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"DU is also believed to be a carcinogen, and cancer rates in Iraq are spiking." (Photo: Sergio Trenna/flickr/cc)
In early September 2003, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew was sent home from Iraq, stricken by a sudden illness.
One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated.
The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain what was wrong.
Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette.
The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand.
Matthew and his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of birth defects in either of their families.
They have seen photos of Iraqi babies born with deformities that are eerily similar.
In June, Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked us to arrange independent laboratory screening for his urine. This was after The News had reported that four of seven soldiers from another National Guard unit, the 442nd Military Police, had tested positive for depleted uranium (DU).
The independent test of Matthew's urine found him positive for DU - low-level radioactive waste produced in nuclear plants during the enrichment of natural uranium.
Because it is twice as heavy as lead, DU has been used by the Pentagon since the Persian Gulf War in certain types of "tank-buster" shells, as well as for armor-plating in Abrams tanks.
Exposure to radioactivity has been associated in some studies with birth defects in the children of exposed parents.
"My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country," Janice Matthew said. "I feel the Army should take responsibility for what's happened."
The couple first learned of the baby's missing fingers during a routine sonogram of the fetus last April at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Matthew was a truck driver in Iraq with the 719th transport unit from Harlem. His unit moved supplies from Army bases in Kuwait to the front lines and as far as Baghdad. On several occasions, he says, he carried shot-up tanks and destroyed vehicle parts on his flat-bed back to Kuwait.
After he learned of his unborn child's deformity, Matthew immediately asked the Army to test his urine for DU. In April, he provided a 24-hour urine sample to doctors at Fort Dix, N.J., where he was waiting to be deactivated.
In May, the Army granted him a 40% disability pension for his migraine headaches and for a condition called idiopathic angioedema - unexplained chronic swelling.
But Matthew never got the results of his Army test for DU. When he called Fort Dix last week, five months after he was tested, he was told there was no record of any urine specimen from him.
Thankfully, Matthew did not rely solely on the Army bureaucracy - he went to The News.
Earlier this year, The News submitted urine samples from Guardsmen of the 442nd to former Army doctor Asaf Durakovic and Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The German lab specializes in testing for minute quantities of uranium, a complicated procedure that costs up to $1,000 per test.
The lab is one of approximately 50 in the world that can detect quantities as tiny as fentograms - one part per quadrillionth.
A few months ago, The News submitted a 24-hour urine sample from Matthew to Gerdes. As a control, we also gave the lab 24-hour urine samples from two Daily News reporters.
The three specimens were marked only with the letters A, B and C, so the lab could not know which sample belonged to the soldier.
After analyzing all three, Gerdes reported that only sample A - Matthew's urine - showed clear signs of DU. It contained a total uranium concentration that was "4 to 8 times higher" than specimens B and C, Gerdes reported.
"Those levels indicate pretty definitively that he's been exposed to the DU," said Leonard Dietz, a retired scientist who invented one of the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes.
According to Army guidelines, the total uranium concentration Gerdes found in Matthew is within acceptable standards for most Americans.
But Gerdes questioned the Army's standards, noting that even minute levels of DU are cause for concern.
"While the levels of DU in Matthew's urine are low," Gerdes said, "the DU we see in his urine could be 1,000 times higher in concentration in the lungs."
DU is not like natural uranium, which occurs in the environment. Natural uranium can be ingested in food and drink but gets expelled from the body within 24 hours.
DU-contaminated dust, however, is typically breathed into the lungs and can remain there for years, emitting constant low-level radiation.
"I'm upset and confused," Matthew said. "I just want answers. Are they [the Army] going to take care of my baby?"
We track soldiers' sickness
For the last five months, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has chronicled the plight of soldiers who have returned from Iraq with mysterious illnesses.
His exclusive groundbreaking investigation began with a front-page story on April 4 that suggested depleted uranium contamination was far more widespread than the Pentagon would admit.
At the request of The News, nine soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq were tested for radiation from depleted uranium shells - and four of the ailing G.I.s tested positive.
The day after Gonzalez's story appeared, Army officials rushed to test all returning members of the company, the 442nd Military Police, based in Rockland County.
By week's end, the scandal had reverberated all the way to Albany, as Gov. Pataki joined the list of politicians calling for the Pentagon to do a better job of testing and treating sick soldiers returning from the war.
Gonzalez's expose sparked a huge demand for testing. By mid-April, 800 G.I.s had given the Army urine samples, and hundreds more were waiting for appointments.
Two weeks later, the Pentagon claimed that none of the soldiers from the 442nd had tested positive for depleted uranium. But The News' experts found significant problems with the testing methods.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
In early September 2003, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew was sent home from Iraq, stricken by a sudden illness.
One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated.
The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain what was wrong.
Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette.
The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand.
Matthew and his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of birth defects in either of their families.
They have seen photos of Iraqi babies born with deformities that are eerily similar.
In June, Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked us to arrange independent laboratory screening for his urine. This was after The News had reported that four of seven soldiers from another National Guard unit, the 442nd Military Police, had tested positive for depleted uranium (DU).
