapshot of the WTC collapse, for the dust came from the collapsing Towers and was collected before much clean-up began. Even though the Towers were some distance away, too far for any significant debris from the clean-up operations which were just beginning accidentally contaminate the apartment, yet they were close enough for the windows to break due to the debris of the South Tower collapse and for the apartment to be filled with collapse-generated dust.

Janette told me that she had a sense, almost a spiritual or reverential feeling (knowing the origin of the dust) to preserve some of it, which she did, placing dust from her apartment into a plastic bag. My first 9/11-related paper appeared on-line in November 2005, and Janette MacKinlay soon learned from it that I was seeking WTC dust and other samples for study. She contacted me and sent me a small sample by mail. Later, I traveled to her new residence in California and obtained a second small sample in the presence of other scientists, providing a clean chain-of-custody with witnesses. Furthermore, she retains some of the WTC dust in case of any challenges.

The samples have been analyzed using electron microprobe methods, both WDS and X-EDS. The analysis continues to the date of this writing. The dust contains a great deal of information regarding its origin and is proving extremely useful as we puzzle out the meaning of 9/11.

I collected iron-rich particles in the dust by pulling a magnet across the outside of a plastic bag containing the dust, pulling upwards to the top the magnetic material and pulling this aside for further analysis. These magnetic particles were, as one might expect, rich in iron. There was a surprising amount of this iron-rich material. Although others have reported the presence of iron-rich particles in the dust, I was surprised to find the abundance of spherical particles in this iron-rich component some of which were considerably larger than previously reported. It was exciting to me to find for the first time iron-rich spheres up to about 1.5 mm in diameter in a 32.1-gram sample of dust.

The iron-rich component of the WTC dust sample was analyzed in some detail by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (X-EDS). Using the scanning electron microscope, we found that much of the iron-rich dust was in fact composed of roughly spherical particles – microspheres. The presence of metallic microspheres implies that these metals were once molten, so that surface tension pulled the droplets into a roughly spherical shape. Then the molten droplets solidified in air, preserving the information that they were once molten in the spherical shape as well as chemical information.

Iron melts at 1538 oC, so the presence of these numerous iron-rich spheres implies a very high temperature. Too hot in fact for the fires in the WTC buildings since jet fuel (kerosene), paper and wood furniture – and other office materials – cannot reach the temperatures needed to melt iron or steel. (Remember the wood-burning stove…) Of course, elemental sulfur as found in thermate can lower the melting point of steel.

As usual, we search for possible prosaic explanations for these metallic spherules in the WTC dust. The most obvious possible source is the melting of large quantities of steel in the buildings followed somehow by formation of tiny droplets of molten steel. As discussed above, however, steel melts at about 1538 oC (2800 oF) – and the temperatures in the buildings were no where near hot enough to melt steel, and certainly not in large quantities required for the amounts seen in the dust (and pouring out of the South Tower before collapse). Furthermore, we have looked at the chemical compositions of a number iron-rich spherules as well as that of steel, and the compositions are not the same at all. It should not be surprising, however, as we analyze more spherules to find some that are steel-like in composition, assuming that thermate cutter-charges were in fact used to cut through steel. We should then find both steel- and thermate-residue spherules.

Could these droplets be due to molten aluminum alloy (from the jets) striking rusty steel and/or other office materials to somehow generate the iron-rich spheres? We performed experiments with molten iron poured onto rusty steel, then onto crushed gypsum and concrete (on the rusty steel) – and observed no formation of iron-rich droplets at all nor any sign of vigorous chemical reactions.[i] <#_edn1>

It has also been suggested that thermate may have been used at ground zero (GZ) during steel-cutting operations for clean-up there. However, no documentation whatsoever that thermate was so used has been provided, and so for this suggestion to be seriously considered, the proponents will need to provide documentation for the use of thermate and disclosure of the composition – including KMnO4, S, etc. In this way, we can compare the alleged thermate use with what is observed in the dust. What is thoroughly documented is the use of oxyacetylene torches in the cutting of the steel at ground zero.

Furthermore, Janette MacKinlay collected the dust inside her apartment just a few days after the buildings collapsed, so there was very little time for any molten-metal spheres created somehow by the clean-up itself to have made its way into her 4th-floor to be mingled in with the dust up there. This is a compelling argument against “accidental” contamination of the dust she collected in her apartment even if thermate had been used during clean-up (which is highly unlikely due to safety/liability issues.)

In addition, the distance to the apartment from the clean-up operation is about 100 meters, while in our experiments with thermate, the glowing sparks (metallic droplets) are seen to travel only a few meters. The holes formed in the two broken windows of this apartment were about two feet by three feet, increasing the unlikelihood that any metallic spheres from the (improbable) use of thermate at GZ could have entered the apartment during the few days before the dust was collected. Furthermore, iron-rich spheres were found in the WTC dust several blocks away from GZ in large numbers which essentially eliminates the possibility that these spherules could be due to thermate used at ground zero.

