Depleted Uranium: Army Use & Radioactivity Risk

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In summary, depleted uranium (DU) is a common material used in military ammunition and armor due to its density and effectiveness against armored targets. However, there is controversy surrounding its use because of its toxic and radioactive properties. While the alternative to DU, lead, is also toxic, DU has been linked to higher cancer rates and other health issues. Despite this, DU continues to be used in military operations and there is ongoing debate about its safety and environmental impact.
  • #1
i_wish_i_was_smart
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if the army make rounds with depleted uranium, wouldt the radioactivity emmited be enough to cause cancer after a while?
 
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  • #2
As one poster to this forum was so fond of noting, one single particle of radiation can cause a fatal cancer. It is not a question of whether DU ammunition is dangerous, it is a question of whether it is better or worse than the alternatives. The alternative to DU ammunition is not peace. The alternative is lead. Lead is so toxic, that without even being radioactive it is a far greater environmental hazard than DU. However, depleted uranium has a much scarier sound to it, and that mobilizes the howlers. Granted, we'd all be better off not shooting any high-velocity, heavy, metal objects around, but if we're going to be doing it anyway, we're better off with DU than lead.

Njorl
 
  • #3
Since U-238 is primarily an alpha emitter, cancer would most likely come if it was inhaled or otherwise injested, so gnawing on your magazine isn't terribly suggested. As Njorl said, yeah, one particle can do the trick, but the average person can withstand far more than that (which is good, considering we get a dose just by sitting here).
 
  • #4
thanks guys, i didnt know the ins and out of it, i knew lead was toxic (lead poisoning) but i thought it was only through ingestion
 
  • #5
i_wish_i_was_smart said:
if the army make rounds with depleted uranium, wouldt the radioactivity emmited be enough to cause cancer after a while?
"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.

That said, Urainium has chemical properties that are worse than lead (which is itself pretty bad, as Njorl said).
 
  • #6
i know what depleted means, it still has some radioactive properties left in it, so i was wondering how harmfull they were
 
  • #7
russ_watters said:
"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.

That said, Uranium has chemical properties that are worse than lead (which is itself pretty bad, as Njorl said).

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say significant. DU weapons and armor are made of alloyed U238 which is an alpha emitter. Granted alphas are easily blocked; however they are much more detrimental to one's health when ingested or inhaled. Is it as bad as cobalt-60 (that lovely deep blue found on china plates contains trace amounts of Co-60)--no. Is it dangerous (yellow/orange hand glazed playes from Mexico can contain quite a bit of natural U)--yes.

My 2 cents
 
  • #8
russ_watters said:
"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.

That said, Urainium has chemical properties that are worse than lead (which is itself pretty bad, as Njorl said).

Depleted means depleted of significant amounts of U-235. If it's uranium it's radioactive, with the corresponding half-life. You can't "deplete" the radioactivity of a substance other than turning it into a stable substance - in that sense, you'd have to call it "Lead."

And on the topic of lead, I don't think lead is the alternative to DU in artillery shells, because lead doesn't have the mechanical properties you want.
 
  • #9
swansont said:
Depleted means depleted of significant amounts of U-235. If it's uranium it's radioactive, with the corresponding half-life. You can't "deplete" the radioactivity of a substance other than turning it into a stable substance - in that sense, you'd have to call it "Lead."

And on the topic of lead, I don't think lead is the alternative to DU in artillery shells, because lead doesn't have the mechanical properties you want.

DU isn't used in explosive rounds. The destruction comes from kinetic energy. It is used for it's density. The round is fired at an ultra-high velocity. Light metals, like steel, would lose too much kinetic energy to be effective. The alternatives are tungsten, for heavily armored targets, and lead for softer targets. Tungsten is really just for use against main battle tanks, though.

Njorl
 
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  • #10
There is a ton of misinformation deliberately diseminated by the users of this substance. This very hard metal, is used on the tips of cruise missles, and armour piercing shells, on the exterior of tanks. Yes it is used on explosive rounds. It is highly toxic, and these missles vaporize on contact, and the DU is thrown into the air, and carried on high winds. I have read that Greek soldiers in Kosovo went home and died from sudden kidney failure associated with DU use. Iraqi doctors have stated that there is a 48% cancer rate in areas that were bombed with DU weapons in the first gulf war, and there is a strong association between the use of DU and gulf war syndrome. Inhaled it is causative in lung cancer, ingested in every form of cancer of the digestive tract. Aside from the radiation, it is toxic.

I recently had a long winded discussion with a Nuclear Physicist in real time, who works with this stuff, and with underground testing. He just can't get over the idea that DU is indepensible. My thoughts on this are considerably more cynical. My thoughts are that instead of disposing of this nuclear waste, they actually sold it to the military instead with claims of its wonderous properties. There is considerable solid science to prove that this form of nuclear war is deadly, and spreading indiscriminately. Now the local nuclear waste storage people are boasting about how they will build a dump in Iraq, for the leavings from this technology. Well, if they used bunker busters in downtown Bagdad, there will be no removing this from that environment. They should be more concerned with the DU all over the area just 30 miles north of them.

I live 75 miles east of a bombing range where this stuff has been repeatedly used. You can be sure that the wind blows that stuff around. Toole, Utah, home of the big chemical weapons burner, has the highest rate of cancer in the nation. They do 3 things there, that put them at risk.

1. They are near Dugway Proving Ground.
2. They spray endlessly for locusts.
3. they are directly downwind from that bombing range.

It is obvious that no one is behaving sensibly in regards to this technology.

When the "scientist" first walked up with this hideous plan to utilize nuclear waste as weaponry, radioactive pollution be damned; he should have been blacklisted and fired. This was supremely shoddy thinking and extremely cynical marketing. I know there were radiation tests over the Salt Lake Valley, just before the start of the 2002 Olympics, well at that time I couldn't figure out what they were testing for. Now it is very clear. Again, the powers that be have determined just how much poison Utahans will take. They work day and night to discredit the danger of this substance, and take minds off of this questionable use of nuclear weaponry.
 
  • #11
Dayle Record said:
This very hard metal, is used on the tips of cruise missles, and armour piercing shells, on the exterior of tanks. Yes it is used on explosive rounds.
There are designs, and there are possibly tested prototypes, but no weapon system using DU with an explosive warhead has ever been aknowledged to be in use, or found to have been used.
Dayle Record said:
It is highly toxic, and these missles vaporize on contact, and the DU is thrown into the air, and carried on high winds.
It is not correct to say the missiles vaporize on contact. It is actually a bit worse, environmentally speaking. High velocity shells, on contact, generate sufficient heat to support cumbustion of the metal, causing it to oxidise. However, it requires a hard target for this to occur, so misses do not lead to this process. Even hits burn away only about 1/3 of the material. If someone is near a hit, and manages to survive, they might receive a large dose of uranium. Others, receiving doses dispersed by high winds receive a less severe dose.

Typical humans are one part per billion uranium by weight naturally. In some parts of the world, natural levels are 30 times as high. Before insulin was invented, uranium was used to control diabetes. Doses of a few milligrams a day for prolonged periods resulted in no problems. No deaths from uranium poisoning have ever been reported.
Dayle Record said:
I have read that Greek soldiers in Kosovo went home and died from sudden kidney failure associated with DU use. Iraqi doctors have stated that there is a 48% cancer rate in areas that were bombed with DU weapons in the first gulf war, and there is a strong association between the use of DU and gulf war syndrome. Inhaled it is causative in lung cancer, ingested in every form of cancer of the digestive tract. Aside from the radiation, it is toxic.
You can read a lot of things. It doesn't mean they happened. While gulf war syndrome, unlike the other things you mentioned, is a prevalent reality, its cause is unknown. I find it much more likely that it is related to the toxins from the oil well fires than DU. The smoke from the oil well fires is known to be much more toxic, much more easily incorporated into the body, and was more abundant by many orders of magnitude.
Dayle Record said:
I recently had a long winded discussion with a Nuclear Physicist in real time, who works with this stuff, and with underground testing. He just can't get over the idea that DU is indepensible. My thoughts on this are considerably more cynical. My thoughts are that instead of disposing of this nuclear waste, they actually sold it to the military instead with claims of its wonderous properties. There is considerable solid science to prove that this form of nuclear war is deadly, and spreading indiscriminately. Now the local nuclear waste storage people are boasting about how they will build a dump in Iraq, for the leavings from this technology. Well, if they used bunker busters in downtown Bagdad, there will be no removing this from that environment. They should be more concerned with the DU all over the area just 30 miles north of them.

I live 75 miles east of a bombing range where this stuff has been repeatedly used. You can be sure that the wind blows that stuff around. Toole, Utah, home of the big chemical weapons burner, has the highest rate of cancer in the nation. They do 3 things there, that put them at risk.

1. They are near Dugway Proving Ground.
2. They spray endlessly for locusts.
3. they are directly downwind from that bombing range.

It is obvious that no one is behaving sensibly in regards to this technology.

When the "scientist" first walked up with this hideous plan to utilize nuclear waste as weaponry, radioactive pollution be damned; he should have been blacklisted and fired.
After all, it is important to avoid thinking. One must always react from emotion and never think. We should blacklist and fire people, and not do any research to see if they are right.
Dayle Record said:
This was supremely shoddy thinking and extremely cynical marketing. I know there were radiation tests over the Salt Lake Valley, just before the start of the 2002 Olympics, well at that time I couldn't figure out what they were testing for. Now it is very clear. Again, the powers that be have determined just how much poison Utahans will take. They work day and night to discredit the danger of this substance, and take minds off of this questionable use of nuclear weaponry.

This is a very good example of irrational fear-mongering. It shows how many people think. Because it is uranium, all rational thought goes out the window, and all bad things that happen in its vicinity are blamed on it. Because there is a convenient boogeyman, all sorts of obviously false stories pop up around it (the 48% cancer claims are just made up stories). It may very well be the case that DU is not fit to be used in weaponry, but it should be subject to no more prohibition or fear than any other ordnance. It is actually less toxic than lead, and its greater effectiveness means less of it gets used. Its environmental effects are probably less deleterious than the diesel fuel exhaust of the many large vehicles used in any army.

Over 150 million dollars have been spent on almost 200 research projects investigating the effects of depleted uranium weapons. You want to guess how much has been spent on research into the environmental effects of tungsten weapons? Nothing.

edited to add - MY mistake. The $150 million for almost 200 projects were not all about DU, they were about health issues in from the first gulf war. Many of them considered DU, but none considered tungsten.

Njorl
 
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  • #12
Matt-235 said:
Since U-238 is primarily an alpha emitter, cancer would most likely come if it was inhaled or otherwise injested, so gnawing on your magazine isn't terribly suggested. As Njorl said, yeah, one particle can do the trick, but the average person can withstand far more than that (which is good, considering we get a dose just by sitting here).

So I am being granted a certain dose of U-238 as we sit here typing on my keyboard?
 
  • #13
The dose of U-238 isn't the problem. The large moving charged particle resulting from a decay of U-238 is. If you have paint on your walls then chances are you are breathing in a little bit of alpha radiation. If you are below ground level then chances are you are breathing in a little alpha radiation. Are you subjected to U right now? That all depends on where in the world (your location says Norway) you are. Certain parts of the world have higher concentrations of U than others (just like any other mined resource) so the levels of exposure depend on the concentrations of U at your location. Can I find U anywhere in the world--yes, but the levels of natural U in here in Michigan would require a lot more sample concentration that if I were in Nevada, or Niger.

Personally, I'd be more concerned with the radiation from the screen of your computer than from the alpha decay of natural U. I'd be more concerned with pesticide use than natural U or DU for that matter. I'd be more concerned about K-40 because most people eat Banana's or use potassium salt (BTW Morton season salt really makes a gamma detector click a lot-- if I recall we saw about 10 or 20 cps above baseline from common season salt).
 
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  • #14
When the defense industry wants to use something, they have all the funding they could want to make research turn in their favor. Common sense, would have said no to the use of Uranium, for any new weapons. Common sense. Now the government wants to resume nuclear testing in Nevada, because they want to make bunker buster nukes, regardless of the tactical necessity of such weapons. They say it is just fine to do this.

The Iraqi cancer figures, came from Iraqi doctors. New troops in Iraq are being sickened with this DU dust, causing pneumonias. This is just one more thing. I think all the time, not just sometimes, and emotionally I am somewhat flat, the truth be known.

However it is characteristic to call women, or naysayers, emotional.

Bunker busting bombs, or DU tipped cruise missiles, they all carry an explosive charge. They do not send a DU tipped dud to make holes in tanks. The DU penetrates armor, and then the weapon explodes. Please this is how this works. Let me google up some DU Toxicity.
 
  • #15
The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield
soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney
failure within days.(8) Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled
lethal radioactive dust is not breathing. In the first two weeks of
combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi
real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds.(9) Millions of DU tank
rounds liter the terrain. Cleanup is impossible because there is no
place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris.


There are a lot of entries for DU, and apparently the explosion creates heat that aerosolizes materials that are not usually melted, and inhalation of those nano particles does a great deal of damage.

Again, there are a lot of injured personel, and civilians, and all the science that created the war, will not explain how this damage was done, nor will it take responsibility.
 
  • #16
The Rand Corp said there is no credible evidence linking DU to injury, Ronald Baily said so too, Ronald also says that global warming is a myth.
 
  • #17
Thallium said:
So I am being granted a certain dose of U-238 as we sit here typing on my keyboard?

Sorry, slightly unclear terminology, by dose, I meant dose of radiation from any source, not just Uranium. We get doses from a variety of sources naturally. Dose is measured in energy absorbed per mass (1 J/kg = 1 Gray = 100 rad), and on average per year, we receive about 360 millirad (3.6 mGy)* from sources such as radon, diagnostic x-rays, cosmic rays, and food as well (Bananas, for example are high in Potassium (K). And 0.017 per cent of K is K-40, and is radioactive with a half life of 1.27 billion years, so if you have a banana, you have K-40.).

I was just saying that compared to what we already receive just by sitting here, the dose from a single particle is virtually nothing. (The energy of an alpha particle emitted from a U-238 atom is on the order of 5 MeV, which is about 8 * 10^-13 J.) So while yes, all it takes is one particle to get a good cancer going, not nearly every particle is going to do that, and it's only once you start to get good doses over time I would start to get worried.

*Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulatory Guide 8.29, p. 11
If you Google for NUREG 8.29 you can get it in .pdf format.
 
  • #18
Matt-235 said:
Sorry, slightly unclear terminology, by dose, I meant dose of radiation from any source, not just Uranium. We get doses from a variety of sources naturally. Dose is measured in energy absorbed per mass (1 J/kg = 1 Gray = 100 rad), and on average per year, we receive about 360 millirad (3.6 mGy)* from sources such as radon, diagnostic x-rays, cosmic rays, and food as well (Bananas, for example are high in Potassium (K). And 0.017 per cent of K is K-40, and is radioactive with a half life of 1.27 billion years, so if you have a banana, you have K-40.).

Terrestrial living things tend to have C-14 in them, which is radioactive. So just being around people will give you a dose.
 
  • #19
Well I do understand much of this, and people do vary tremendously in their radiant qualities, and their ability to withstand radiation. The children who handle DU, (leftover shells, bullets, who play in the dust) do get leukemia. People really vary on very fundamental levels. I got some neodymium magnets yesterday, they are attracted to my daughter, but not to me. There are some really big shoulds here, we are still trying to get the lead out and away from our children, meanwhile we are creating other monsters. I am so idealistic, I thought we all knew better than to engage in nuclear warfare of any type, silly me. I am fresh back from hearing the downwinders speak, and limp about and discuss how they are the last living members of families who all died of radiation caused cancers.
 
  • #20
As has been said already, depleted uranium is not only a radiological threat, but also a chemical one. It is a heavy metal and just like most of them isn't exactly very healthy. The kidney damage the Royal Society of England spoke of, is such a chemical effect, not a radiological one as seems insinuated judging from an above post. Depleted uranium is mainly an alfa emitter, and produces low levels of it, yet that doesn't mean it is "no longer radioactive" judging from the BS post emitter russ_watters. Alfa particles are stopped by the upper layer of skin, which is dead material, so you have to sit many many years in a DU tank in order to get an increased risk of skin cancer, in bulk the material is pretty much harmless. However, when a DU impacts, some of it vaporizes and some of it burns producing a very fine aerosol that can be carried by the wind. When inhaling it directly or ingesting it as the dust settles on crops, there is no dead skincells to protect you but the alfa radiation will kill and/or damage the cells near the inhaled particle.

Another thing is that depleted uranium isn't just a byproduct of the enrichment process, there have been found isotopes in DU rounds that couldn't have been there naturally but are found in nuclear reactors. I very much wonder what the legal regulations are in the United States concerning DU. I have been thinking whether perhaps there are legal restrictions to the amount of radioactivity and the amount of U-235 that DU should contain and if the DU uranium that is a waste product of the enrichment process is below these limits, they might mix some spent fuel rods in them as it is much, much cheaper to get rid of it that way. It would explain some of the finds and would make it as well a beta and gamma emitter.
 
