From rachel-replies@rachel.org Sun May  2 16:11:58 2004
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 15:16:14 -0500
From: Rachel News 
To: RACHEL-NEWS@LISTS.RACHEL.ORG
Subject: Rachel's #788: Depleted Uranium Weapons

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RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #788
http://www.rachel.org
April 1, 2004

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DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS OF WAR

Uranium is a naturally-occurring element that is both weakly
radioactive and a toxic heavy metal. Naturally-occurring
uranium contains two main radioactive isotopes: U-238 (99.3%),
and U-235 (0.7%). When uranium is "enriched" to make an A-bomb
(which requires lots of U-235), the leftover "depleted uranium"
(DU) is 99.8% U-238 and retains about 60% of the radioactivity
that was present in the original natural uranium.[1, pg. 3]

Depleted uranium is created by "uranium enrichment" plants that
process natural uranium to extract the U-235, but those same
plants also may process spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power
reactors. For this reason, some DU is known to be contaminated
with very low levels of some of the most dangerous radioactive
substances known to science: Plutonium-238, Plutonium-239,
Plutonium-240, Americium-241, Neptunium-237 and
Technicium-99.[1, pg. 6]

Radioactive decay is a natural process. Radioactive elements
spontaneously emit energetic particles or rays, and in the
process they change from one element into another. When U-238
spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay, it emits alpha
particles (and turns into Thorium-234). You can think of an
alpha particle as something like a tiny cannon ball -- it does
not travel very far (a few centimeters in air), but if it hits
a living cell, the damage can be enormous. Sometimes cells
damaged by alpha particles die immediately, but sometimes they
start to multiply uncontrollably, causing cancer. (The
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has
identified "internally deposited radionuclides that emit alpha
particles" as Group I carcinogens, meaning substances known to
cause cancer in humans.[1, pg. 85])

So, DU's alpha particles won't penetrate the outermost (dead)
layer of your skin, but if you get DU inside you -- say, in
your lungs -- it can have deadly consequences. Several studies
of workers in uranium enrichment plants show that they get lung
cancer at higher-than-normal rates.[1, pg. 86]

The half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years, which tells us
that it does not decay rapidly and therefore that it does not
emit many alpha particles per second. However, "many" is a
relative term. In absolute numbers, a microgram of DU (a
millionth of a gram, and there are 28 grams in an ounce) will
emit slightly more than 12 alpha particles per second or 390
million alpha particles each year.[1, pg. 6] So one microgram
of DU lodged in your lungs will have more than a million
opportunities EACH DAY to start a cancer growing in your cells.
Obviously, the hazard is greater for children because they have
a longer lifetime ahead of them during which alpha particles
will have an opportunity to start a cancer, plus they are very
likely more sensitive to harm than adults (because they are
growing, so more of their cells are dividing).

In recent decades, as we have manufactured more atomic bombs
and therefore more depleted uranium, there has been growing
pressure to find new uses for our huge stockpile of depleted
uranium.[1, pg. 26] In my opinion, the psychology behind this
is pretty simple: as it becomes crystal clear that subsidizing
nuclear technologies was one of the dumbest mistakes humans
have ever made, there is enormous pressure to show that
something good can come from it. It is the psychology of the
optimist, whom Ronald Reagan defined as the man who enters a
room full of horse manure and says, "There must be a pony in
here somewhere."

Because it is almost twice as dense as lead and not very
radioactive, DU has been used as shielding for medical devices
and in casks for transporting spent fuel from nuclear power
plants. Because it is so dense (and therefore heavy), DU has
also been used as ballast -- weights or counterwights -- on
ships, satellites and aircraft. For example, each Boeing 747
jumbo-jet requires about 1500 pounds of ballast (or
counterweights), and as many as 15,000 DU weights were
manufactured for this purpose. In recent years, DU has been
replaced by tungsten in aircraft ballast, perhaps to avoid
questions about the wisdom of flying radioactive materials
around in planes. A plane that crashed into a row of apartments
in Amsterdam in 1992 was carrying 282 kg (620 pounds) of DU as
ballast, and a Boeing-747 that crashed in England in 2000 was
carrying 1500 kg (3,300 pounds) of DU. [1, pg. 26]

