Depleted Uranium- A Looming Worldwide Calamity

[Clara T]

Depleted Uranium - A Hidden Looming Worldwide Calamity

by Stephen Lendman

January 19, 2006

Forget about Avian (bird) flu. The threat of it becoming a pandemic is more a political scare tactic and potential bonanza for drug company profits and its major shareholders' net worth (including Gilead Sciences, the developer of the Tamiflu drug and its former Chairman and major shareholder Donald Rumsfeld) than a likely public health crisis - unless you live around infected chickens or take an unproven safe immunization shot. There are much more other likely killer bacterial and viral threats than Avian that get little attention. Don't worry about possible or unlikely threats. Worry about real ones. Bacteria and viruses untreatable by anti-biotics are good examples. So is global warming and many others. But, there's possibly one threat that tops all others both in gravity and because it's been deliberately concealed from the public - never discussed, explained or had any action taken to remediate it. It's the global threat from the toxic effects of depleted uranium (DU), and like global warming, DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life. How can something so potentially destructive be hidden and ignored and why?

<snip>

KNOWN EFFECTS FROM DU USE THUS FAR - AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING, THE WORST IS YET TO COME

Leuren Moret's work has revealed some shocking facts. Since the U.S. military first used DU weapons in the 1991 Gulf War, it has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki nuclear bombs into the global atmosphere (that's no misprint) causing permanent contamination with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Furthermore, that DU radiation is 10 times the amount released by all atmospheric testing which in total equaled 40,000 Hiroshima bombs (again, no misprint). The 2 atom bombs used against the Japanese killed a likely 300,000 or more people from the initial blasts and subsequent radiation and chemical poisoning deaths. To this day, there are still reported deaths attributed to the bombings. Now imagine the potential threat to all planetary life from all the DU weapons used since 1991 and their continued use in Iraq and Afghanistan - the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombings and increasing daily as U.S. forces now are conducting 4 to 6 daily bombings of target sites in Iraq alone using DU bombs.

Leuren calls DU "The Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing. There's no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes..." As it decays, it continues to release more radiation. DU when used as a weapon in war, as the U.S. has now done 4 times and continues to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan and intends to continue using, is Stanley Kubrick's fictional Doomsday Machine for real (from his 1964 film Dr. Strangelove). DU may be the ultimate weapon of mass annihilation. Unless there's a mass worldwide public awakening to this threat to demand an immediate end to its use for any purpose, we're left with little more than the message from the subtitle of the Kubrick film - stop worrying and love the bomb--and likely prepare to die.

The greatest damage from DU comes from the radiation residue after its use. When a DU weapon strikes a target, it penetrates deeply and aerosolizes into a fine spray which then contaminates the air and soil around the target area. The residue is permanent, and its microscopic and submicroscopic particles remain suspended in air or are swept into the air from the tainted soil and are carried by winds around the earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust. That dust falls to earth indiscriminately everywhere causing radiation contamination that affects every living thing and cannot be remediated. The contamination causes virtually every known illness and disease from severe headaches, muscle pain and general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection, depression, cardiovascular disease, many types of cancer and brain tumors. It also causes permanent disability and death. In June, 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO), without specific reference to DU, announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase by 50% by 2020. WHO is usually conservative in its estimates. Might they believe things are potentially far worse? And are they closely examining the effects of DU to those in combat areas where these weapons are and have been used?

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEN20060119&articleId=1754

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. If terrorists were spreading this crap around, shrub and co would

be trumpeting the evil nature of it to high heaven.... but you know how it goes, do as I say...

[Clara T]

3. A death sentence here and abroad- It comes home to roost

This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate – the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.

In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”

Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.

The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II.

http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml

[NMDemDist2]

2. K&N chilling stuff indeed and makes me happy I'm childless n/t

[cascadiance]

4. Even dioxin "lakes" in Vietnam are still causing problems today too!

The U.S. has been the biggest abuser of WMD's around. There are still many birth defects in babies born *today* and people dying from cancer and other dioxin related illnesses from Agent Orange being sprayed over many areas of Vietnam. Not to mention so much of that area is deforested probably permanently for many generations' lifetimes that screws up their way of life for many years. Check out "Battle's Poison Cloud" documentary for more details on this:

http://www.hollywoodinvestigator.com/2004/battlespoisoncloud.htm

It's been playing recently either on Free Speech TV or Link TV. Might show up there again in the coming weeks.

And like depleted Uranium, it has also caused health problems to our soldiers who fought over there too!

[Clara T]

5. Agent Blue and Agent White like DU keep killing long after the war

The rice paddies and waterways in Viet Nam are very contaminated with Monsanto's toxic legacy. And the same thing keeps rolling along via the War Profiteers in the Pentagon:

"The fact is that the United States and its military partners have staged four nuclear wars, "slipping nukes under the wire" by using dirty bombs and dirty weapons in countries the US needs to control. Depleted uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those regions, where there are resources which the US must control, in order to establish and maintain American primacy.

Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing. The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years, the age of the earth. And, as Uranium-238 decays into daughter radioactive products, in four steps before turning into lead, it continues to release more radiation at each step. There is no way to turn it off, and there is no way to clean it up. It meets the US Government’s own definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

After forming microscopic and submicroscopic insoluble Uranium oxide particles on the battlefield, they remain suspended in air and travel around the earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust, contaminating the environment, indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing disease in all living things where rain, snow and moisture remove it from the atmosphere. Global radioactive contamination from atmospheric testing was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs, and still contaminates the atmosphere and lower orbital space today. The amount of low level radioactive pollution from depleted uranium released since 1991, is many times more (deposited internally in the body), than was released from atmospheric testing fallout.

A 2003 independent report for the European Parliament by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), reports that based on Chernobyl studies, low level radiation risk is 100 to 1000 times greater than the International Committee for Radiation Protection models estimate which are based on the flawed Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies conducted by the US Government. Referring to the extreme killing effects of radiation on biological systems, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the 46 international radiation expert authors of the ECRR report, describes it as:

"The concept of species annihilation means a relatively swift, deliberately induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act which requires a new word to describe it: omnicide."

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm

 

[AuntiBush]

6. O.M.G.

Explains A LOT.

I'm passing this one on to everyone I know.

[AuntiBush]

7. Sorry. Meant to Ask First

May I have your permission to pass these links on to others?

[Clara T]

8. Yes of course- Here are some more links on this horror

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm

http://traprockpeace.org/du_dot_letter_hunter.html

http://traprockpeace.org/du_mod_warning_cards.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0809-33.htm

http://traprockpeace.org/du_koehler_24march04.html

http://traprockpeace.org/TribTest062803.html

[AuntiBush]

9. Thank you, Clara T.

Passing these 'round. Commend you, as well!

[AuntiBush]

10. ...

The power hour!

We're on the same page. How did I miss this? Extra thanks.

[Clara T]

11. kick for truth

[Clara T]

12. U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM

U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM

TESTIMONY AT THE JUNE 28, 2003, PUBLIC HEARING FOR

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

CHIBA, CHIBA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

BY

LEUREN MORET [e-mail]

PRESIDENT, SCIENTISTS FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

CITY OF BERKELEY ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSIONER

PAST PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN GEOSCIENTISTS

BLUEPRINT FOR DEPLETED URANIUM

A classified memo1 dated October 30, 1943, was sent to General L.R. Groves from Dr. A.H. Compton, Dr. James B. Conant, and Dr. H.C. Urey, three of the most competent physicists working under General Groves on the Manhattan Project.  This memo, written nearly two years before the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was a recommendation that radiological materials be developed for use as a military weapon on the battlefield.  It is a blueprint for depleted uranium weaponry. 
This memo which is now declassified, was given to me by Major Doug Rokke, a physicist and former head of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Weapons Project.  He is a Gulf War I veteran and is now suffering from depleted uranium exposure with severe health effects refered to as Gulf War Syndrome.  My work is inspired by the hibakusha around the world who, like Doug, have told me their stories.

It is clear from this memo that the U.S. Government and military have known before 1943 that radioactive materials, dispersed as very fine particles on the ground or from the air, would be an effective battlefield weapon.  This plan was recommended so that the Germans would not develop it first from radioactive materials created by the waste of nuclear weapons development.  Depleted uranium is nuclear trash from the nuclear weapons project.

