Dust storms affecting Iran may be contaminated with uranium - official

Dust storms affecting Iran may be contaminated with uranium - official. (Taz).

Dust storms which repeatedly affect Iran come from such countries as Iraq, which in parts, suffers from depleted uranium contamination, the Chancellor of the Iranian University of Environment, Asghar Mohammadi Fazel said, Iran's Asriran news portal reported on Jan. 28.

"The presence of depleted uranium in Iraq is confirmed," he said, adding that the country is one of the main sources of dust storms in Iran.

He further said that study and observation of microfossils in the dust indicate that the dust storms originally come from the Horn of Africa.

Fazel went on to claim that in the modern world, it is possible to affect people of a specific area with dust.
"You can add specific elements to dust, and that would affect people psychologically," he said. "Such dust can make people sorrowful, sad or even happy."

In recent years, dust storms in Iran have raised concerns over the air pollution levels in some cities, raising the particulates concentration to 9 times greater than standard levels.

The capital city of Tehran was affected by dust storms for 117 days during the last solar year (ended on March 21, 2013), ISNA quoted Tehran Province's Environment Department director Mohammad-Hadi Heidarzadeh as saying.

The incoming dust has already forced the closure of governmental offices as well as educational and industrial centers in the capital Tehran several times.

Iran's Environment Protection Organization says it is cooperating with the Iraqi side to prevent the entry of dust and haze into Iran through proper measures.

In October 2012, the then director of Iran's Environmental Protection Organization, Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh, travelled to Iraq to discuss the issue of dust storms with Iraqi officials and push for the implementation of agreements between the two countries in this regard.

In 2009, Iran and Iraq signed an agreement according to which Iraq should have poured oil derivative mulch on deserts, however the agreement was never fulfilled.

  Hmmm.....Hey you look happy today, yup got a dust storm yesterday with 'weed dust'.

How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq's nuclear nightmare.

How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq's nuclear nightmare. HT: Croft.

I've seen this story on various doubtful sites, but if it appears in The Guardian, and is back up The Lancet, it deserves some scrutiny: How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq's nuclear nightmare. Click through for many more links than the one in the excerpt:

Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a long awaited document summarising the findings of an in-depth investigation into the prevalence of congenital birth defects (CBD) in Iraq, which many experts believe is linked to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by Allied forces. According to the 'summary report': 

"The rates for spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital birth defects found in the study are consistent with or even lower than international estimates. The study provides no clear evidence to suggest an unusually high rate of congenital birth defects in Iraq." 

Jaffar Hussain, WHO's Head of Mission in Iraq, said that the report is based on survey techniques that are "renowned worldwide" and that the study was peer reviewed "extensively" by international experts. 

Backtrack 

But the conclusions contrasted dramatically from previous statements about the research findings from Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) officials involved in the study. Earlier this year, BBC News spoke to MOH researchers who confirmed the joint report would furnish "damning evidence" that rates of birth defects are higher in areas experiencing heavy fighting in the 2003 war. In an early press release, WHO similarly acknowledged "existing MOH statistics showing high number of CBD cases" in the "high risk" areas selected for study. 

The publication of this 'summary document' on the World Health Organisation's website has raised questions from independent experts and former United Nations and WHO officials, who question the validity of its findings and its anonymous authorship. They highlight the existence of abundant research demonstrating not only significant rates of congenital birth defects in many areas of Iraq, but also a plausible link to the impact of depleted uranium. 

For years, medical doctors in Iraq have reported "a high level of birth defects." Other peer-reviewed studies have documented a dramatic increase in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the aftermath of US military bombardment. In Fallujah, doctors are witnessing a "massive unprecedented number" of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects. Analysis of pre-2003 data compared to now showed that "the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births - 13 times the rate found in Europe." 

The purpose of the WHO study was to probe the data further, but some say the project is deeply flawed. 

Politicised science 

Dr. Keith Bavistock of the Department of Environmental Science, University of Eastern Finland, is a retired 13-year WHO expert on radiation and health. He told me that the new 'summary document' was at best "disappointing." He condemned the decision from "the very outset to preclude the possibility of looking at the extent to which the increase of birth defects is linked to the use of depleted uranium", and further slammed the document's lack of scientific credibility. 

"This document is not of scientific quality. It wouldn't pass peer review in one of the worst journals. One of the biggest methodological problems, among many, is that the document does not even attempt to look at existing medical records in Iraqi hospitals - these are proper clinical records which document the diagnoses of the relevant cases being actually discovered by Iraqi doctors. These medics collecting clinical records are reporting higher birth defects than the study acknowledges. Instead, the document focuses on interviews with mothers as a basis for diagnosis, many of whom are traumatised in this environment, their memories unreliable, and are not qualified to make diagnosis."