An earlier study notes the presence in the WTC dust of significant “metallic particles (mostly Ti and Fe [iron], although Zn, lead (Pb), Ba, and Cu were also found).” The USGS “Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust” shows micrographs of iron-rich spheres which they also observed in the dust (see especially Iron-03 and Iron-04.) [http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/images/ ]
--Steven E. Jones



2) Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz

- - Progress Reports Human Rights: The Stain of Gitmo
- - Particulate Depleted Uranium Is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic
- - Vermont to reopen nuke waste issue

Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz
by Greg Palast
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

George Bush is trying to save Paul Wolfowitz' job as President of the World Bank even after the vulpine neo-con was caught slipping a load of World Bank loot to his love interest, Shaha Ali Riza.

Big deal. Yes, Wolfowitz shouldn't have been greasing his cookie sheet with government funds, but there are bigger reasons to toss The Wolf out the door.

Like, say, perjury and homicide? I haven't forgotten, Mr. Wolfowitz, that on March 27, 2003 you testified before the US Congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn't cost the American taxpayer a penny.

You said, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money." Oh, really?

When Wolfowitz laid down that line of jive, he and the Bushes knew that Americans just can't pass up a bargain, and here The Wolf was offering the sale of the century, a "free Iraq." Not "free" as in "self-governing" but "free" as in, we'll get their oil and their allegiance for nothing!

We can bomb Iraq and the Iraqis will pay for the bombs!

And where will the Iraqis, holding nothing but bushel-bags of Saddam dinars, get these billions of US dollars to pay for the Occupation?

Wolfowitz testified, "The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years."

Is that so?

Wolfie's claim was no small matter. It's hard to remember, but lots of the Congressional debate was not about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction -- the New York Times had already found those for us. Senators were asking, What's this little war going to cost us? There was no way in hell Congress would have authorized Bush's big adventure if it cost $100 billion.

Indeed, $100 billion was the price projected by the President's chief economist, Larry Lindsey. The President corrected Lindsey's math: Bush fired him.

You know the punchline: The war has so far cost the U.S. taxpayer over half a trillion dollars - and counting.

But you weren't wrong, Wolfie. You were lying. And you knew it.

This is serious stuff. I can tell you, as a former government racketeering investigator: if you are wrong, well, stuff happens. But if you say one thing under oath but knew something very different, that, Mr. Wolfowitz, is perjury. Perjury's a felony, Wolf, and you know it. Indeed, your neo-con buddy, Elliott Abrams, was convicted in 1991 for lying to Congress about Reagan's arms-for-hostage swap.

So, did Wolfowitz perjure himself - or just get it wrong? While the question never crossed the mind of the Sheep-o-witz US press, which repeated Wolf's no-cost-invasion claim unchallenged, my producer at BBC Television asked me to investigate.

I learned that Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, would have gotten his numbers from the expert official designated to measure Iraq's oil, Guy Caruso. Caruso once ran the CIA's oil ops; now he's the head of Bush's Energy Information Administration. A source close to Caruso (in Saudi intelligence, no less) told me the ex-spook heard Wolfowitz' testimony and said, "What are they getting this from?"

In 2004, I confronted Caruso in his Department of Energy office in Washington. Nice man. Caruso knows his stuff. And, after an hour of technical jibberish, he told me the info he gave Wolfowitz' department -- and the numbers didn't add up to anything close to Wolfowitz' Iraq oil windfall.

I then checked Caruso's numbers with his own numbers man, another ex-CIA oil expert, Robert Ebel. I asked Ebel about the Wolfowitz claim of an oil gusher in Iraq that would pay for the US Occupation. Ebel wouldn't answer until after the cameras were off. But I wasn't asked to keep it off the record.

Ebel told me he had put the real numbers up on a think tank website just before the Humvees rolled into Baghdad. His projections conflicted big time with the fantasy facts to which Wolfowitz testified. Ebel told me that allies of neo-con conman Ahmad Chalabi asked Ebel to remove and bury the realistic numbers. He did.

Did Wolfowitz lie? Ebel smiled, "It was just part of the sales pitch, wasn't it?"

The sales pitch?? WAR FOR SALE - CHEAP!

Well, you can say that one man's sales pitch is another man's perjury. If Wolfowitz had knowingly concealed the Caruso team's findings while testifying under oath, then The Wolf is guilty of a felony. Moreover, perjury which leads to death is homicide.

But he's off the hook. I checked the record. Ever since his crony Abrams was charged with perjury, Wolfowitz won't testify under oath. Nor will any of the Bushies.