In the memo, the scientists recommended dispersing the radioactive materials in very fine particles, 0.1 microns in diameter, from the ground or the air.  It would disperse like a radioactive gas, invisible and undetectable to the enemy.  They described how increasing the amounts of radiation dispersed would accelerate the lethality and decrease the time until death and increase the numbers of dead. 
It was known at that time that it would contaminate the air, water, food, and the soil. Entry into contaminated environments was impossible without certain exposure both to the enemy and to friendly forces.  The memo detailed the fact that no protective methods were possible to develop, and that very fine particles would pass through all gas masks. 

The memo also described that inhaled particles behave like a gas in the lungs, go directly into the blood and are dispersed thoughout the tissues of the body.  The gut would also be exposed by ingesting contaminated foods, and areas of the gut where the food sat for longer periods would have more radiation exposure and increased damage.

http://traprockpeace.org/TribTest062803.html

[confuddled]

13. Ever heard of Baby Noor?

Couple of weeks ago the MSM was busily casting the U.S. as a hero for transporting this baby born with spinal bifida from Iraq to someplace in the southern U.S. (Atlanta?) for reparative surgery. I had a fit over their failure to mention any thing at all about our use of DU and its relationship to birth defects such as this. Of course, as a result of my emails to ABC there is now vast coverage of the DU issue. Not.

Thanks for posting this.

[Clara T]

14. Mushrooming DU scandal- Heads roll at Veterans Administration

Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal
Heads roll at Veterans Administration
by Bob Nichols

January 21, 2006
SF Bay View


Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”
Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”

He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.


“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.

“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”

When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NIC20060121&articleId=1771

[leftchick]

15. so we have Found The Real Terrorist in the war on terra!

and it is the USA!

[Clara T]

16. Deplete Uranium is WMD

Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.

DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law.

Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion years.

The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons.
DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and smaller.

The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L. Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas weapons - dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0809-33.htm

[Karenina]

17. Thank you, Clara T!

:kick:

[Clara T]

18. Please send this message far and wide.

We must not ignore what we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and have done in Kososvo. Our use of radio-active weaponry in these places is KILLING OUR TROOPS AS WELL AS THE CITIZENS of these countries. Our troops are poisoned with radio-active substances and dying from it. Their children are born with massive defects. We have created a nuclear wasteland that will kill and kill and kill.
 
C'mon folks....THIS IS SHEER INSANITY !
 
Raise your voices! Write the editor! Call the talk show! March in the streets! We can not allow this to continue!
 
Please send this message far and wide.

SILENT GENOCIDE
By Robert C. Koehler
 
 
Tribune Media Services
 
 
"After the Americans destroyed our village and killed many of us, we also lost our houses and have nothing to eat. However, we would have endured these miseries and even accepted them, if the Americans had not sentenced us all to death."
 
 
This will not be easy to read, especially if you've projected evil out of your own heart, into some cave in Afghanistan or a spider hole in Iraq, and reduced the age-old question it inspires to this one:
How can we bomb it off the face of the earth?
Before the damage we inflict grows greater, before history's judgment gets worse, before we contaminate the whole world - even before we vote in the next election - we must stop what we're doing. We must stop now.
 
 
It's time to listen for a moment not to defense analysts briefing officers, pols or pundits, but to people like Jooma Khan, a grandfather who lives in a village in Laghman Province, in northeastern Afghanistan, who is quoted above. Surely he deserves 30 seconds of our undivided attention. "When I saw my deformed grandson," he told an interviewer in March of 2003, "I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good. (This is) different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape."
 
We're waging war-plus in Afghanistan and Iraq - in effect, nuclear war, with our widespread use of depleted-uranium-tipped shells and missiles. This is no secret. DU, with its extraordinary penetrating power and explode-on-impact capability, helps assure our military dominance everywhere we go. But people like Jooma Khan and his grandson reap its toxic legacy.
So, of course, do our own troops.
 
Kahn's words are only a sliver of the damning testimony contained in the documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan, a Japanese citizens' initiative that recently concluded its two-year inquiry into the first phase of the Bush Administration's war on terror. But they say everything that we cannot hear. If we could hear Jooma Khan, and others who are sounding the alarm about DU, such as former Livermore Labs geologist Leuren Moret, who testified at the tribunal, there would not be mere thousands of people in the streets of American cities demanding that we stop the war, but hundreds of thousands, or millions - the sort of numbers that turn out in
other parts of the world.
The use of DU weaponry is not the extent of our criminal
irresponsibility in Afghanistan and Iraq, which led to the tribunal's guilty verdict against George Bush on charges of war crimes, but it's the most chilling. (You can check out the full report at, among other places,
www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm)

http://traprockpeace.org/du_koehler_24march04.html
 
 

[Karenina]

24. Clara T...

:yourock:

[Pavulon]

21. So does Mercury

Lead, Strontium, and the contents of your laptop battery. All toxic heavy metals.

DU is an ultra dense heavy metal. Like the Tungsten round it replaced.

If someone can produce a Groves memo I would be impressed. FIFA has come a long way..

Alpha particles bounce off your skin. Radon gas (which comes out of the ground) is a greater threat than the DU boogey man. Unless you sit around and eat it.

Put this energy toward getting people to check their homes for radon.

[bpilgrim]

19. they are the most sophisticated dirty bombs in use today (n/t)

peace

[Pavulon]

20. Good effort

But not really a scientific piece. DU is a heavy metal. All "atomicity" a side, it is dangerous.

But it if you google the author you may get a better insight to this piece. The MSDS for depleted Uranium and its industrial handling in the US and Europe are indicators of how it effects people. There are numerous credible sources of toxicology information on the chemical.

The article is grossly misleading. The lack of sources cited speaks volumes.

[Clara T]

22. Have you read Leuren Moret's work on this?

Or Dr. Rosalie Bertell? Or Doug Rokke's? Or.....

Have to go now but there are plenty of other scientists not in the pay of the Pentagon to corroborate what is being said here.

Google is your friend.

Links?

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm

[Pavulon]

26. I have read plenty

And posted links here in the past. This article is not based in science.

It is a joke.

I handled it briefly in the ANG, my wife , who is a radiologist, graduated from Duke is a pretty good resource on nuclear medicine.

DU is toxic but it is not a gamma emitter, it is not a long term threat.

A smoke detector is a wmd under the context of this article.

This topic of DU super toxic ultra killer has been debunked in reputable publications world wide.

It is an effective weapon, until a replacement is found, I would bet it will be around for many years.

[bpilgrim]

23. weak effort on your part with 0 links

do you even know what is being discussed here?

peace

[Pavulon]

27. Don't need a link

to say the sky is blue.

[bpilgrim]

29. thats why it's weak

fyi: it's a DU tradition ;->

peace

[SidDithers]

25. But what about Thorium?!!!?...

My god, it's used everywhere, from television sets, to camping lanterns, cameral lenses, even photoelectric cells. Th232 is radioactive and has a half life of 14 trillion years!! It's gonna be poisoning us forever!

There are lots of articles with good science out there for why DU should not be used as a weapon. This is not one of them.

Sid

[JohnyCanuck]

28. Do you breath paricles of thorium from these sources into your lungs?

See:

Contamination of Persian Gulf War Veterans and Others by Depleted Uranium
by Leonard A. Dietz (a former nuclear physicist for GE and the Knolls Atomic Power Lab for 28 years and now deceased /JC)

It has been reported widely in the press that numerous Persian Gulf War veterans have become ill with with Gulf War Syndrome. During the war they were exposed to toxic chemicals, experimental drugs, insect repellents and depleted uranium or DU (Ref. 1). Uranium is known to be highly toxic both chemically and radiologically (Ref. 2). It has not yet been determined to what degree DU may have caused their illnesses and genetic defects in their children conceived and born after the war. Few veterans were aware that DU munitions were used until after they were exposed to uranium and became ill. Some were told about the gamma emission from DU but no one was told about the health dangers of inhaling fine particles of uranium oxide dust generated when a DU penetrator hits armor (Ref. 3). Eight days after the shooting stopped, a directive from Army Headquarters gave the first instructions to troops on how to treat radioactively contaminated vehicles (Ref. 4).

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a physical model of how easily many Gulf War veterans could have acquired dangerous quantities of DU in their bodies. To accomplish this we review the pyrophoric nature of uranium metal and its radioactivity. We show how readily uranium aerosol dust can be transported great distances by wind action in the atmosphere, pathways that DU aerosol particles can take into the body and become absorbed, and the tonnage of DU munitions fired during the Gulf War. This information is used to construct a contamination model that explains how large numbers of soldiers very likely became contaminated on the battlefields in Kuwait and Iraq. We show how the U.S. military views the safety of DU munitions, and we close by mentioning some of the known exposures of U.S. soldiers to DU and noting the high percentage of severe birth defects in children conceived and born in many families of Gulf War veterans.

http://www.wise-uranium.org/dgvd.html

See also the words of a former Head of Nuclear Medicine at the VA's medical faclitiy in Wilmington, Delaware and Professor of Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University

Dr. Durakovic served as Chief of Professional Clinical Services of the 531 Medical Detachment during the Desert Shield phase of the Gulf War. When he returned to the Veteran's Administration (VA) Nuclear Medicine facility in Wilmington, Delaware, which he headed, he was asked to assess 24 soldiers of the 144th Transportation and Supply Company of New Jersey for evidence of DU in their bodies. He recalls: "They had been based in Saudi Arabia from January to August 1991, working with damaged tanks hit by DU armour-piercing shells from 'friendly fire.'" Durakovic's team performed a whole-body count of uranium 238 on the troops and found that 14 of the 24 had been contaminated. According to Durakovic's June 26, 1997, testimony before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the government 'lost' all records of these examinations. And shortly thereafter, Durakovic 'lost' his job.

Durakovic may have been forced to step down from his VA position at Wilmington, but the army could not strip him of his ethics as a medical doctor. In the interests of his patients he founded the Uranium Medical Research Center, an independent non-profit institute which studies the effects of uranium contamination and challenges Pentagon claims that "exposures to depleted uranium have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation." Dr. Durakovic explains that when depleted uranium is blown up at high temperatures, it changes to tiny particles. If inhaled, the uranium particles can get into the bloodstream and can be lodged in the bone, lymph nodes, lungs or kidneys causing damage by emitting low-level radiation in the body over a long period of time. The price can be cancer, necrosis and genetic deformity. Inexplicable, then, the Pentagon's refusal to comply with a 1993 congressional mandate to study the health effects of inhaled and ingested depleted uranium dust.

Or does the answer lie close at hand? According to Dr. Durakovic there are two main reasons for the Pentagon's DU-paranoia - and they both involve money: compensation for those suffering from DU-contamination, and the exorbitant costs of battle theatre clean up. But money seems a petty concern when we are talking about changes to the human gene pool. "Deformities among children born to Gulf War vets are well-documented as is the rising incidence of birth malformations in Iraq," Dr Durakovic points out. "What will happen in future generations? I have seen the effects of radiation worldwide. The consequences of DU are immeasurable."

http://www.nuclear-free.com/english/durakovic.htm

See the facts and ficitons section of the Uranium Medical Research Centre started by Dr. Durakovi after he was fired by the VA for refusing to drop his investigation of DU contamination of Gulf War 1 vets.

Fiction: Governments in Canada, the US, the UK, and the World Health Organisation have carried out DU testing on individuals exposed to inhalational DU.

Fact: Although tests have been conducted, they did not employ the proper methodology and equipment to quantify inhalational exposure to DU. They tested individuals for total uranium.

DU is always mixed with a natural uranium background so you have to measure the DU in the presence of natural uranium. That requires an isotopic analysis of U235, U238 at least and preferably also of U236 which does not exist in natural uranium. The U238/U235 ratio of 137.9 indicates natural uranium; ratios above 140 provide unequivocal evidence of the presence of depleted uranium. It is essential to determine whether the uranium is depleted, enriched, or natural uranium in order to determine how long it has been in the body. If DU or enriched uranium is found in the body, we can postulate that it has been internally irradiating the victims since their exposure.

The total uranium measurement by itself is not important, most people have uranium which they take in and eliminate on a daily basis though water or food. The US DU testing program tested shrapnel victims; they have not tested for inhalational exposures.

The WHO study did not test human samples. The Canadian and Belgian studies used equipment that could not measure U235.


Fiction: Uranium usage and levels are too low to be a concern or merit investigation.

Fact: It is estimated that 300 - 800 metric tons of DU were deposited in the battlefield in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Dr. Doug Rokke (DU expert and former US army physicist) estimated that 120 to 480 million grams of DU would be aerosolized if 40% of the DU were burnt up.

Compare these numbers to the allowable limits for radiation releases in the US. The National Lead Industry Plant in Colonie, NY was closed down for violating a New York state court order which limited the amount of radiation released to 387 gram of DU metal per month. The plant closed down in February of 1980 for exceeding this limit and closed permanently in 1983. The area has been decontaminated. The engineering report states that the soil from 53 of the 56 nearby properties was beyond the radiation limits and had to be removed to a low-level radiation storage site. The cost was over 100 million USD. The cleanup cost was 1000 USD per cubic meter.

DU in the US must be processed in a facility that is licensed to handle radioactive material. The military has rules to handle radioactive emissions when they store or handle radioactive rounds. However, there are no controls whatsoever and no rules for cleaning up after a cannon round is fired and the danger is far greater when the Uranium becomes aerosolized.

More than 100,000 DU shells were fired during the Gulf War. More than 30,000 rounds were fired by NATO forces during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, most of them by US tank-busting A10 ground support crafts. Around 10,000 rounds were fired in operations around Sarajevo, in the latter stages of allied operations in Bosnia.

http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx

See also the presentation of cancer specialist Thomas Fasy MD PhD from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NYC.

Dr. Fasy is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He has longstanding interests in carcinogenesis and environmental toxicology. In the past two years, he has lectured at conferences and university campuses on the toxic effects of inhaling uranium oxide dusts derived from depleted uranium weapons.

<snip>

Uranium is radioactive and it is a toxic heavy metal. Inside the body, uranium exists as uranyl ions. Much of the toxicity of uranium is chemically mediated, in addition to the effects mediated by radiation.

<snip>

It is now clear that uranium has multiple toxicities. This slide summarizes some of the major toxicities of uranium.

By the early 1900s, uranium was well recognized to be a kidney toxin. By the mid-1940s, uranium was known to be a neurotoxin. By the early 1970s, uranium was recognized to be a carcinogen based on mortality studies of uranium workers and on experiments with dogs and monkeys. The first evidence that uranyl ions bind to DNA was reported in 1949 and by the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a mutagen. Also, in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

Now let us briefly consider the routes of exposure to uranium. In the context of the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons, this means exposure to uranium oxides. By far the most dangerous route of exposure to uranium oxides is the inhalational or respiratory route. Absorption of uranium oxides through the gastrointestinal tract, the skin and the conjunctivae is possible but quite limited.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4124449

[SidDithers]

30. No, but the article in the OP said nothing about breathing dust...

or alpha decay occurring in the lungs, only about radiation encircling the globe and lasting for 4.5 billion years.

You've posted the same articles in reply to me 3 times now, but I think we're actually on the same side here. There is ample evidence that when aerosolized (is that a word?), DU particles get in the lungs and the alpha radiation given off is very damaging. DU is also a heavy metal, with similar toxic properties to any number of heavy metals. It really is bad stuff.

But, hysterical, unscientific articles like the one in the OP, and the one in the other thread about Iraq and Afghanistan becoming a radioactive wasteland for 4.5 billion years, allow those opposed to the use of DU to be portrayed as crazy CT'ers who don't know anything about science.

There are plenty of legitimate arguments against the use of DU in weapons. I'd like to stop seeing misleading science being used when it doesn't have to be.

Sid

[Clara T]

31. "Depleted Uranium" is just a military euphemism

And as usual those who, knowingly or not, serve to diminish the tragic long-term consequences of this horror give little or no evidence to back up theur assertions.







