Malcolm Aitken London

The incidence of cancer and congenital defects has increased significantly in Iraq after the Allied use of depleted uranium bullets during the Gulf war, a recent conference in London was told. Declassified US documents suggest that the American military used about 944000 rounds of depleted uranium bullets in Iraq and Kuwait during the war in 1991.

The conference (about the cancer epidemic in Iraq and its possible link to the Allied use of depleted uranium weapons), was chaired by Labour backbench MP George Galloway. The UK Ministry of Defence has declined to comment to the BMJ on the health implications of exposure to depleted uranium during the Gulf war. At least 250 tonnes of these tiny bullets still lie undetected in Iraq and in surrounding countries, according to one speaker, Dr Seigwart-Horst Gunther, president of the International Yellow Cross, a humanitarian organisation founded to help children in crisis. Several speakers noted how depleted uranium wea-ponry had been used against civilians.

An Iraqi oncology specialist, Dr Mona Kammas, presented a report compiled by Iraq’s Committee for Pollution Impact by Aggressive Bombing. Rates of cancer and congenital anomalies had almost doubled since the war, the report said. In areas that were particularly badly hit in southern Iraq, notably Misan and Thi-Qar, cancer incidence was as much as five times higher than in 1989. The report notes that the increase in cases of cancer and their geographical distribution in the provinces of Iraq coincides with bombardment and military operations and the intensity of these. Of the 667 cases of cancer in the sample group, the report notes, the increasing prevalence was most striking in cases of leukaemia, lung cancer, bronchial cancer, cancer of the bladder, skin cancer, stomach cancer for males, and breast cancer in females.

Dr Gunther showed slides of Iraqi children born with ears, eyes, fingers, and limbs missing and similar abnormalities among the children of Western Gulf war veterans. There was also a consensus that the lack of nutritionally healthy food and minimal medical provision under United Nations sanctions, combined with exposure to depleted uranium, contributed to widespread immunodeficiency and sizeable increases in the prevalence of polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis, whooping cough, and diphtheria.