  • #21
swansont said:
Terrestrial living things tend to have C-14 in them, which is radioactive. So just being around people will give you a dose.
So what, we naturally have lead in our body as well, does that mean we shouldn't care about lead poisoning? :rolleyes:
 
  • #22
Dayle Record said:
When the defense industry wants to use something, they have all the funding they could want to make research turn in their favor.
I would say of all the people in the world in all of the different professions that it has been my experience that scientists are the hardest to bribe. Politicians, judges, lawyers, teachers, doctors, police, news reporters, clergy - they are all easy to bribe. Virtually every scientist alive could make more money doing something else. How do you bribe people like that?
Dayle Record said:
Common sense, would have said no to the use of Uranium, for any new weapons. Common sense.
Common sense showed the Earth was flat and that the sun went around the Earth. Common sense has its limits. It is aften wrong. That is why we have science. Science is why we don't live in caves and wear animal skins.
Dayle Record said:
Now the government wants to resume nuclear testing in Nevada, because they want to make bunker buster nukes, regardless of the tactical necessity of such weapons. They say it is just fine to do this.
I agree. It is foolish to do this. It is also absolutely irrelevent. It is indicative of your thought process though. You believe using DU ammunition is nuclear warfare.
Dayle Record said:
The Iraqi cancer figures, came from Iraqi doctors. New troops in Iraq are being sickened with this DU dust, causing pneumonias. This is just one more thing. I think all the time, not just sometimes, and emotionally I am somewhat flat, the truth be known.
Is this a divine inspiration that you know with certainty? Where did you get this information? Has the information been critically examined? Or, did you just accept it uncritically because the word "uranium" was involved?
Dayle Record said:
However it is characteristic to call women, or naysayers, emotional.
First, I had no idea you were a woman. I never base base my assessment of argument upon the sex of the disputant. Further, it has been my experience on this board that women are considerably more rational than men. Virtually all the total crackpots are male.

Second, you are not a naysayer. You are the exact opposite. You accept and repeat without criticism popular opinion and rumor. You are a yes-man. You just say yes to a different crowd than the typical sycophant.
Dayle Record said:
Bunker busting bombs, or DU tipped cruise missiles, they all carry an explosive charge. They do not send a DU tipped dud to make holes in tanks. The DU penetrates armor, and then the weapon explodes. Please this is how this works. Let me google up some DU Toxicity.

You are clueless. No DU ordnance with explosives have been approved for deployment. Several have been designed, and possibly tested.

The anti-tank weapon is not "DU tipped". It is a long, slender, solid rod. No explosive is involved. It penetrates the armor relying only on kinetic energy. Friction during penetration raises the temperature to pyrophoric levels.

If some other metal with the exact properties of DU were used, but it did not have the name "uranium" it would cause no objections. It is the whole "nuclear magnetic resonance" vs "magnetic resonance imaging" fiasco all over again.

Njorl
 
  • #23
Njorl said:
I would say of all the people in the world in all of the different professions that it has been my experience that scientists are the hardest to bribe. Politicians, judges, lawyers, teachers, doctors, police, news reporters, clergy - they are all easy to bribe. Virtually every scientist alive could make more money doing something else. How do you bribe people like that?
The tobacco industry wouldn't have been able to pretend so long cigarets don't cause cancer if it didn't have a bunch of scientists working as mercenaries selling their name and fame. They still do for the effects of passive smoking.

Njorl said:
I agree. It is foolish to do this. It is also absolutely irrelevent. It is indicative of your thought process though. You believe using DU ammunition is nuclear warfare.
Why not? Some of the effects are similar: cancers, birth deformations, genetic damage that will last for generations.


Njorl said:
If some other metal with the exact properties of DU were used, but it did not have the name "uranium" it would cause no objections. It is the whole "nuclear magnetic resonance" vs "magnetic resonance imaging" fiasco all over again.
I think anything remotely radioactive would cause it to become suspect, but you have a point.
 
  • #24
Simon666 said:
So what, we naturally have lead in our body as well, does that mean we shouldn't care about lead poisoning? :rolleyes:
No, all I was doing was pointing out a radiation source not mentioned in the other post. Did you have a point?
 
  • #25
I was afraid you were one of those trivializers, apparently you're not, so sorry.
 
  • #26
Njorl said:
This is a very good example of irrational fear-mongering. It shows how many people think. Because it is uranium, all rational thought goes out the window, and all bad things that happen in its vicinity are blamed on it. Because there is a convenient boogeyman, all sorts of obviously false stories pop up around it (the 48% cancer claims are just made up stories). It may very well be the case that DU is not fit to be used in weaponry, but it should be subject to no more prohibition or fear than any other ordnance. It is actually less toxic than lead, and its greater effectiveness means less of it gets used. Its environmental effects are probably less deleterious than the diesel fuel exhaust of the many large vehicles used in any army.
Though I may have understated the radioactivity a little, this is the reason why: people see the word "uranium" and after that, there is no reasoning with them. But with a 4.5 billion year half life, its radioactivity is extremely small.
The tobacco industry wouldn't have been able to pretend so long cigarets don't cause cancer if it didn't have a bunch of scientists working as mercenaries selling their name and fame. They still do for the effects of passive smoking.
That's not really true. The evidence that has gotten out has shown that even the studies comissioned by the tobacco companies showed the dangers: the tobacco companies and their lawyers squashed the studies.
Why not? Some of the effects are similar: cancers, birth deformations, genetic damage that will last for generations.
Those effects are also similar to inhaling diesel fumes. Njorl's right: its not correct to characterize it as nuclear warfare. Nuclear warfare has a specific meaning: the energy that binds the nucleus of the atom together is the energy utilized in the explosion.
I think anything remotely radioactive would cause it to become suspect, but you have a point.
Indeed, its pretty irrational how people panick at the sight of an "NMR" machine and don't think twice about an X-ray. And thank goodness most people don't know how much exposure you get from a plane ride. "anything remotely radioactive" includes you. Even if you wore lead lined clothes, you'd still be subject to nuclear radiation. Hence, it is important to quantify and weigh the risks.
 
  • #27
Simon666 said:
Depleted uranium is mainly an alfa emitter, and produces low levels of it, yet that doesn't mean it is "no longer radioactive" judging from the BS post emitter russ_watters.
Putting words in quotes that I didn't say and attributing them to me is called a lie. Don't do it again.

When I said that depleted uranium was not significantly radioactive, my point was that its radioactivity is an insignificant health risk compared to its chemical properties. This is true.

Njorl has done a good job framing the real issue here: perception.
 
  • #28
russ_watters said:
When I said that depleted uranium was not significantly radioactive, my point was that its radioactivity is an insignificant health risk compared to its chemical properties. This is true.
That is not true since it is unsufficiently studied. The amount of radioactivity may be low, but when they are stuck pretty permanently in your lungs even low levels of radiation can eventually kill you. Besides, as I already said, there are indications that nuclear waste was mixed with DU, pretending that low level alfa radiation is the only thing that is emitted is only true in case of "pure" depleted uranium.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0121-02.htm
 
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  • #29
We all know about "normal background radiation". We all know there is naturally occurring radiation of everysort. We all know to come in out of the sun, before we have third degree burns, or second degree, or first degree. We all know that distributing uranium, or arsenic, or lead, or selenium, or sulphur dioxide, or DDT, all over the place is not a good idea. Never a good idea. Someone thought that this is an acceptible practice especially if it is a way to toss low level radioactive waste, that would otherwise be costly to transport and bury. This is the only genius part of the equation. Creators of nuclear waste, actually made money off of it. Knowing how poorly the government pays attention to military spending, I gauge that they made untold fortunes on this. Maybe even more than they made generating electricity with nuclear power; certainly enough to offset production costs. There are a lot of fine points to be made about this, vs that, or some areas of the world are radioactive in nature, but the big point is that we have trashed a very dry, and windy nation with this stuff. The leftovers are strewn from hell to breakfast over there, and I don't think that the residents downwind from the bombing range here are safe from it, especially in light of the fact that they are also downwind from Kennecott Copper, and the Chemical Weapons burn plant. All those factors make it unsafe. Add to it, that the government wants to resume nuclear testing just southwest of us. :surprise:
 
  • #30
You know, I'm going to have to go with the 95% of people who are well versed in matters of chemistry/physics/radiation... and try to tell Dayle that he's wrong. I looked up what threat DU poses and I saw a lot of people saying it's "probably" or it's "possible" that it causes health problems. Any concern that is attributed to U.S. investigation of DU should be seen under the light of politics, because the biggest rule for U.S. politicians is "cover your ass" which they do, quite well. If they hadn't looked into it, how much bigger would the public outcry be when it was realized that *gasp* URANIUM was being used to tip projectiles? We've got one group saying it's emmitting deadly radiation, and the other saying it's no threat at all. As is usually the case in these types of scenarios, both are probably wrong. It most likely poses a moderate risk which is acceptable considering it's capabilities in weapons. We face plenty of moderate risks each day, all day. There's radiation in smoke detectors, glow in the dark watch faces, most electrical devices, x-ray machines... BANANAS for pete's sake. Getting worked up about something that's directly helping save the lives of the soldiers who have it on their side is just stupid. But hey, that's just my opinion.
 