Because depleted uranium carries both a chemical and a radiological threat, its long-term implications are even more severe. Depleted uranium, despite that reassuring adjective in its name, possesses 60 percent of natural uranium's radioactivity. Malcolm Hooper, a professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, in England, has characterized depleted uranium as "a new weapon for indiscriminate, mutually assured destruction." During the gulf war alone, U.S. troops discharged munitions containing 340 tons of depleted uranium. That contributed significantly, in Hooper's view, to making the gulf war "the most toxic war in Western military history."
On the eve of the gulf war, the American nuclear scientist Leonard A. Dietz warned of catastrophic consequences if the United States and its allies introduced depleted-uranium weaponry to the battlefield. His prescient appeal was ignored. And the gulf war has left in its wake radioactive landscapes that will continue, for untold years, to wage widespread, random warfare.
When Dietz cautioned against integrating depleted uranium into conventional warfare, his alarm was grounded in experience. During the late 1970s, he was employed to monitor depleted-uranium levels outside an Albany, N.Y., factory that produced cannon shells for the Air Force. New York State authorities, on learning that radiation levels near the factory had reached 10 times permissible state standards, shut down the plant. The subsequent cleanup cost more than $100-million.
Dietz underscored the hypocrisy of such stringent domestic regulation when the United States was creating, in the Persian Gulf, an infinitely more toxic environment for its troops and for the region's inhabitants.
"To protect the health of Americans, we shut down a factory for discharging the equivalent of about two 30-mm. shells into the atmosphere per month," Dietz says. "How can we justify using a million such shells in Iraq and Kuwait, most of it in only four days of war?"
What accounts for depleted uranium's sudden surge in military popularity?
As a byproduct of nuclear testing and nuclear power, depleted uranium is
extremely cheap
indeed, better than free. Half a century of nuclear-weapons and nuclear-power production has left the Department of Defense with over a billion pounds of nuclear waste in storage. The department is delighted to offload some of that waste onto arms manufacturers, gratis, in the form of depleted uranium. The result is a seductive kind of alchemy: Weapons manufacturers magically cut their production costs while the Defense Department magically rids itself of a five-alarm waste product that no American wants buried in his backyard. The result is a kind of anti-environmental recycling that converts highly toxic waste into even more deadly explosive forms.
By expanding its depleted-uranium arsenal, America is effectively exporting nuclear waste to foreign soil -- nuclear waste that contains plutonium, for which there are no safe levels. This nuclear waste also contains the uranium isotope 236, which does not exist in nature and has caused concern among epidemiologists.
Foreign war zones may appear far off; and, yes, foreign civilians bear the brunt of the noxious load. However, they do not bear that load alone:


http://www.utoronto.ca/csus/pm/rnixon.htm

[Silverhair]

37. Why DU is used by the military.

It is heavier than lead, and harder than steel. That makes it a great kinetic-energy armor piercing round. It is also used in aircraft as inert ballast to get weight distribution correct.

It is not used in just about all munitions as you claim. The military uses it where it makes the munition more immediately effective. In bombs, it would make them less effective as it would make the shell of the bomb too heavy, thereby taking away from the amount of explosives in the bomb. Less explosive material in the bomb is NOT desired by the military.

Hype does NOT help our cause. It damages our credibility.

[SidDithers]

41. You link to articles...

which quote a 4.5 billion year half-life like that's a bad thing. You need to learn the science behind particle decay.

You use a link to the University of Toronto, where I earned a specialist degree in Physics btw, yet it's to the Centre for Studies of the United States, not to the Physics Department, or the Faculty of Medicine, or Department of Medical Biophysics. I don't expect sociologists or historians to know physics, just as I don't expect gardeners to perform surgery.

I know what I know about radiation physics because I did the work, and earned a degree in the subject, not because I spent 5 minutes googling "Depleted Uranium".

And everyone keeps quoting Leonard A Dietz. I'd like to know more about him. I see him referred to as Dr. Leonard Dietz, but can only find evidence of his BS and MS degrees. Does he have a phd? Is he a medical doctor?

Sid

[Silverhair]

45. Good Post !!!

[beam me up scottie]

48. Stop Abusing Science.

I think trotsky said that.

[beam me up scottie]

46. Oh my gawd, Sid, they thought you were serious...

:banghead:

pssst! whatever you do, don't tell them about Dihydrogen Monoxide!

[SidDithers]

47. Don't get me started on THAT stuff...

jeez, talk about a pervasive chemical!

Sid

[Silverhair]

32. Your science is very bad.

DU has a half life of 4.5 billion years. That means it is extremely stable - NOT highly radioactive. Sadly, some progressives take advantage of people's general ignorance of science, and try to use DU for political purposes. But that only serves to damage our credibility.

The shorter the half-life, the MORE dangerous a substance is. The longer the half-life, the LESS dangerous it is. Deplete uranium has a half-life of 4,500,000,000 years. That is about the age of the planet.

In your body you have natural C-14 which is decaying at a much faster rate, and you have cosmic particles zipping right on through you.

DU is a heavy metal, so heavy metal poisoning is possible, but that is not from radioactivity.

You can flame me all you want to, but you can't change the facts of science.

[Clara T]

33. Comforting

For the children of Iraq and the US soldiers that my science is to be attacked, though it isn't even my science.








The zero level represents the incidence rate for 1990. The incidence rates for total childhood cancers and for leukemias rose significantly between 1995 and 1998 and then began to increase sharply in 1999. In this graph, leukemia patients in the Basrah governate are seperated into three age groups: those diagnosed with leukemia before age 5, those diagnosed between age 5 and 9, and those diagnosed between ages 10 and 15. This graph shows a striking increase in the number of leukemia cases in children younger than five. In 1990, 2 children under five were diagnosed with leukemia; In 2002, 53 children under five were diagnosed with leukemia.

[Silverhair]

34. You are relying on Saddam's statistics.

I would hardly consider stats gathered during Saddam's time to be reliable.

And you can't change that 4.5 Billion years is a highly stable isotope. That is a fact.

Yes, it does decay, but at such a slow rate that in human terms, it doesn't change at all.

[JohnyCanuck]

35. Stable is a relative term.

It might be relatively stable compared to other radioactive elements, but as nuclear physicist Leonad Dietz explains, due to the radioactive decay process the depleted uranium particles from exploded DU munitions which are inhaled into the lungs and then become lodged in body tissue will be emitting not just alpha particles (as is the case with 100% pure depleted uranium, U-238), but significant beta and gamma radiation as well from the daughter elements created by the radioactive decay process started by the U-238. The first two radioactive decay progeny Th-234 and Pa-234 are not as stable as the U-238 with much shorter half lives, and within 6 months a sample of initially 100% pure U-238 will be emitting significantly more radiation than is emitted by pure U-238 alone, mostly as beta radiation.

After 25 weeks, Th-234 and Pa-234 have reached 99.4% of the decay rate of U-238 and for practical purposes have reached secular equilibrium with U-238, their parent isotope. Secular equilibrium means that the decay progeny of U-238 are being replaced at the same rate they are decaying; after 25 weeks all three isotopes are decaying at approximately the same rate. This is a maximum time; in reality, equilibrium will be reached much faster, since these two isotopes can never be separated totally from U-238. The isotope U-238 emits alpha particles and also emits some gamma rays. Its decay progeny Th-234 and Pa-234 each emit beta particles and gamma rays. An alpha particle is a fast helium atom with its two electrons removed, a beta particle is a high-speed electron and a gamma ray is like an X-ray.

From this analysis we conclude that in a solid sample of DU, six months at most after manufacture of a DU penetrator, or DU armor for a tank, or DU particles in a person's body, substantial additional radiation in the form of beta particles and gamma rays always will be present. In fact, most of the penetrating gamma radiation and all of the penetrating beta radiation from DU comes, not from uranium, but from the decay progeny of U-238 (Ref. 15). In a year, only one-thousandth of a gram (1 milligram or mg) of DU generates more than a billion alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. The U.S. Army has investigated the generation of DU aerosols in armored vehicles hit by DU cannon rounds. Their investigators report "...that personnel inside DU struck vehicles could receive a dose in the `tens of milligrams' range due to inhalation" (Ref. 16). This exposure results in an acute dose of uranium.

<snip>

We can now propose a plausible model of how veterans became contaminated with DU during the Gulf War. It consists of a sequence of three steps:

1. Source: in a local area of a battlefield, hundreds of kilograms of micrometer-size DU particles were generated suddenly by cannon fire from U.S. airplanes and tanks at concentrated formations of Iraqi armor. Thermal columns from burning tanks and vehicles then carried aloft these localized plumes of DU aerosol particles.

2. Dispersal: Clouds of DU aerosol particles were dispersed far and wide by wind action over the battlefield and, based on the KAPL measurements, the fallout range of these uranium micro-particles could be up to 26 miles (42 km) or more (Ref. 11).

3. Inhalation and Ingestion: Unprotected U.S. service personnel could inhale and ingest huge numbers of DU particles into their lungs and bodies, where much of the DU could become absorbed in vital organs and bones. The ICRP biokinetic model explains how uranium aerosol particles can enter the body and become absorbed (Ref. 29).

The U.S. Army and the Veterans Administration have shown an unwillingness to investigate health issues associated with the toxicity and radioactivity of inhaled and ingested DU aerosol particles that have become absorbed in the body. Both have refused to test large numbers of veterans for the presence of DU in their bodies; so far only a handful have been tested. According to Laura Flanders, as of January, 1995, at least 45,000 soldiers deployed to the Persian Gulf during the war are suffering from symptoms connected with their service (Ref. 37).

http://www.wise-uranium.org/dgvd.html#CONTMOD

Dr Asaf Durakovic, a former nuclear medicine specialist with the VA and also Professor of Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University who treated GW 1 vets for DU contamination while employed with the VA, agrees that the most significant danger from DU occurs by inhaling the uranium particles after DU munitions have been exploded as the particles become stuck in the lungs or cross the lung/blood barrier into the bloodstream and then are stored in the internal organs or bone where they can damage the stem cells and wreak havoc with the DNA. Dr. Durakovic points out that although we probably all get some uranium contamination just by the act of eating, this uranium is generally not stored in the body for any length of time but is passed through the gastrointestinal tract. However, he points out that the depleted uranium from exploded munitions usually enters the body by respiaration and from there it becomes stored in the body for a prolonged period of time.

From the web site of the Uranium Medical Research Centre (founded by Dr. Durakovic)

An infinitesimal quantity of natural uranium is ingested in the body on a daily basis. It passes through the body with minimal effects. It is absorbed very poorly in the gastrointestinal tract (only 2% absorption). Approximately 10 nanograms (a nanogram is 1 one-billionth of a gram) is excreted daily in human urine.

Once mined, uranium is refined into concentrated packets of almost pure uranium. It is this highly concentrated “natural” uranium which is processed to produce enriched uranium. The enrichment process increases the isotope U235 concentration to create Enriched Uranium which is more easily fissionable for use in nuclear weapons and reactors. This process also creates depleted uranium (DU) as a byproduct.

All uranium whether “natural”, “depleted” or “enriched” is a chemical and radiological toxic substance emitting alpha, beta and gamma particles. All forms of uranium differ from each other by only a fraction of one percent. Both natural and depleted uranium are over 99% composed of the isotope U238. The ratio of isotope U238/U235 gives the unique signature that identifies whether the uranium is enriched, natural, or depleted.

Radioactivity (disintegrations per second) in 1 milligram of U-238 at Secular Equilibrium

U-238: 12.4 alpha particles
Th-234: 12.4 beta particles
Pa-234: 12.4 beta particles
U-234: 0.017 alpha particles

In the course of one year, 1 milligram of uranium emits 390 million alpha particles, 780 million beta particles and associated gamma rays. This is over one billion high-energy, ionizing, radioactive particles and rays which can produce extensive biological damage.

The energy of a single alpha particle exceeds the amount required to damage important macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, enzymes and proteins. It does this by breaking molecular bonds and by chemical reactions, which alter or destroy the shape, organization, and function of these molecules.

http://www.umrc.net/uranium_basics.aspx

Fiction: Alpha particles can't penetrate clothes and skin.

Fact: This statement ignores the most prevalent and dangerous pathway for uranium to get into the human body. Inhaled uranium can remain in the lungs and bones for years where it continues to emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Each alpha particle can traverse up to several hundred cells causing somatic and genetic alterations. Multiply this by billions of such particles and a huge amount of cellular damage becomes possible. The majority (50-70%) of the airborne DU particles sampled during the testing of 105 mm DU projectiles were in the respirable range and capable of reaching the non-ciliated bronchial tree. Studies also indicate that the half-time in the lungs is up to 5 years.

Soluble DU compounds have rapid access to the bloodstream with consequent toxic effects on the target organs and the bone where it is incorporated. Mass spectrometry results of deceased Canadian veteran, Captain Terry Riordon, confirmed that depleted uranium was present in his bone. From there it can compromise the immune system and affect the stem cells that travel throughout the body thereby affecting many other organs. Soldiers inside a tank or armoured vehicle can inhale tens of milligrams of DU after the shell goes through the tank. Compare this to the maximum allowable yearly dose in the U.S. for inhaled uranium is 1.2 milligrams per year.

http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx

Pathologist and cancer researcher Thomas Fasy MD PhD agrees that the most significant and immediate danger from DU comes from respiration of the small particles of depleted uranium created after a warhead explodes or burns. He points out that in addition to whatever radiological damage is done by the depleted uranium it is also has a chemical effect on the DNA independent of the radiological effect

.....in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

<snip>

D.U. dust contains uranium in a form that is vastly more bio-available and more readily internalized.

Uranyl ions bind to DNA; they bind in the minor groove of DNA. While bound to DNA, uranyl ions are chemically reactive and can give rise to free radicals which may damage DNA. Chemically mediated DNA damage of this type may contribute to the ability of uranium to induce cancers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4124449

In the meantime more evidence continues to accumulate that depleted uranium is a chemical as well as a radiological hazard.

The radioactivity of DU does not cause the chromosome damage, immune system destruction, and birth defects which have been observed in Gulf War veterans and civilians; the chemical toxicity of uranyl nitrate, a large amount of which is produced when DU burns in the presence of a shell's explosive or a bullet's propellant, most certainly does. Uranyl nitrate is present in the muzzle flash of 30 mm DU ordnance, and at such ammunition's targets when the bullets burn upon impact, as they are designed to do.

Uranyl nitrate stays dissolved in air for a long time, so anyone in the vicinity, friend and foe, is likely to get a deadly lung full. None of the purported experts who were instrumental in what has become the largest friendly fire incident in history, apparently ever considered the toxicity of uranium combustion products on the public record.

The U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute has found that DU produces literally one million times as much chromosome damage as would be predicted from its radioactivity alone (J Inorg Biochem. 2002 Jul 25; 91(1): 246-52), and that it causes a form of "delayed reproductive death," which doesn't cease like exposure to simple radioactivity does (J Environ Radioact. 2003; 64(2-3): 247-59.)

The U.S. military has admitted that DU is "both neoplastically transforming and genotoxic" (Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2002; 99(1-4): 275-8.) Dr. Albrect Schott of Germany found that damage to chromosomes in the white blood cells of Gulf War veterans was about five times greater than the rest of the population (Radiat. Prot. Dosimetry, 2003;103(3):211-9.) All of these articles are available on the internet through MEDLINE/PubMed.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/1/05542/6088

By the way Silverhair, I found your brushing off the reported increases of birth defects in Iraq as jsut stats from "Saddam's time" quite callous and cold hearted. I think it is pretty well accepted that, whether or not it's DU related, there have been significant increases in birth defects and childhood leukemia and cancer in Iraq since GW 1(See articles linked below).

Imagine if a foreign military machine invaded the USA and, in addition to killing many Americans outright, started spreading depleted uranium over American territory. Then imagine that within a couple of years Americans were to see their own fellow citizens, their own wives and daughters, giving birth in increasing numbers to children with very severe birth defects, or to see their own children and their nieces and nephews and children of family friends coming down with cancer or leukemia in increasing numbers, especially in the areas that had the most significant exposures to the enemy's DU weapons. I venture to say that not too many Americans would quite so cavalierly dismiss the idea that depleted uranium had something to do with this.

Since Iraqi medical facilities have been effectively dismantled over the last 15 years or so, thanks to the sanctions and the effects of two wars, it's true the Iraqis might not have the necessary sophisticated testing and laboratory equipment to immediately prove beyond any scientific doubt their increases in birth defects and cancer are related to depleted uranium exposure. However, in light of the increasing evidence that depleted uranium is toxic from both a chemical and radiological perspective, and has an effect lasting well beyond the initial military engagement, the ethical course of action would be to stop using the stuff.

On Depleted Uranium
by David Sparling, M.D.

