Dear Oprah Winfrey,

I have a great idea for your next show. This week you revealed the disfigured remnants of Charla Nash's face, eight months after she was mauled by Travis The Chimp, ex-star of numerous Coca-Cola adverts.

Cutting edge journalism as ever, Oprah. Really tugged at the heart strings.

But why stop there? Keep a-yanking! If you really want to shock your viewers with tragic stories of disfigurement and physical impairments, I have two words for you; Iraq and Children.

Bear with me. This week, it was revealed babies born in Falluja are 15 times more likely to suffer highly abnormal birth defects. We're not talking about being born with a lazy eye or a cleft palate; instead, imagine being born with a brain tumour the size of a golf ball, or being born with two heads, or so deformed you don't survive your first week of breathing fresh air.

Okay. Your show opens with a shot of a report sent to the UN General Assembly by Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Iraqi's Minister of Womens Affairs since 2006. Then a series of shots of deformed babies as you read out statistics; like how in September 2009, Falluja General Hospital delivered 170 babies, 24% of which died within their first week of life, 75% of babies being born deformed.

Maybe then a shot of a healthy, happy Western baby, to counterpoint the misery? Then - pow! A shot of you shedding a single tear of sadness! Emotional rollercoaster!

Then you bust out your booming Oprah in kick-ass mode voice. "How is this possible? Who is behind this?" you boom. Maybe bang something, i.e. your chair's arm rest, or a table? Anyways, you're angry at Depleted Uranium. No, they are not a punk band. It's a radioactive isotope - don't worry about the science, just call it DU. It's a compound used in some munitions to make them more powerful. And who uses DU? The good old US of A and the good old UK of... well, never mind. Evil DU/USA/UK! Between 1,000 and 3,000 tonnes of DU was expended during the three-week start of the Iraq war in 2003. Maybe have Scott Peterson on your show? Scott is a Christian Science Monitor journalist who went to Baghdad in May 2003, and using a simple Geiger counter, Scott registered radiation levels 1,900 times the normal background level.

Of course, your audience might have a hard time identifying with people who don't live in the US. Don't worry, the issue is closer to home! Just ask any first Gulf War veteran who's tried to have children. 'Tried' being the key word. Get Dr Han Kang on your show. He was part of a Department of Veterans Affair's report that interviewed over 20,000 Gulf-war and Non-Gulf military personnel. The report found that Gulf-war veterans are more than twice as likely to have children born with deformities. Birth defects and deformities included webbed digits, heart murmurs and brain tumours. Maybe get an argument going, by inviting Dr Francis O'Donnell on the show? Dr O'Donnell responded to Kang's report by saying, "I find it hard to believe that previous studies would have missed (the risking of having a child with a birth defect due to services in the Gulf War)." Of course, to get Dr O'Donnell on your show you'd have to ask his boss - the Pentagon's Office of Gulf War Illness, Medical Readiness and Military Deployments. But imagine the Jerry Springer style fight between the two doctors! Gold ratings.

Remember to say that the Pentagon has always stressed DU munitions pose no risk to anyone except the "evil folks" that face the mighty US war machine. Maybe you could get your hands on a Ministry of Defence (MoD) DU information card, which might make the Pentagon look a bit suspect? It was reported in 2004 that the MoD has issued DU information cards to troops serving in Iraq; the cards warned troops of DU's health risks and advised urine tests to measure the body's uranium levels. Oprah, this is the part where you look into the camera, and, in your best questioning voice, ask, "If DU is harmless, why is the MoD warning it's troops about it?"

The ending I'm not sure about. Maybe you could get your good friend Barack Obama on your show and grill him about DU? Plead, crying your eyes out, for your viewers to join a anti-DU group or pressure their political representative? Or maybe you could clutch a deformed Iraqi baby to your breast, with a nice close up shot of you screaming, "The Horror! The Horror!"

Anyways O, let me know your thoughts. Your people call my people. Or my people will call your people's people. Or whatever.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Lemmer,
Ctrl.Alt.Shift Media Enterprises Manager and Freelance Toilet Cleaner.

Words: Richard Lemmer. Ctrl.Alt.Shift's colourful and witty news editor.
Photo: Flickr user illuminating9_11, of the effects of Depleted Uranium. Flickr user capis 1999 of Charla Nash.