Wolfowitz did not raise his hand and swear to "tell the whole truth, so help me, God." The Wolf's home free. How the Lord will judge this loophole, I can't say.

So, no perjury charge for Wolfowitz. Of course there's another crime. His getting caught icing his cupcake, Ms. Riza, with World Bank funds, forces millions of innocent morning newspaper readers to suffer visions of these two neo-cons naked and nasty. Urgh!

Still, one can't but help be touched by the romantic side of this story. After all, here were two people of different faiths, sharing their intense love . . . of money, secrets and lies.


Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild, from which this report is adapted. For more info and to order your copy of his latest book go to
www.GregPalast.com

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- - Progress Reports Human Rights: The Stain of Gitmo

May 2007 Progress Reports

by Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel,
Satyam Khanna, and Matt Corley

HUMAN RIGHTS
The Stain Of Gitmo

Since its creation over five years ago, Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba has been a source of human rights abuses that has tarnished the reputation of the United States. Leaders across the world have called for the closure of the facility, including, for example, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and even President Bush's ally outgoing-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The facility faces widespread criticism at home as well. A poll conducted last year showed that over two-thirds of Americans believe the United States "should change the way it treats detainees." Bush claimed last year, "I'd like to close Guantanamo." But recent actions from the Bush administration reveal that this was simply a PR stunt. Earlier this month, a new detainee was transferred to Guantanamo in "the latest signal sent by the Bush administration that it was not committed to any plan to close the facility." Congress and the administration must take action to close Guantanamo and restore basic rights and dignities to detainees.

Truncated, for the complete Progress Reports article, see:
www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/05/gitmo.html

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- - Particulate Depleted Uranium Is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic
to Human Lung Cells


Exposure to depleted uranium from military action may pose health threats
Chemical Research in Toxicology

Exposure to particles of depleted uranium (DU), the source of growing international concern as a potential health hazard, may increase the risk of genetic damage and lung cancer, scientists in Maine conclude in a report scheduled for the May 21 issue of ACS’ Chemical Research in Toxicology, a monthly journal.

DU is the material remaining after removal or depletion of the U-238 isotope of uranium. With a density about twice that of lead, DU is ideal for use in military armor and munitions, John Pierce Wise, Sr., and colleagues point out in the new study. DU dust produced in combat creates potentially frequent and widespread exposure for soldiers and non-combatants, who may inhale DU dust particles, the researchers note.

However, there have been few studies on the health effects of lung exposure to DU, they add. In the new study, researchers tested the effects of DU on cultures of human lung cells. “This is the first article on the cytotoxicity and clastogenicity [chromosome damaging potential] of particulate and soluble DU in human bronchial cells,” the study states. “These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant genotoxic risk and could possibly result in lung cancer.”

ARTICLE #1
“Particulate Depleted Uranium is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic to Human Lung Cells”

DOWNLOAD PDF
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/crtoec/asap/pdf/tx700026r.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTML
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/crtoec/asap/html/tx700026r.html

CONTACT:
John Pierce Wise, Sr., Ph.D.
University of Southern Maine
Orono, Maine 04469
Phone: 207-228-8050
Fax: 207-228-8057
Email: john.wise@usm.maine.edu

At 07:53 AM 5/8/2007, you wrote:
Particulate Depleted Uranium Is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic to Human Lung Cells

In summary, particulate DU compounds induced time and concentration-dependent cytotoxic and clastogenic effects in human lung cells. Soluble DU was cytotoxic but not clastogenic. The types of aberrations seen with treatment of particulate DU are consistent with those induced by other carcinogenic metals.

Further research is aimed at looking at the effect in epithelial cells as well as looking at epigenetic changes to assess their role in the ability of DU to induce neoplastic transformation.

http://tinyurl.com/2lttya

--
International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons
Bridge 5 Mill
22a Beswick Street
Ancoats; Manchester; UK; M4 7HR

Telephone: +44 (0)161 273 8293 / 8283
Fax: +44 (0)161 273 8293
Email: info@bandepleteduranium.org
Web: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org

For FN’s updated information see: Uranium Munitions

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- - Vermont to reopen nuke waste issue

Shumlin wants to reopen nuke waste issue
By DAVID GRAM The Associated Press
May 8, 2007

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- A wide variety of sites around Vermont could be considered as places to store high-level radioactive waste from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, under a proposal floated Monday by the leader of the Vermont Senate's majority Democrats.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said he may introduce legislation next year that would re-examine the approval Vermont Yankee received 13 months ago to store spent fuel rods in concrete and steel casks on its Vernon site, about 210 feet from the Connecticut River.

Shumlin said he wanted to settle the issue of where to store the waste before lawmakers consider whether to allow Vermont Yankee to continue operating after 2012, the year its current license expires.

There is no indication when the federal government will find a national disposal site for high-level nuclear waste.

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