<snip>

Though infectious and nutritional disorders have been major causes of the doubling of infant mortality between 1990 and 1999 to 108 per 1000 live births and the quadrupling of deaths of children between the first and fifth birthdays to 22 per 1000 live births, the most startling development since the Gulf War has been the doubling and tripling of rates leukemia and other cancers among infants and children and of birth defects. These increases are particularly great in Basrah and the surrounding delta area. While French experts and the WHO have assisted the Ministry of Health in establishing a cancer registry, no birth defects registry has yet been established; as a consequence accurate data are generally unavailable, but hospital experience is unequivocal. At Basrah Pediatric and Maternity Hospital, in addition to a stillbirth rate of 4% to 5%, 10% of newborns show congenital anomalies, commonly including hydrocephalus, anencephaly, spina bifida, and severe anatomical abnormalities of the face and extremities, and consecutive births of two, or even three malformed infants in the same family are all too common. Out of 14,000 births, 60 cases of leukemia were diagnosed at less than a year of age, and among these there was an 80% fatality rate. Adult cancers, particularly cancer of the breast, and infertility among men have also become serious problems in this area.

http://www.tacomapjh.org/ondepleteduranium.htm

Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq
By James Cogan
10 May 2005

Iraqi doctors are making renewed efforts to bring to the world’s attention the growth in birth deformities and cancer rates among the country’s children. The medical crisis is being directly blamed on the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the US and British forces in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the 2003 invasion.

The rate of birth defects, after increasing ten-fold from 11 per 100,000 births in 1989 to 116 per 100,000 in 2001, is soaring further. Dr Nawar Ali, a medical researcher into birth deformities at Baghdad University, told the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) last month: “There have been 650 cases in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals. That is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher.”

His colleague, Dr Ibrahim al-Jabouri, reported: “In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother and father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country.”

The director of the Central Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, Wathiq Ibrahim, said: “We have asked for help from the government to make a more profound study on such cases as it is affecting thousands of families.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/iraq-m10.shtml

WHO ‘suppressed’ scientific study into depleted uranium cancer fears in Iraq

Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf war pose long-term health risk
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
Sunday Herald

An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret.

The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.

Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards.

Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.

http://www.tacomapjh.org/ondepleteduranium.htm

So for anyone out there who will be in contact with this stuff the question is, "Whom will you trust? - the defenders of the status quo like Silverhair (don't suppose there's any danger he'll be in a war zone any time soon) and the spokespeople for the military-industrial complex who have shown no hesitation in the past in using human subjects as guinea pigs, as in the case of the early atom bomb testing and in the widespread use of Agent Orange in Viet Nam, or those whistle blowers with an extensive background in nuclear medicine and/or nuclear research like Dr. Durakovic, Dr. Fasy, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Leonard Dietz. etc."

I guess we'll each have to make up our own mind.

[Silverhair]

36. Simple, look it up in physics books.

Physics has no politics. It simply is.

The rate of decay of DU is so slow that it might as well be stationary. Yes, when an atom of it does decay, the rest of the reaction goes fairly quickly - BUT THE INITIAL DECAY EVENTS ARE RARE. That is simply the physics of the matter.

Your claim that DU use in Iraq will wipe out all life on earth is simply hype, of the most exgerated sort.

[JohnyCanuck]

38. It still has the potential to emit damaging quantities of radiation.

Actually I don't think that I have ever claimed DU will wipe out all life on earth, although there are apparently scientists and medical authorities who do believe that it has the potential to be much more harmful to humanity and to the human genome worldwide than is currently acknowledged.

For example:

"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."

The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.

For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050429121615724

Durakovic may have been forced to step down from his VA position at Wilmington, but the army could not strip him of his ethics as a medical doctor. In the interests of his patients he founded the Uranium Medical Research Center, an independent non-profit institute which studies the effects of uranium contamination and challenges Pentagon claims that "exposures to depleted uranium have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation." Dr. Durakovic explains that when depleted uranium is blown up at high temperatures, it changes to tiny particles. If inhaled, the uranium particles can get into the bloodstream and can be lodged in the bone, lymph nodes, lungs or kidneys causing damage by emitting low-level radiation in the body over a long period of time. The price can be cancer, necrosis and genetic deformity. Inexplicable, then, the Pentagon's refusal to comply with a 1993 congressional mandate to study the health effects of inhaled and ingested depleted uranium dust.

Or does the answer lie close at hand? According to Dr. Durakovic there are two main reasons for the Pentagon's DU-paranoia - and they both involve money: compensation for those suffering from DU-contamination, and the exorbitant costs of battle theatre clean up. But money seems a petty concern when we are talking about changes to the human gene pool. "Deformities among children born to Gulf War vets are well-documented as is the rising incidence of birth malformations in Iraq," Dr Durakovic points out. "What will happen in future generations? I have seen the effects of radiation worldwide. The consequences of DU are immeasurable."

Dr Durakovic believes DU weapons will one day be strictly outlawed. "There is no alternative," he says. "The threat to the human race is too great. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to god and to all the generations who follow." (emphasis mine /jc)

http://www.nuclear-free.com/english/durakovic.htm

Stable or not, depleted uranium, in addition to whatever toxic effects it it has on the body due to its properties as a heavy metal, still emits alpha, beta and gamma radiation (as explained by nuclear physicist Leonard Dietz in his paper linked in my previous post) and medical personnel such as Dr. Durakovic, with a background in nuclear medicine and in treating DU contaminated patients, believe there is ample evidence that the inhaled DU particles are stored in the body in sufficient quantitites to make the consequent radiation potentially harmful.

In addition, the European Commission on Radiological Risk in 2003 put out a new report detailing evidence that low level radiation from various radioactive materials and isotopes of uranium is potentially much more harmful than previously acknoweleged especially when the exposure to the radiation is from an internal source, i.e. a source stored in the organs, bone etc. (as is the case with the DU).

ECRR 2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses for Radiation Protection Purposes. Regulators' Edition.

Executive Summary

<snip>

2. The report begins by identifying the existence of a dissonance between the risk models of the ICRP and epidemiological evidence of increased risk of illness, particularly cancer and leukaemia, in populations exposed to internal radioactive isotopes from anthropogenic sources. The committee addresses the basis in scientific philosophy of the ICRP risk model as applied to such risks and concludes that ICRP models have not arisen out of accepted scientific method. Specifically, ICRP has applied the results of external acute radiation exposure to internal chronic exposures from point sources and has relied mainly on physical models for radiation action to support this. However, these are averaging models and cannot apply to the probabilistic exposures which occur at the cell level. A cell is either hit or not hit; minimum impact is that of a hit and impact increases in multiples of this mimimum impact, spread over time. Thus the committee concludes that the epidemiological evidence of internal exposures must take precedence over mechanistic theory-based models in assessing radiation risk from internal sources.

3. The committee examines the ethical basis of principles implicit in the ICRP models and hence in legislation based on them. The committee concludes that the ICRP justifications are based on outmoded philosophical reasoning, specifically the averaging cost-benefit calculations of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has long been discarded as a foundation for ethical justification of practice owing to its inability to distinguish between just and unjust societies and conditions. It may, for example, be used to underpin a slave society, since it is only the overall benefit which is calculated, and not individual benefit. The committee suggests that rights-based philosophies such as Rawls Theory of Justice or considerations based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights should be applied to the question of avoidable radiation exposures to members of the public resulting from practice. The committee concludes that releases of radioactivity without consent can not be justified ethically since the smallest dose has a finite, if small, probability of fatal harm. In the event that such exposures are permitted, the committee emphasises that the calculation of 'collective dose' should be employed for all practices and time scales of interest so that overall harm may be integrated over the populations.

4. The committee believes that it is not possible accurately to determine 'radiation dose to populations' owing to the problems of averaging over exposure types, cells and individuals and that each exposure should be addressed in terms of its effects at the cell or molecular level. However, in practice, this is not possible and so the committee has developed a model which extends that of the ICRP by the inclusion of two new weighting factors in the calculation of effective dose. These are biological and biophysical weighting factors and they address the problem of ionisation density or fractionation in time and space at the cell level arising from internal point sources. In effect, they are extensions of the ICRP's use of radiation weighting factors employed to adjust for differences in ionisation density resulting from different quality radiations (e.g. alpha-, beta and gamma).

5. The committee reviews sources of radiation exposure and recommends caution in attempting to gauge the effects of novel exposures by comparison with exposures to natural radiation. Novel exposures include internal exposures to artificial isotopes like Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239 but also include micrometer range aggregates of isotopes (hot particles) which may consist of entirely man-made isotopes (e.g. plutonium) or altered forms of natural isotopes (e.g. depleted uranium). Such comparisons are presently made on the basis of the ICRP concept of 'absorbed dose' which does not accurately assess the consequence for harm at the cell level. Comparisons between external and internal radiation exposures may also result in underestimates of risk since the effects at the cell level may be quantitatively very different.

http://www.euradcom.org/2003/execsumm.htm

For anyone who might be interested, details on ordering copies of the commissions full report are here:
http://www.euradcom.org/2003/order.htm

[Silverhair]

39. From the OP:

DU may be the ultimate weapon of mass annihilation. Unless there's a mass worldwide public awakening to this threat to demand an immediate end to its use for any purpose, we're left with little more than the message from the subtitle of the Kubrick film - stop worrying and love the bomb--and likely prepare to die.