In the Amsterdam crash, some 152 kilograms (334 pounds) of DU
were never found, and the Dutch commission of inquiry concluded
that the fiery crash may have released some of the DU in the
form of a radioactive fume or dust, just as you would expect it
might. DU is pyrophoric, meaning that it catches fire under
some circumstances and turns into a very fine radioactive fume
or dust, which can blow around.[1, pg. 44]

In the past 20 years, DU has found its way into weapons of war
-- both for heavy tank armor and for armor-piercing projectiles
-- again, because it is plentiful and cheap (thanks to
government subsidies) and almost twice as dense as lead. As
noted above, it is also pyrophoric, meaning that under some
circumstances it catches on fire.

When a DU projectile strikes an armored target, such as a tank,
it does not flatten on contact but instead penetrates and "self
sharpens" as it passes through the armor. This occurs because
as the DU projectile is penetrating its target, its outer layer
catches fire, creating a very fine radioactive dust,
essentially lubricating the remaining projectile, helping it
penetrate further. The result is a very clean hole in the
target -- which looks as if it had been drilled -- and a great
deal of radioactive dust. Somewhere between 10% and 70% of a DU
projectile is transformed into radioactive dust when it strikes
a sufficiently hard target.[1, pg. 46]

This dust creates special problems. As noted above, if DU dust
gets into your lungs, it can cause lung cancer.

DU dust is heavy and so it settles to earth within a few
hundred yards of where it was created -- unless it is picked up
again and moved by the wind.

To help get the health threat into perspective, in discussing
DU, I prefer to express the amount of DU in micrograms, on the
assumption that a few hundred micrograms (perhaps less) is a
dangerous amount of DU dust. It is important to remember that
not all (or even most) DU munitions strike hard targets that
would cause them to catch fire and emit radioactive fumes
(dust).

Ground-attack airplanes like the A-10 Warthog fire 30 mm
projectiles at the rate of 70 projectiles per second, and each
30-mm projectile contains 0.27 kg (9.5 ounces, or 270 million
micrograms) of DU. Heavy tanks fire 120 mm rounds, each
containing 4.85 kg (10.6 pounds, or 4.8 billion micrograms) of
DU.

It was reported in 1995 that U.S. arms manufacturers had
produced more than 55 million 30-mm DU penetrators and 1.6
million DU penetrators for tank ammunition.[1, pg. 27] No doubt
more have been manufactured since then.

The U.S. has acknowledged using DU weapons during the Gulf War
against Iraq in 1991, and NATO has acknowledged using DU
weapons during the Kosovo conflict of 1999. DU munitions have
extensively contaminated U.S. military proving grounds and
firing ranges such as the ones at Yuma, Arizona, Aberdeen,
Maryland, Jefferson, Indiana, and Viecques, Puerto Rico.[1, pg.
50]

Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
have been fooling around with DU for 60 years, during which
time they have dumped an estimated 38.5 tons of DU into a
mountain canyon out back, behind the lab.[1, pg. 49]

During wartime, the greatest civilian threat from DU is assumed
to involve children, who have been photographed in Kosovo and
Iraq playing on burned-out military vehicles including tanks
disabled by DU projectiles.[1, pg. 49] Much of this equipment
is heavily contaminated, inside and out, with radioactive dust.

Many children also eat dirt (9 to 96 mg/day) as a normal part
of growing up, and soil contaminated with DU dust presents a
special hazard in such cases, according to the World Health
Organization.[1, pg. 38]

However, U.S. military officials deny that children -- or any
other civilians -- are at risk from DU.[2] The Pentagon says
only soldiers are at risk. It is clear that the Pentagon
considers DU plenty hazardous to soldiers -- an Army training
manual says that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any
DU-contaminated equipment or terrain must wear respiratory and
skin protection (because DU might enter the body through a
scratch or other open wound).[3]

Once you get DU in your lungs, much of it will stay there for a
long time, irradiating lung cells, and the World Health
Organization says, "The risk of lung cancer appears to be
proportional to the radiation dose received."[1, pg. 85] (In
other words, the only way to have zero risk is to have zero
exposure.) The British Royal Society studied DU and concluded
that its use was not risk-free for anyone involved.[4] The
truth is, DU has been studied remarkably little, given that we
blast tons of it into areas inhabited by civilian populations
for the avowed purpose of helping them. No one has studied the
effects of DU on the immune system, the metabolic system, the
nervous system, the reproductive system, the endocrine system
(and other biological signaling mechanisms), and growth,
development, and behavior. It's amazing what we don't know
about DU and that -- in the face of such ignorance -- anyone
could claim to know that it is safe for use near civilians.

Unfortunately, even many crucial details about the lung cancer
hazard remain missing. Although they have been making and
studying DU since 1940, military scientists still don't know
exactly how long inhaled DU is retained in the lung. They say
that somewhere between 57% and 76% of inhaled DU stays in the
lung with a half-life of "longer than 100 days" but how much
longer they seem not to know.[1, pg. 64] The half-life is the
amount of time it takes for half of a substance to go away. It
is also not clear where inhaled DU goes after it leaves the
lungs. Is it coughed up and excreted, or does it dissolve,
enter the blood stream and then the urine? Or does it lodge
elsewhere in the body? In male rats intentionally contaminated,
uranium collects in the brain and the testicles.[1, pg. 65]

Military specialists like to point out that DU munitions that
miss their target simply bury themselves in the ground. But the
World Health Organization is not so sure the story ends there:

"However, in some instances the levels of contamination in food
and ground water could rise after some years and should be
monitored and appropriate measures taken where there is
reasonable possibility of significant quantities of depleted
uranium entering the food chain... Areas with very high
concentrations of depleted uranium may need to be cordoned off
until they are cleaned up."[1, pg. vi] Cleanup of
DU-contaminated areas has not occurred in Kosovo or Iraq.

Who ever thought that DU in the ground would always stay put?
Between 1970 and 1997, the Starmet Corporation, a military
contractor making DU weapons, dumped DU into an unlined pit in
the ground in downtown Concord, Mass. Now soil in Concord is
contaminated with DU as far as a mile from the dump, and local
wells are contaminated because DU has moved into groundwater.
Who would have expected any other outcome? Nevertheless, we
should acknowledge that the directors of Starmet are not as
dumb as they might appear. Shortly before their radioactive
dump was added to the national Superfund list, Starmet
officials took precautionary action and declared bankruptcy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accepted Starmet's
bankruptcy without a peep, so U.S. taxpayers are now paying for
the difficult cleanup.[5]

The U.S. Navy stores DU in San Diego, Calif.; Seal Beach,
Calif.; Crane, Indiana; Indian Head, Md.; Colts Neck, N.J.;
Hawthorne, Nev.; McAlister, Ok.; Charlestown, S.C.; Tooele,
Utah; Dahlgren, Va.; Norfolk, Va.; Sewells Point, Va.; and
Yorktown, Va., and large quantities are reportedly stored at
ten other locations. When the military ships DU around the
country, the containers are not marked "radioactive" even
though the cargo is definitely radioactive as well as
explosive. (See ACTION ALERT, below.)

In addition to being radioactive, DU is toxic; specifically it
is known to be toxic to the genes of humans.[1, pg. 75] Studies
of Gulf War vets living with DU shrapnel in their bodies (from
"friendly fire" during the Gulf War) show evidence of genetic
damage.[6] At least one military scientist -- Alexandra Miller
a radiobiolgist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research
Institute in Bethesda, Md. says DU may be more dangerous than
previously believed because its chemical toxicity and its
radioactivity may combine in unexpected ways to cause harm.[7]

Miller also points out that genetic damage (from chemical
toxicity or radioactivity, or both) can be inherited and passed
along to successive generations, so harm may not become
apparent until many generations after the event that caused
it.[7] This puts DU munitions squarely into the class of
weapons known as "weapons of mass destruction or indiscriminate
effect."

U.S. planes, under NATO command, fired 10 tons (9 trillion
micrograms) of DU projectiles at targets in Kosovo in 1999.
During the Gulf War of 1991 against Iraq, the U.S. fired
projectiles containing somewhere between 300 and 338 tons of DU
(or 272 trillion to 302 trillion micrograms).[1, pg. 45]

The total quantity of DU munitions expended during the Iraq War
of 2003 has been estimated to be 100 to 200 tons (90 trillion
to 180 trillion micrograms).[8] Much of it was expended in or
near urban areas where civilian populations live, work, play,
draw water, and sell food.

It seems clear, then, that DU weapons produce special,
continuing hazards to civilians, especially children, and that
the harm from these weapons may be passed to future
generations. No doubt this is why a United Nations
subcommission in 1996 named DU munitions as "weapons of mass
destruction or indiscrimate effect" and recommended that their
use be outlawed.[9]

Tungsten alloy weapons can kill tanks and other hardened
targets as effectively as DU, so continued use of DU weapons by
the U.S. seems unnecessary and a slap in the face to the
principles of public health, international law, world opinion,
and common decency.                          --Peter Montague

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ACTION ALERT

By June 30, 2004, the U.S. Department of Transportation must
renew (or deny) the military's exemption that allows them to
ship DU weapons without marking them as radioactive or
explosive. In case of accident or fire, first responders need
to know this information. Here's what we can all do about it:

Contact the Department of Transportation Exemptions division
and ask that the DOT immediately terminate and not renew DOT-E
9649. Depleted uranium munitions should have a "Radioactive"
placard and an "Explosives" placard on shipments.

Send correspondence regarding DOT-E 9649 to: Mr. Delmer
Billings DHM-31 Director, Office of Hazardous Materials
Exemptions and Approvals Department of Transportation 400 7th
St. SW Washington, D.C. 20590

Fax: (202) 366-3308 E-mail: delmer.billings@rspa.dot.gov

Information from: http://www.gzcenter.org/DU.htm

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NOTES and REFERENCES

[1] Department of Protection of the Human Environment, World
Health Organization, Depleted Uranium; Sources, Exposure and
Health Effects (Geneva, Switzerland, April 2001). Available at
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/ir_pub/en/ .

[2] Matthew D. Sztajnkrycer and Edward J. Otten, "Chemical and
Radiological Toxicity of Depleted Uranium," Military Medicine
Vol. 169, No. 3 (2004), pgs. 212-216.

[3] Army manual quoted in Larry Johnson, "Activists want
depleted-uranium munitions labeled; military's exemption is
challenged," Seattle (Wa.) Post-Intelligencer Dec. 4, 2003.

[4] Susan Mayor, "Report suggests small link between depleted
uranium and cancer," British Medical Journal Vol. 322 (June 23,
2001), pg. 1508.

[5] Ed Ericson, "Dumping on History: A Radioactive Nightmare in
Concord, Massachusetts," E/The Environmental Magazine Mar. 5,
2004.

[6] Melissa A. McDiarmid and others, "Health Effects of
Depleted Uranium on Exposed Gulf War Veterans: A 10-Year
Follow-up," Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health,
Part A, Vol. 67 (2004), pgs. 277-296.

[7] Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Depleted uranium casts a shadow over
peace in Iraq," New Scientist Vol. 178, No. 2391 (April 19,
2003), pg. 4.

[8] Dan Fahey, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq
War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies."
Berkeley, Calif., June 24. 2003. Available at
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/pdf/duiq03.pdf

[9] The United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution
condemning the use of depleted uranium weapons during its 48th
session in August, 1996, as described in U.N. Press Release
HR/CN/755, "Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities Concludes Forty-Eighth Session."
Relevant section available at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/antiwar/UNres.htm

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RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 160
New Brunswick, N.J. 08903
Fax (732) 791-4603; E-mail: erf@rachel.org

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