Veterans Affairs committee  Politicians would like science to provide absolute answers. They do it all the time, whether on mad cow disease or whatever. The reality is that scientists look at the evidence available at the time, and they draw a conclusion from the evidence available at the time. All the evidence I have leads me to the conclusion that DU is not responsible.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. There's no obvious route to exposure for Canadian Forces or for the vast majority of British or American or French forces that operated in the Gulf—

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. As I said, it's not true that no research is being done; these populations will continue to be monitored for the rest of their lives as part of epidemiological studies. It's just that you don't report epidemiological studies every year. You come back every five or ten years, or perhaps at an even longer interval than that, to report the study, particularly if nothing has been found.

Veterans Affairs committee  I believe that there's real concern amongst the veteran population. Why we have this problem I don't know, but I'm convinced it's not related to depleted uranium.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. About 99% of the attention has been on depleted uranium, and I haven't seen any studies that would indicate causation. I may have missed them, because I'm a radiobiologist and so tend to be more conscious of the radiobiological literature. In relation to this, then, the information I picked up, I picked up when I was a member of the Ministry of Defence review group.

Veterans Affairs committee  Symptomatic treatment, palliative symptomatic treatment, yes, fair enough, but it would be really nice if we knew what caused it, because if you know the causation, then you can develop treatment regimes that are designed to stop the problem. Perhaps she was referring mostly to treatment of the symptoms, but it's difficult.

Veterans Affairs committee  There's no real indication of super-sensitivity in individuals, which is, I think, what you were suggesting with the one person in a million. If we'd had super-sensitivity in people, I think it would have been identified by now, because, as I said, there are a huge number of people who are exposed to quite significant amounts of uranium in the world.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think there is any effective way you could easily remove uranium from the body of somebody without causing skeletal problems, because you have to mobilize the skeleton in order to release the uranium. There are ways of removing it from the lungs, because you can remove particles.

Veterans Affairs committee  Personally I can think of no way that depleted uranium exposures of Canadian, British, American, or French personnel in either the Balkan or the Gulf War could have given rise to the adverse health effects that are claimed by the Gulf War veterans. Personally, if I were doing it, I would look at it given that the level of worry amongst veterans varies according to nation, and I believe that the French army has fewer concerns about Gulf War syndrome.

Veterans Affairs committee  Could you repeat the first part of your question, please?

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay, thank you very much. I apologize for asking you to repeat it. I was concentrating so much on the second part of your question, I forgot the first part. Regarding the new scientific research, there haven't been any studies published recently, and that's because when you're studying populations and looking at these effects, you look at them over their lifetime.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll try to answer quickly.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  And I said yes.