Sounds like the OP is predicting complete death to me. Numberous time OP refers to 400,000 Hiroshima bombs.

And the part that you empasised is predicting total human death from DU.

It is hype. The level of raioactivity is ultra low. It isn't completely zero, but it is so close to it that in human terms, it is zero. You live on a radioactive planet. That is a fact. If you have a home in a rocky area, your may be getting far more radiation from radon gas - a natural event. You get radiation from the sun. Cosmic particles are zipping through you right now.

DU is a very, very, very, low source of radiation.

[JohnyCanuck]

43. I am just posting links to comments

by what would presumably be considered qualified and experienced scientists and researchers in fields of human health and the effects of radiation on human health who have commented on the topic of the hazards posed by the low level radiation from DU.

They apparently are not satisfied, like you, that the potential hazard of the low level radiation once stored inside the body can safely be ignored (as discussed in the links previously posted). As the UMRC points out, the plants manufacturing DU munitions are held to strict standards regarding the permissible amounts of radiation from DU that they are allowed to emit from their DU processing activities. If they can't meet these standards they are closed down and a cleanup of the surrounding area is ordered. It is quite contemptible therefore that the US has no compunction on releasing quantities of DU on foreign countries many times in excess of what they is permitted to be inflicted on their own citizens.

Fiction: Uranium usage and levels are too low to be a concern or merit investigation.

Fact: It is estimated that 300 - 800 metric tons of DU were deposited in the battlefield in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Dr. Doug Rokke (DU expert and former US army physicist) estimated that 120 to 480 million grams of DU would be aerosolized if 40% of the DU were burnt up.

Compare these numbers to the allowable limits for radiation releases in the US. The National Lead Industry Plant in Colonie, NY was closed down for violating a New York state court order which limited the amount of radiation released to 387 gram of DU metal per month. The plant closed down in February of 1980 for exceeding this limit and closed permanently in 1983. The area has been decontaminated. The engineering report states that the soil from 53 of the 56 nearby properties was beyond the radiation limits and had to be removed to a low-level radiation storage site. The cost was over 100 million USD. The cleanup cost was 1000 USD per cubic meter.

DU in the US must be processed in a facility that is licensed to handle radioactive material. The military has rules to handle radioactive emissions when they store or handle radioactive rounds. However, there are no controls whatsoever and no rules for cleaning up after a cannon round is fired and the danger is far greater when the Uranium becomes aerosolized.

More than 100,000 DU shells were fired during the Gulf War. More than 30,000 rounds were fired by NATO forces during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, most of them by US tank-busting A10 ground support crafts. Around 10,000 rounds were fired in operations around Sarajevo, in the latter stages of allied operations in Bosnia.

http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx

However, all that being said it's increasingly apparent the stuff is poisonous to the human body and a cause of birth defects, leukemia and other cancers which have been noticeably increasing in Iraq ever since GW 1. Debating whether it is the radiation or the heavy metal toxicity causing the most damage is, in my opinion, something like watching the Titanic sinking from a passing ship and engaging in a debate as to whether most people will die by drowning or hypothermia, rather than immediately altering course and going to their assistance.

[Silverhair]

44. If it only rains one DROP a year in a square mile of desert...

...YOU WILL NOT GET A FLOOD. DU is like one drop a year of rain, and your are screaming, "We are all going to drown in the flood!!!"

[JohnyCanuck]

50. It's not me that screaming it Silverhair,

I'm just linking to articles in which qualified medical authorities with experience in nuclear medicine and/or treating patients with DU contamination have expressed concern that the radiation damage from expended DU munitions has the potential to affect human health in regions far beyond the original battlefields.

Why don't your contact this gentleman, for example:

Dr Chris Bubsy

Chris Busby is scientific consultant to the Low Level Radiation Campaign and director of the independent environmental consultancy, Green Audit. He obtained First Class Honours BSc (Special) in Chemistry from the University of London. He worked in research for the Wellcome Foundation applying spectroscopic and analytical methods to chemical pharmacology and molecular drug interactions. He discontinued doctoral research in spectroscopy at Queen Mary College, London, following a dispute over ethics and returned to Burroughs Wellcome. He later researched Raman spectro-electrochemistry at the University of Kent, gaining a PhD.

Since 1987, he has developed his interests in the health effects of ionizing radiation and developed the 'Second Event Theory' which distinguishes between hazards from external and internal irradiation. He is scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk in Brussels and also national speaker on Science and Technology for the UK Green Party. As member of the International Society for Environment Epidemiology, he was invited to Iraq and Kosovo to investigate the health effects of depleted uranium. He has also given presentations on depleted uranium to the Royal Society and to the European Parliament. He is a member of the UK Ministry of Defence Oversight Committee on Depleted Uranium.

Recently Green Audit was funded by the Irish Government to research the effects of Sellafield discharges on coastal populations. He is the author of 'Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health', and many articles and research papers on low level radiation. He has given expert evidence in court on many occasions, including the Connecticut State Court on nuclide emissions from the Millstone reactor to Long Island Sound.

He was elected a Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine (Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology) in February 2003.

http://www.cerrie.org/people/busby.php

Explain to him your scientific and medical qualifications and request that he stop scaring the kids with his alarmist BS (example below) as he clearly doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."

The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050429121615724

[Silverhair]

52. Sounds like he has an agenda first, science second.

You can't get a flood from one drop of rain per square mile.

[Raydawg1234]

49. Yes, But you can't deny that this is very likely the cause of Gulf war

syndrome. Given that there were so many tank Battles in the first gulf war, and that stricking metal causes DU to be spread in Aerosol form. And you neglect that the army admited that some DU contains plutonium and Uranium 236, which is highly radioactive.

[Silverhair]

51. Possibly as heavy metal poisoning, but not from radioactivity.

The stuff just isn't that radioactive.

[Clara T]

53. Good to keep the info flowing

Even if we're destroying the planet and stealing frrom the future.



http://www.grid.unep.ch/btf/final/

[MadHound]

40. Sorry, but this is bad science, and screaming fire with bad science

Will only harm the real case to be made against DU.

The radiation emitted by DU is minimal. It is primarily an alpha emitter, with a very minute amount of beta emissions thrown in. The time needed for DU to break down into other isotopes that emit gamma radiation is measured in hundreds of years, long after the person would have died of natural causes.

Now then, alpha emissions are easily blocked by a person's skin, beta can easily be blocked by cloth. And while these sorts of radiation can indeed do damage once they are in a person's body, the primary danger to people who inhale or ingest DU is heavy metal toxicity. THAT is where all the danger lies, not in the radiation effects. A person will die from the effects of heavy metal poisoning long before the radiation will take its toll.

This article is simply bad science, screaming about the possibility of a radioactive cloud of dust circling the globe killing people, when in reality about ninety percent of the blowing dust will settle within 125 miles of the source and become part of the soil, where it will cause little, if any harm unless it is brought back to the surface.

Don't get me wrong, DU is a huge problem in areas that we have used it, it is a slow motion genocide. But to put out such bad pseudo science as fact only damages the cause of removing it from America's aresenal, and doesn't address the real problems of DU. It makes all of us who are working against this killer look to be crackpots and cranks, and does a disservice to those who are opposed to its use. Rather than putting out bad pseudo science as fact, we should simply use the facts we know to be true. That is plenty enough ammunition to damn the use of this metal without having to resort to hyperbole and bad science.

[SidDithers]

42. Good post, Madhound...

:toast:

Sid

[Clara T]

54. "The radiation emitted by DU is minimal"?

Compendium of Uranium
 and Depleted Uranium Research
 1942 to 2004
 
(Please Note: This project is far from complete. Please
send additional contributions to [e-mail])
 
Editor & Contributor:  Dr. Dan Bishop
 
Contributors:  Dr. Furitsu Katsumi;  Dr. Glen Lawrence;  Gretel Munroe
 
Last Updated:  June 22, 2005


 Introduction
 
(Return to:  TOP;   Table of Contents;   Author Index)
 
 
At the outset, the reader must clearly understand that uranium and depleted uranium are radioactive heavy metals. Since the only chemical difference between the two is their isotopic composition, both have precisely identical chemical properties. Any research into the chemical behavior of one also applies to the other.
 
