February 12, 2005

OUTSIDE TESTING URGED FOR AILING VETERANS

By Thomas D. Williams, Courant Staff Writer

A state legislator and the attorney general have advised a legislative panel that Connecticut National Guard troops and Reservists returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan need independent testing to determine whether illnesses afflicting many of them could be caused by uranium dust from U.S. munitions.

But what riveted the General Assembly veterans committee was testimony by 42-year-old Army veteran Melissa Sterry of New Haven. Thursday, she lined up her 30 medications and two boxes of medical records in the Legislative Office Building hearing room in Hartford to bolster her words.

"These are my medical records and these are my Army meds," said Sterry, an Army specialist in the first gulf war.

"On the outside I look perfectly healthy," said Sterry. "And I'm dying on the inside."

Sterry said that for six months in 1991 and 1992 and without protective gear, she helped clean tanks and equipment contaminated by uranium dust. Her left leg was crushed in 1992 in a service-related accident.

Today, Sterry said, she suffers from chronic fatigue, chronic diarrhea, joint aches, blood in both her urine and stool, vomiting, nausea, chronic muscle spasms, headaches and upper respiratory infections.

She receives veterans' benefits for her leg injury, muscle spasms, post traumatic stress and diarrhea, the cause of which the military lists as unknown.

Sterry, who is unemployed, said she is still seeking needed medical benefits.

"I don't want to be disabled. I want to work," she said. "I'm saying, `Fix me!'"

The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing.

Sterry said in a telephone interview that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military's test because she could not trust the results.

Earlier in the hearing, state Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, who is proposing the measure, said a better test is needed. She said the U.S. Department of Defense should pay for the independent test and if it refuses, service members should have the right to sue.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the committee he supports the bill.

"This kind of material has been used in unprecedented amounts in these two [war] theaters," Blumenthal said.

The U.S. military used depleted uranium munitions in Afghanistan and Iraq extensively to destroy tanks and bunkers.

Depleted uranium is a toxic, heavy metal byproduct of uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons and reactor fuel. It is used in munitions, ballast for airplanes, tank armor and other products. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. When a depleted uranium-tipped projectile hits a metal target, it ignites and burns its way through. A single shot can destroy or disable a tank.

But the fine depleted uranium dust created by the blast can blow in the wind for many miles and if inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin in sufficient quantities can cause lung cancer or kidney ailments.

James Benson, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, defends the present test.

"The VA is convinced that the [depleted uranium] screening provided by the VA is not surpassed by anything available from any other source," he said. "The VA will pay for any of the tests done by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology."

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant