The silence of most of the media is appalling on the issue of the "tank-busting," "armor-piercing" artillery carried by "A-10 Warthogs" and "Apache helicopters" in Yugoslavia. Those words, surfacing like toxic bubbles in the war propaganda soup, actually mean that the ammunition is made of super-dense depleted uranium, which leaves radioactive particles in the air, water, soil, and food chain. These tasteless, invisible particles, if ingested and absorbed into your body's tissues, quietly kill.

To their credit, European news agencies BBC and Reuters have each published articles. Two important stories were broken by BBC on May 7th and May 11th, when the Pentagon admitted depleted uranium use. By and large the US media remain silent, except for a few brave voices: the first was the Boston Phoenix (an alternative weekly since 1966); on April 29th and 30th, the Christian Science Monitor and the Los Angeles Times added their voices. On May 7, the San Francisco Examiner published "Radioactive bullets revive old concerns."

NGO's (non-governmental organizations) are also blowing the whistle. There are scientists and doctors who believe that at least some of the "Gulf War Syndrome" symptoms suffered by veterans and their offspring were caused by radioactive debris and dust from "tank-busting" depleted uranium artillery used during the 1991 Iraq war.

Since May 19 (when NATO's Jamie Shea replied to a reporter's question, "Is Nato using depleted uranium ammunition in Yugolsavia?" with "I am not going to comment on the type of munitions that Nato uses because that is an operational question"), the only media reports about depleted uranium have been about lost bullets in Puerto Rico.

Please help spread this disturbing information far and wide. Please call your local radio, tv, and newspapers and ask them to broadcast/publish information about depleted uranium. Contact your politicians and ask for laws banning depleted uranium weapons.