On the other hand, uranium and depleted uranium do exhibit different radiological properties, although that difference is slight. Both emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. The alpha radiation results from radioactive decay of the various uranium isotopes present in the sample. The beta and gamma radiation comes from the further radioactive decay of the daughter products that are formed as a result of the uranium decay, primarily thorium and protactinium. The basic difference between depleted uranium and natural uranium is that 70% of the more radioactive U-235 isotope has been removed from natural uranium, leaving a product that is thus depleted in this isotope and therefore called “depleted uranium”. In terms of alpha emissions only, depleted uranium has 60% of the specific activity (i.e. radiation output) of natural uranium. However, if all three types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma, are taken into account, depleted uranium has 78% of natural uranium’s specific activity. So even though depleted uranium is slightly less radioactive than natural uranium, the differences are small enough that any studies into the effects resulting from exposure to radiation from one can be expected to apply to the other as well. For this reason the compendium includes citations of  research for both uranium and depleted uranium.
 
The two conclusions above, however, assume that the depleted uranium is not contaminated with elements other than its naturally occurring decay products (thorium and protactinium). If the depleted uranium samples have been obtained from recovered or recycled nuclear reactor fuel, they will invariably be contaminated with other trans-uranic elements, such as plutonium, neptunium and amerecium. Since these components are not present in natural uranium, their presence in a sample of depleted uranium could seriously change the chemical and radiological behavior of that sample, both in laboratory tests and in epidemiological studies of health effects resulting from exposure to depleted uranium.
 
The reader should be alert to the following fact. Uranium and depleted uranium, as heavy metals, have long been recognized to exert toxic effects on exposed living tissues similar to those observed from exposure to chromium, nickel and lead, three non-radioactive heavy metals. It is also widely recognized that exposure to radiation can damage living tissues, particularly if the source of exposure is embedded within those tissues. Since uranium and depleted uranium exhibit both chemical and radiological effects, it is difficult (and perhaps impossible) in practice to separate the two effects in most experiments. One should evaluate with caution a researcher’s claim that he/she has done so in a particular experiment. One should also keep in mind the possibility that having both factors present in a single source may lead to synergistic effects wherein the effects actually observed may be more profound than the mere sum of the two individual effects when taken alone.
 
Another assumption that pervades the scientific community’s interpretation of effects resulting from radiation exposure is that exposure to alpha radiation is more harmful to living tissue than exposure to beta and gamma radiation. In fact, in establishing allowable dose levels, alpha radiation is assigned an enhancement factor of between 10 and 20 over a similar exposure to beta and gamma radiation. Although it is true that the much larger and heavier alpha particle creates severe destruction within the one or  two cells it penetrates, it is often observed that this destruction results in cell death. The body deals with dead cells from a number of causes as a matter of course every day. However, a beta particle and the electrons generated by a gamma ray, are also ionizing radiation and, being much more penetrating than alpha particles, may in their course through living tissue merely “maim” hundreds of cells, leaving them to continue their functions, albeit severely altered in some way. Some of these cells could provide the seeds for carcinogenesis.

Comprehensive studies at:
http://www.idust.net/Compendium/Compendium.htm

It's later than we think.

Prometheus unbound
 

[Clara T]

55. Alpha particles cause cancer

DU is a chemically toxic heavy metal and as such can lead to kidney and lung damage. As a radioactive substance, it is an alpha emitter which irradiates powerfully for short distances. The alpha particles cannot penetrate skin but if inhaled or ingested they can irradiate lung cells and other cells in the body. DU is composed of 99.8 percent Uranium 238, which decays into two principal daughter isotopes which give off beta radiation that can travel through at least 300 to just under 1,000 cells (29). It is also a weak gamma emitter which can traverse tissue and bone cells (30).
 
Alpha particles cause cancer

Research from England in Harwell, Oxfordshire and the Mt. Vernon Hospital in London (28), which was reported in the New Scientist in January 2001, demonstrated how a single alpha particle damages human white blood cells. Twenty-five percent of the irradiated cells after 12 divisions showed “patterns of broken or bent chromosomes.”(29) The study indicated that this was a first step in a series of biological events that could lead to cancer, more specifically leukemia.
 
Bystander Effect

Cells that are near by cells hit by alpha particles or other sources of low level radiation show signs of damage such as that sustained by the irradiated cells. Miller and colleagues (33) found that although fewer than 5 percent of human cells were traversed by an alpha particle, approximately 14 percent of the DU-exposed cells underwent neoplastic transformation (34). In an experiment at Los Alamos, a low dose of alpha particles caused excessive sister chromatid exchange (SCE), a chromosomal aberration (35) in about 23 percent of human lung fibrobast cells; in this case under 3 percent of the nuclei of the cells were impacted by the radiation (36).
 
In a study by Belyakov, Malcolmson et al. (2001)(37) a helium ion (“effectively an alpha particle”) hit the nucleus of a single human fibroblast cell in a dish 10 by 10 milllimeters (38) in size and populated by 5,00 human fibroblast cells. The targeting of one of these cells typically led to mutations (micronuclei formation (39)in this case) in approximately 100 other cells in different regions of the dish. Damaged cells were often more than a millimeter apart. As the researchers stated, since other bystander effects besides micronuclei formation might have been present, the measurement of the number of cells showing micronuclei formation only may have underestimated the number of damaged cells (40).
Bystander effects include, in addition to neoplastic transformation, chromosomal aberrations including breakage and micronuclei formation, mutations, apoptosis (cell suicide), cell killing or delayed cell death, enhanced cell growth and the induction of genomic instability (see next topic)(41) as well as increased radioresistance (42).
 
It is thought that damage to the unirradiated (bystander) cells may occur via signaling across gap junctions from an irradiated cell to a non-irradiated cell. However culture medium of irradiated cells when put in a different cell population can cause the same damage as in the original irradiated cells (43). Yet another mechanism that can cause damage to bystander cells such as DNA lesions (44) are increases in intracellular oxygen reactive species (hydrogen peroxide falls into this category (45)) generated by ionizing radiation. Bystander effects can vary with different types of cells (46). However more than one mechanism may impact bystander cells in the same model system (47). The bystander effect is not noticeable in high level radiation as high dose radiation kills cells. The bystander effect has not been taken into consideration by agencies setting safe radiation limits. However research into the bystander effect is in the early stages.

http://www.idust.net/Docs/HealthEffects01.htm

[MadHound]

56. Yes, the radiation emitted by DU IS minimal.

But if you want me to, when I get to work I can measure it again. However the last time I checked, a five hundred pound block of DU emits only aprox 0.1mR. And as I stated earlier, for DU to break down into isotopes that are gamma emitters, it is going to take a hell of a lot longer than the person who inhaled the DU is going to be alive.

As far as alpha particles causing cancer, again, let me point out that they're very weak, your skin blocks out the alpha waves you're exposed to each and every day. And yes, though they can cause cancer, so can water in large enough concentrations. A person is going to suffer from toxic metal poisoning long before the effects of radiation get to them.

Again, you are using sloppy science to back up your points. For example: "In a study by Belyakov, Malcolmson et al. (2001)(37) a helium ion (“effectively an alpha particle”) hit the nucleus of a single human fibroblast cell in a dish 10 by 10 milllimeters (38) in size and populated by 5,00 human fibroblast cells." First, this blanket assumption tht a helium ion is effectively an alpha particle is simply BS, and again, sloppy science. Helium ions break down easily, especially when they are fired into something. Also, a helium ion is much denser than an alpha particle, which thus throws the whole experiment out the window. And note, they don't tell you what speed they fired this helium ion at, which makes all the difference in the world.

Look Clara, I agree with you, DU is horrible, nasty shit that is slowly killing people. But if we're serious about stopping it, we've got to stop using junk science, hyperbole, and outrageous claims. If I can disprove this BS, then somebody else on the other side can also. And once one part of your arguement is disproven, the other part won't be taken seriously. Instead of trying to emphasize the radiation aspect of DU, which is minimal at best, emphasize the matter of heavy metal toxicity. There is plenty of bad shit there to make your case, without having to resort to junk science and outrageous claims.

[Clara T]

57. keep the info flowin'

Peace
:hi:

[Karenina]

58. Kick!

:kick: