Zomby pointed out that I'd missed this letter to the editor in the Rocky:
This is great. Turns out scientists were wrong to claim that exposure to depleted uranium munitions are harmful. News media critic Dave Kopel's "top of the heap" Web logger, Walter, says so ("Blogs unearth dubious sources," Jan. 3). So go back to sleep, all you worried military wives, parents and sufferers of Gulf War Syndrome.
This means that nuclear scientist and former chief of the Nuclear Sciences Division at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Institute, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who as a U.S. Army colonel served as a unit commander in Operation Desert Shield, was wrong when he said: "Depleted uranium enters the body via inhalation, ingestion and absorption. Uranium is water soluble and can be transported throughout the body. The alpha particle released by decay of the uranium atom gives up a large amount of energy in a distance no longer than a couple of microns. Causing breaks and ionization of molecules, it is capable of destroying proteins, enzymes, RNA, and damaging DNA in many different ways, including double-strand breaks."
The darned doctor goes on to claim that depleted uranium causes kidney damage, leukemia, emotional and mental deterioration, as well as genetic damage that can be passed from generation to generation.
Now, folks, who you gonna believe, some darned alarmist director of Uranium Medical Research Center (www.umrc.net) or Dave Kopel's favorite right- wing blogger? Thought so.
Bruce McNaughton
Denver
You'll notice the post in question doesn't mention uranium. David Kopel's column does, but he is relying on other sources for that information. That and the letter writer's referral to me as a 'right-wing blogger' makes me think he's never actually read this site.
Not that ignorance should keep Mr. McNaughton from having himself a nice little rant.
No such thing as bad publicity, though. ;)