The independent test of Matthew's urine found him positive for DU - low-level radioactive waste produced in nuclear plants during the enrichment of natural uranium.
Because it is twice as heavy as lead, DU has been used by the Pentagon since the Persian Gulf War in certain types of "tank-buster" shells, as well as for armor-plating in Abrams tanks.
Exposure to radioactivity has been associated in some studies with birth defects in the children of exposed parents.
"My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country," Janice Matthew said. "I feel the Army should take responsibility for what's happened."
The couple first learned of the baby's missing fingers during a routine sonogram of the fetus last April at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Matthew was a truck driver in Iraq with the 719th transport unit from Harlem. His unit moved supplies from Army bases in Kuwait to the front lines and as far as Baghdad. On several occasions, he says, he carried shot-up tanks and destroyed vehicle parts on his flat-bed back to Kuwait.
After he learned of his unborn child's deformity, Matthew immediately asked the Army to test his urine for DU. In April, he provided a 24-hour urine sample to doctors at Fort Dix, N.J., where he was waiting to be deactivated.
In May, the Army granted him a 40% disability pension for his migraine headaches and for a condition called idiopathic angioedema - unexplained chronic swelling.
But Matthew never got the results of his Army test for DU. When he called Fort Dix last week, five months after he was tested, he was told there was no record of any urine specimen from him.
Thankfully, Matthew did not rely solely on the Army bureaucracy - he went to The News.
Earlier this year, The News submitted urine samples from Guardsmen of the 442nd to former Army doctor Asaf Durakovic and Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The German lab specializes in testing for minute quantities of uranium, a complicated procedure that costs up to $1,000 per test.
The lab is one of approximately 50 in the world that can detect quantities as tiny as fentograms - one part per quadrillionth.
A few months ago, The News submitted a 24-hour urine sample from Matthew to Gerdes. As a control, we also gave the lab 24-hour urine samples from two Daily News reporters.
The three specimens were marked only with the letters A, B and C, so the lab could not know which sample belonged to the soldier.
After analyzing all three, Gerdes reported that only sample A - Matthew's urine - showed clear signs of DU. It contained a total uranium concentration that was "4 to 8 times higher" than specimens B and C, Gerdes reported.
"Those levels indicate pretty definitively that he's been exposed to the DU," said Leonard Dietz, a retired scientist who invented one of the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes.
According to Army guidelines, the total uranium concentration Gerdes found in Matthew is within acceptable standards for most Americans.
But Gerdes questioned the Army's standards, noting that even minute levels of DU are cause for concern.
"While the levels of DU in Matthew's urine are low," Gerdes said, "the DU we see in his urine could be 1,000 times higher in concentration in the lungs."
DU is not like natural uranium, which occurs in the environment. Natural uranium can be ingested in food and drink but gets expelled from the body within 24 hours.
DU-contaminated dust, however, is typically breathed into the lungs and can remain there for years, emitting constant low-level radiation.
"I'm upset and confused," Matthew said. "I just want answers. Are they [the Army] going to take care of my baby?"
We track soldiers' sickness
For the last five months, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has chronicled the plight of soldiers who have returned from Iraq with mysterious illnesses.
His exclusive groundbreaking investigation began with a front-page story on April 4 that suggested depleted uranium contamination was far more widespread than the Pentagon would admit.
At the request of The News, nine soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq were tested for radiation from depleted uranium shells - and four of the ailing G.I.s tested positive.
The day after Gonzalez's story appeared, Army officials rushed to test all returning members of the company, the 442nd Military Police, based in Rockland County.
By week's end, the scandal had reverberated all the way to Albany, as Gov. Pataki joined the list of politicians calling for the Pentagon to do a better job of testing and treating sick soldiers returning from the war.
Gonzalez's expose sparked a huge demand for testing. By mid-April, 800 G.I.s had given the Army urine samples, and hundreds more were waiting for appointments.
Two weeks later, the Pentagon claimed that none of the soldiers from the 442nd had tested positive for depleted uranium. But The News' experts found significant problems with the testing methods.
In early September 2003, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew was sent home from Iraq, stricken by a sudden illness.
One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated.
The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain what was wrong.
Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette.
The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand.
Matthew and his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of birth defects in either of their families.
They have seen photos of Iraqi babies born with deformities that are eerily similar.
In June, Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked us to arrange independent laboratory screening for his urine. This was after The News had reported that four of seven soldiers from another National Guard unit, the 442nd Military Police, had tested positive for depleted uranium (DU).
The independent test of Matthew's urine found him positive for DU - low-level radioactive waste produced in nuclear plants during the enrichment of natural uranium.
Because it is twice as heavy as lead, DU has been used by the Pentagon since the Persian Gulf War in certain types of "tank-buster" shells, as well as for armor-plating in Abrams tanks.
Exposure to radioactivity has been associated in some studies with birth defects in the children of exposed parents.
"My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country," Janice Matthew said. "I feel the Army should take responsibility for what's happened."
The couple first learned of the baby's missing fingers during a routine sonogram of the fetus last April at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Matthew was a truck driver in Iraq with the 719th transport unit from Harlem. His unit moved supplies from Army bases in Kuwait to the front lines and as far as Baghdad. On several occasions, he says, he carried shot-up tanks and destroyed vehicle parts on his flat-bed back to Kuwait.
After he learned of his unborn child's deformity, Matthew immediately asked the Army to test his urine for DU. In April, he provided a 24-hour urine sample to doctors at Fort Dix, N.J., where he was waiting to be deactivated.
In May, the Army granted him a 40% disability pension for his migraine headaches and for a condition called idiopathic angioedema - unexplained chronic swelling.
But Matthew never got the results of his Army test for DU. When he called Fort Dix last week, five months after he was tested, he was told there was no record of any urine specimen from him.
Thankfully, Matthew did not rely solely on the Army bureaucracy - he went to The News.
Earlier this year, The News submitted urine samples from Guardsmen of the 442nd to former Army doctor Asaf Durakovic and Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The German lab specializes in testing for minute quantities of uranium, a complicated procedure that costs up to $1,000 per test.
The lab is one of approximately 50 in the world that can detect quantities as tiny as fentograms - one part per quadrillionth.
A few months ago, The News submitted a 24-hour urine sample from Matthew to Gerdes. As a control, we also gave the lab 24-hour urine samples from two Daily News reporters.
The three specimens were marked only with the letters A, B and C, so the lab could not know which sample belonged to the soldier.
After analyzing all three, Gerdes reported that only sample A - Matthew's urine - showed clear signs of DU. It contained a total uranium concentration that was "4 to 8 times higher" than specimens B and C, Gerdes reported.
"Those levels indicate pretty definitively that he's been exposed to the DU," said Leonard Dietz, a retired scientist who invented one of the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes.
According to Army guidelines, the total uranium concentration Gerdes found in Matthew is within acceptable standards for most Americans.
But Gerdes questioned the Army's standards, noting that even minute levels of DU are cause for concern.
"While the levels of DU in Matthew's urine are low," Gerdes said, "the DU we see in his urine could be 1,000 times higher in concentration in the lungs."
DU is not like natural uranium, which occurs in the environment. Natural uranium can be ingested in food and drink but gets expelled from the body within 24 hours.
DU-contaminated dust, however, is typically breathed into the lungs and can remain there for years, emitting constant low-level radiation.
"I'm upset and confused," Matthew said. "I just want answers. Are they [the Army] going to take care of my baby?"
We track soldiers' sickness
For the last five months, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has chronicled the plight of soldiers who have returned from Iraq with mysterious illnesses.
His exclusive groundbreaking investigation began with a front-page story on April 4 that suggested depleted uranium contamination was far more widespread than the Pentagon would admit.
At the request of The News, nine soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq were tested for radiation from depleted uranium shells - and four of the ailing G.I.s tested positive.
The day after Gonzalez's story appeared, Army officials rushed to test all returning members of the company, the 442nd Military Police, based in Rockland County.
By week's end, the scandal had reverberated all the way to Albany, as Gov. Pataki joined the list of politicians calling for the Pentagon to do a better job of testing and treating sick soldiers returning from the war.
Gonzalez's expose sparked a huge demand for testing. By mid-April, 800 G.I.s had given the Army urine samples, and hundreds more were waiting for appointments.
Two weeks later, the Pentagon claimed that none of the soldiers from the 442nd had tested positive for depleted uranium. But The News' experts found significant problems with the testing methods.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare."
In communities large and small across the United States on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people collectively took to the streets to make their opposition to President Donald Trump heard.
The people who took part in the organized protests ranged from very young children to the elderly and their message was scrawled on signs of all sizes and colors—many of them angry, some of them funny, but all in line with the "Hands Off" message that brought them together.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare," said the group Stand Up America as word of the turnout poured in from across the country.
A relatively small, but representative sample of photographs from various demonstrations that took place follows.
Demonstrators gather on Boston Common, cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against US President Donald Trump and his advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
Indivisible, one of the key organizing groups behind the day's protests, said millions participated in more than 1,300 individual rallies as they demanded "an end to Trump's authoritarian power grab" and condemning all those aiding and abetting it.
"We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates," the group said in a statement Saturday evening.
"Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
"This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office," the group added. "And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
The more than 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in Europe, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and continued throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters Saturday morning just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
In its Saturday evening statement, Indivisible said the actions far exceeded their expectations and should be seen as a turning point in the battle to stop Trump and his minions:
The Trump administration has spent its first 75 days in office trying to overwhelm us, to make us feel powerless, so that we will fall in line, accept the ransacking of our government, the raiding of our social safety net, and the dismantling of our democracy.
And too often, the response from our leaders and those in positions to resist has been abject cowardice. Compliance. Obeying in advance.
But not today. Today we've demonstrated a different path forward. We've modeled the courage and action that we want to see from our leaders, and showed all those who've been standing on the sidelines who share our values that they are not alone.
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," People's Action earlier explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."