Testing for depleted uranium in La. soldiers passes into law

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http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-b...e.pl?20050627h

By Jan Clifford, Contributing Writer
June 27, 2005


Louisiana became the first state in the nation to pass a bill to give to all military veterans returning from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom the right to be tested for depleted uranium (DU) contamination. The bill received unanimous bipartisan support, and Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco signed it into law on June 16.

The bill, Act 69, was introduced in the Louisiana State House of Representatives by Rep. Juan LaFonta and co-sponsored by Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock. Retired Army Command Sgt. Maj. Bob Smith, who served three tours of duty with the Green Berets during the Vietnam War, is responsible for bringing the issue to the attention of the legislature. Advocates testifying for the bill were Smith of New Orleans and Army veteran Ward Reilly of Baton Rouge.

"'Supporting the troops' means more than magnetic yellow ribbons and plastic flags on SUVs - it also means truly caring about the health and welfare of each and everyone one of our young women and men in uniform," Smith said. "That is why we pushed for this bill."

Among some military health experts, DU contamination is believed to be responsible for the varieties of symptoms associated with Gulf War Syndrome. They say it can cause leukemia, various other cancers, DNA breakdown and an unusually high occurrence of severe birth defects in offspring of soldiers who have come into contact with it. Current mandatory testing by the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense has been shown to be ineffective due to the lack of adequate testing procedures.

Smith hopes that the test will be a best practices health-screening for exposure to DU and will include a procedure involving sensitive methods capable of detecting DU at low levels, using equipment with the capacity to discriminate between radioisotopes in naturally occurring levels of uranium and the far more harmful characteristics of DU. Specific details of the test's adminsitration have not yet been determined, but no state expenses will be incurred since the federal government subsidizes the $170 test.




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