The School of Mathematics & Physics,
The Australian Institute of Physics - Tasmanian Branch
The Medical Association for the Prevention of War
and the Peace Coalition Hobart

  

Depleted Uranium

Dr Doug Rokke 
Health Physicist, former US Army Consultant 

Stanley Burbury Theatre
University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay
Friday 27 June 7:30 pm

ABSTRACT:
 The use of depleted uranium in weapons by the military has recently come under increasing scrutiny and criticism. 
DU expert and health physicist Dr Doug Rokke will explain what DU is and why it is a health hazard. His talk will bring in the "Gulf War Syndrome", unusual cancer rates in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the danger to Australia of testing DU weapons here. There is an informative article from 5 June New Scientist.

SPEAKER PROFILE:
Dr. Rokke earned his Ph.D. in health physics from the University of Illinois in 1992. He was originally trained as a forensic scientist.

When the Gulf War started, he was assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and sent to the Gulf. In 1991 he served as a health physicist for the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Assessment team of roughly 100 primary members cleaning up Depleted Uranium (DU) in Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. He was the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project director from 1994 to 1995. Following this, in 1996 and 1997 he directed the development, instruction, and assessment of radiation safety education and field procedures for the U.S. Army at the Bradley Radiological Laboratories, Fort McClellan.

Dr Rokke is one of the authors of Pentagon's program for environmental remediation of formerly used defence sites. He wrote the Army’s field manual for responding to chemical and biological warfare and has trained U.S. soldiers in radiation safety techniques. A former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and a veteran of both Vietnam and the Gulf War, Dr Rokke has been in and out of uniform since 1967 and now serves with the U.S. Army Reserves.

Scientific training and first-hand experience with DU contamination lead Doug Rokke to speak out regarding the cover-up of Gulf War casualties and depleted uranium. He calls use of DU a 'war crime'.

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Further information is available from: Dr Ian Newman (03)6226-2422. Ian.Newman@utas.edu.au