So, here is what was claimed by Igor Poznyak, the host of the ONT TV channel:
“During the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, 15 tonnes of depleted uranium were dropped on Serbia. According to NATO itself, this is a higher level of radiation than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, studies by scientists indicate its connection with cancer.”
“The lawyer who filed a class-action lawsuit against the North Atlantic Alliance on behalf of all the victims in Serbia says of a real cancer epidemic in the country. In the country, this diagnosis is made to 30 thousand patients every year, but in London, this fact stopped nobody in London.”
We have verified reports by Mr. Pozniak, that allegedly according to NATO, the depleted uranium in Yugoslavia had a higher level of radiation than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And fact check shows that the alliance says otherwise.
A report on its official website refers to a study by the Spiez Laboratory, the Swiss Federal Institute for NBC-Protection, which is a division of the Federal Office for Civil Protection. In the conclusions following that study, NATO says:
“An apocalypse caused by man as a result of the use of DU ammunition in Iraq and the Balkans is not worthy of discussion!
If certain minimal precautions are taken… the health risks of a time-limited stay in a DU-contaminated area are shown to be negligibly small, especially in comparison to other risks such as minefields, duds, snipers.”
When the radioactive isotope U-235 is extracted from natural uranium, it is depleted. U-235 isotopes are added to other uranium to increase radioactivity, and such uranium is said to be enriched.
Whether the radioactivity of depleted uranium is dangerous to human health is not known for certain, and medical research is contradictory. But its radioactivity is halved.
And the statement sounds quite weird that the DU radiation is more dangerous than the contamination radiation level of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombed using enriched uranium.
The next piece of fake news on this topic was reported by Dmitry Shevtsov, Secretary General of the Belarusian Red Cross.
“We see the growth of morbidity, especially cancer. Well, you could look at Yugoslavia, and other countries that have been hit with depleted uranium shells, and their cancer rates have increased 5-6 times,” he claims.
Really, in 1999 the US bombed the former Yugoslavia with DU-based ammo as part of an operation to force Belgrade to withdraw from Kosovo, where massacres of ethnic Albanians have been documented.
Only since 2000, there are data on the incidence of oncology in Serbia on the WHO's website.
In 2000, there were 294 cases of cancer per 100,000 people. And in 2018, there were 597 cases per 100,000 people. Thus, there is definitely a 2-fold increase, although it is far from a 5-fold growth.
In 2007 a noticeable jump in cancer rates was deducted, but no connection was found to the radiation consequences of the 1991 bombings.
In addition, during this period, there is a growth in cancer rates throughout the world and in those countries of Europe that the United States did not bomb. In Turkey, the incidence increased by almost 5 times.
It also grew up in the neighboring countries of Serbia, which were part of Yugoslavia until 1991. In Slovenia and Slovakia, the incidence rate is even higher.
Serbia has one of the highest cancer death rates in Europe. But before 1999 it was high too, and even higher. According to a study by Serbian scientists of cancer mortality in 1999 — 2015, it grew evenly before and after 1999, without sharp jumps. And it started to decline only after 2009.
And finally here is the last fake news about Serbia from the host of state-run TV “Belarus-1” Ksenia Lebedeva.
“Today, in Europe, Serbia ranks first in terms of cancer incidence and second in the world,” she says.
And it is refuted by the WHO’s standardized incidence cancer rates for all countries of the world.
According to the latest data, in 2020, throughout the world 17 countries, including the United States, were ahead of Serbia. And in Europe, prosperous Denmark and Ireland are leading in terms of cancer incidence.