WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A team of U.N. experts said that scientific studies have not proven a link between exposure to depleted uranium used in NATO weapons and the onset of cancer or other illnesses.
Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Italian defense ministry revealed their findings Thursday.
NATO's use of the depleted uranium in bombing campaigns in Bosnia in 1995 and in Yugoslavia in 1999 has sparked fears across Europe of a link between the weapons and the onset of cancer in NATO troops after the conflicts.
A four-member team of experts from WHO traveled to the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo after reports that soldiers serving with NATO-led peacekeepers in the Balkans had become ill.
The WHO team declared that investigations found no firm evidence linking individual medical cases in Kosovo to exposure to depleted uranium, but acknowledged that much more analysis was needed.
They looked at data from hospitals, visited conflict sites throughout the province where such ammunition was used and spoke with local groups and non-governmental organizations working on the issue in Kosovo.
The team also concluded that the greater danger to health in Kosovo comes from exposure to other pollutants, such as lead in the air.
Meanwhile, an Italian study within five areas where its troops were deployed have found no danger from radioactivity.
"We have screened five places and the results were negative," said Lieutenant Luca Napoli.
"We hope that the results would be the same," he said, after announcing that the Italian tests would continue at another 24 locations, mostly barracks and guard posts.
Forty Italian experts from the Institute for Radiobiology in Rome were hired by the Italian military. They started working in two groups: one group performed medical checks on troops, while the other measured radiation levels in the facilities they used.
Italy was one of the first and most vocal NATO members calling for a full inquiry into the effects of depleted uranium, after a number of its soldiers who served in the Balkans died of leukemia.
So far, German and Portuguese expert findings have matched those coming from both the WHO and Italian studies.
The results support NATO's insistence that depleted uranium used against Bosnian Serb troops in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and against Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999 pose no significant health risk to troops or civilians.
