As Safe as Agent Orange, and Around a Lot Longer

...and subject to even more He Said vs. She Said reporting.

...Scientists have pointed to health statistics in Iraq, where the weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars.

A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2001 said they posed only a small contamination risk.

But a senior UN scientist said research showing how depleted uranium could cause cancer was withheld.

The UK Ministry of Defence said that there was no evidence linking depleted uranium use to ill health.

Depleted uranium is extremely dense and hard, and is used for armour-piercing bullets or shells.

Fears over health implications led to a study by the WHO in 2001.

Dr Mike Repacholi, who oversaw work on the report, told Angus Stickler of BBC Radio Four's Today programme that depleted uranium was "basically safe".

"You would have to ingest a huge amount of depleted uranium dust to cause any adverse health effect," he said.

'Risk from particles'

But Dr Keith Baverstock, who worked on the project, said research conducted by the US Department of Defense suggested otherwise.

He described a process known as genotoxicity, which begins when depleted uranium dust is inhaled.

"The particles that dissolve pose a risk - part radioactive - and part from the chemical toxicity in the lung," he said.

Later, he said, the material enters the body and the blood stream, potentially affecting bone marrow, the lymphatic system and the kidneys.

The research was not included in the WHO report, and Dr Baverstock believes it was blocked.

Mr Repacholi said the findings were not collaborated by other reports and it was not WHO policy to publish "speculative" data. He denied any pressure was brought to bear.

But other senior scientists have pointed to worrying health statistics in Iraq, which show a rise in cancer and birth defects...

A good pre-War for Iraqi "Freedom" link on the effects of depleted uranium on Iraqis post Desert Storm is here. Another is here.

Suggestion of a high cancer rate among returning Iraqi vets are described here. With multiple tours of duty, the higher mortality rates among soldiers engaged in multiple tours, and the reluctance of VA officials to talk about depleted uranium health efects [it's "harmless" officially], it will be some time before clear data emerges.

...When DU (Uranium 238) decays, it transforms into two short-lived and "very hot" isotopes - Thorium 234 and Protactinium 234. As it transforms in the body, the DU particle is firing off faster and faster "bullets" into the DNA, Fulk said, or wherever it is lodged. Because uranium has a natural attraction to phosphorus, however, it is drawn to the phosphate in the DNA.

As the Uranium 238 decays, it releases alpha and beta particles with millions of electron volts. When a DU particle makes this transformation in the human body it releases "huge amounts of energy in the same location doing lots of damage very quickly," Fulk said.

Thorium 234 has a half-life of 24 days and emits a beta particle of .270 million electron volts as it transforms into Protactinium 234, which has a half-life of less than 7 hours. Protactinium then emits a beta particle of 2.19 million electron volts as it transforms into the more stable Uranium 234.

The chemical binding energy in the molecules of the human cell is less than 10 electron volts. One alpha particle from U-238 is over 4 million electron volts, which is like "nuking a cell."

Leuren Moret, a scientist who is opposed to the use of DU, compared it to sitting in front of a fire and putting a red-hot coal in your mouth. "The nuclear establishment wants us to believe that it is like sitting in front of the fire and warming the whole body evenly - and that no harm is done, but that is not the reality," she said.

"We can expect to see multiple cancers in one person," Moret said. "These multiple unrelated cancers in the same individual have been reported in Yugoslavia and Iraq in families that had no history of any cancer. This is unknown in the previous studies of cancer," she said. "A new phenomenon..."

"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse," Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in his March 25 article on DU weapons, "Silent Genocide."

"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code," Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator."