A YORK University company is offering to analyse blood samples from Gulf War veterans and soldiers who fought in Kosovo in the wake of the depleted uranium scare.

The company, The Centre for Biomedical Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CBAMS), has offered its services after fears were raised that contact with depleted uranium, used in amour-piercing weapons, could lead to leukaemia and other illnesses.

A £2 million accelerator mass spectrometer, the only instrument of its kind in the country, will be used by the company as it offers the most sensitive method for measuring depleted uranium. Created to service the biomedical industry, CBAMS was founded in 1997 and has been operating since August 1998.

Since that time, it has worked for more than 35 companies and organisations, primarily for pharmaceutical companies, but also for organisations interested in measuring radioactive discharges from nuclear plants. The accelerator mass spectrometer is the size of two tennis courts and took nearly two years to build and commission. The instrument is able to measure isotopes at the individual atom level and does so by generating millions of volts of electricity.

lThe Royal Navy is phasing out depleted uranium ammunition used on its warships after the US manufacturers ceased producing the shells, it emerged today. The ammunition is used in the American-designed Phalanx anti-missile system, which is fitted to the Navy's Type 42 destroyers and three other vessels.

Updated: 09:53 Saturday, January 13, 2001