  • #31
Read what the victims have to say, about their illness. Children in the war zones are sickened to death from this, adults fare better with the DU it is the other micro fragments of metal that do them in. Read about this, not just what the guys who profit from it have to say. Look at what the world thinks of it.
 
  • #32
Kojac said:
Getting worked up about something that's directly helping save the lives of the soldiers who have it on their side is just stupid. But hey, that's just my opinion.
Who says it saves soldiers lives? Would they be unable to destroy the Iraqi tanks if they didn't use it? I very much doubt so, there are alternative, the Iraqi tanks are pretty old and if necessary they just have to shoot at it twice. It is not like any of the tanks the Iraqis came up with posed any threat. Saying "it saved soldiers lives" is completely unbased and used as a convenient excuse to avoid further debate.

It reminds me of when Agent Orange was used in Vietnam, it was claimed as well it saved soldiers lives, but it took over a decade to find out it killed many as well, will still kill many and give them health problems and has caused genetic mutations that will stay in the US gene pool for generations to come. Not to mention what the effects are for the Vietnamese people the US so generously tried to "liberate" from communism.

It also reminds me of shortly after WWII when http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/may/11atomic.htm . They knew pretty well or could have known pretty well of the risks, but they chose to shovel that under the carpet. For the atomic bomb "had saved many soldiers lives at Hiroshima and Nagasaki" and it would save many soldiers lives as it would deter enemy countries.
 
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  • #33
Dayle Record said:
Read what the victims have to say, about their illness. Children in the war zones are sickened to death from this, adults fare better with the DU it is the other micro fragments of metal that do them in. Read about this, not just what the guys who profit from it have to say. Look at what the world thinks of it.
Victims are by far the worst source of good information on real risks. Not only are they not doctors/scientists (even those that are - doctors do not diagnose their own illnesses, for this very reason), but their judgement is clouded by their personal experience.

Additionally, focusing on individual victims is a tactic used to generate emotion in order to override contradictory evidence or hide the lack of supporting evidence.
 
  • #34
In many cases the victims are truly a bad source of information, as they are dead. There were a number of deaths from the Balkan conflict, where young people came home and died of leukemia, in groups. The only common factor in their lives was exposure to DU rounds. One Soldier from the first gulf war described that a high percentage of deaths came from friendly fire, of DU rounds, because of confusion in sand storms. Now gentlemen, the government really wants to use this substance from now on. Keep in mind that in Iraq, the wind blows at high velocity, it is very dry, it is a contaminant that will always now be a part of their lives. Why is the Iraqi medical establishment not to be believed on this issue, why not the victims of Gulf War Syndrome? Why is it that I am being called a "Howler" for discussing the dangers of a nuclear pollutant that normally is buried in low level nuclear waste dumps, but because it is an efficient weapon, it is rained down indescriminately, on a nation we invaded? "Emotion" is a messenger in the human body, it helps describe the relative safety of the terrain we wander. Science needs all human faculties to function properly, including emotion. We are in a huge mess in the world, because the scientific method, in consort with the corporate world, has in an atmosphere of "rational activity" made a long string of handy decisions, that have huge negative impact on the future of life on this world. When danger is sensed, or complaints are made of injury or potential for injury, then those that speak up are "emotional", (feminine, weak, illogical).

It has taken one hundred years, to get the lead out, and we still haven't done it. We know of the dangers of Mercury, and we have relaxed rules regarding its release into our environment, by entities that profit from doing so. Now we have DU to contend with. It is like saying that small pox isn't nearly as bad as plague, as far as I am concerned.
 
  • #35
Dayle Record said:
In many cases the victims are truly a bad source of information, as they are dead. There were a number of deaths from the Balkan conflict, where young people came home and died of leukemia, in groups. The only common factor in their lives was exposure to DU rounds.

Then you should have no trouble documenting this, and showing that the death rate differed significantly from the statistical average. In other words, doing it scientifically.
 

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