depleted uranium

Dayle Record

The data is cross cultural, being combined efforts of Iraqi scientists, and data from the University Of New Mexico school of public health. There are a lot of radioactive sites in New Mexico and there is a lot of valid research regarding public health dangers of these various things out of the University Of New Mexico. The Iraqi research was documenting a well defined rise in numerous cancers, over several years following the first DU use there. The graphs showed a dramatic and clear increase of cancers over time past the first DU use in Iraq. While thrashing about looking for some good research, I came across statements regarding plutonium on the ground as much as a mile away from the Nevada Test Site, and Tritium plumes entering the water tables there. I was reading that the date 2070 has been set for the end of cleanup of that stuff.

Keep in mind a lot of damage has happened while we were being assured that there was no danger, at any time.

Those graphs were simple to read, and the method was simple, were you present at a DU explosion, yes/no; then the data regarding cancer, yes/no.

BCRion

But it is not so simple. We need to rule out other potential causes of cancer as well. It may be true there is a correlation between the use of DU weapons and a rise in cancer rate, but was DU singled out as the agent actually causing the increase in cancer? I think not.

In a war you have literally hundreds of chemicals and who knows what put into the atmosphere and inhaled or absorbed into the lungs, blood, etc. Are we sure that it is DU causing this, or the other residues of the chemical explosives used in war? These questions are not addressed.

As far as the Nevada Test Site, so what? They tested real live nuclear (fission, if you will) weapons there and a lot of them. Two entirely different situations that do not apply.

russ_watters

Ahh - a "meta-study." I really, really hate those things. It eliminates all accountability for the data, treating all studies as equals. I thought the study was all American servicemen?

edit: reread. Ok, this changes everything. A combination of Iraqi studies on Iraqi soldiers - sorry, but that scores reallllllly high on my B.S.-O-Meter. I have no confidence whatsoever in the accuracy of those numbers. It may have been, but I don't know because it wasn't explained. For a comparison, Dayle, have you heard about the data regarding cancer risk from power lines? Same idea. A statistical correlation exists, but no causation has been identified. Most scientists think there are more cancers around power lines because there are more poor people living around power lines.

faust9

Correlation and Causality.* One common mistake made by people interpreting a correlational coefficient refers to causality.* When we see that depression and low self-esteem are negatively correlated, we often surmise that depression must therefore cause the decrease in self-esteem.* When contemplating this, consider the following correlations that have been found in research:

• Positive correlation between ice cream consumption and drownings
  
• Positive correlation between ice cream consumption and murder
  
• Positive correlation between ice cream consumption and boating accidents
  
• Positive correlation between ice cream consumption and shark attacks

link: http://allpsych.com/researchmethods/correlation.html


I always love these ice cream correlations. The bread is evil correlations is another good one.

Studies that don't involve the scientific method are easy to skew. In the case of DU the studies are focusing on DU as the cause because there is a correlation; however, the more significant correlation is war in general causes illness.

swansont

I think you can even go further than that. The idea that power lines caused cancer cropped up because in some power line areas, there were higher-than-normal cancer rates. But IIRC once a full, statistical study was done, it was found that there was no overall correlation, once you removed the economic status bias.

This situation is similar to the silicone breast implants that were banned - women got sick after having the implants, and were convinced that the silicoone was the cause. But the statistics showed that the chances of getting ill after implants was no higher than in general. A case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. (Robert Park discusses this in Vodoo Science, which is a must read, right after Sagan's The Demon Haunted World) This fallacy is why I disregard the earlier statement of 'XXX blames his illnesses on DU exposure.' It's anecdotal, and doesn't constitute evidence. It has no more weight than saying that there were no nuclear weapons until after women got the right to vote in the US. True, but meaningless from a causality standpoint.

russ_watters

I am soooo using that one.

hitssquad

...So did Eysenck. He discusses meta-studies a bit in Genius.

Dayle Record

Plenty of reputable scientists claim that DU is carcinogenic. I read aplenty regarding this, and thought about it too. I really don't have a lot of emotion about this subject, but I enjoy seeing what happens when this is discussed.

Let us see, those that do not embrace the technology of Depleted Uranium, are:

Hippies
Emotional wrecks
Non thinkers
Poorly versed in Science

If I didn't know better, I would think this were an election year. I don't kiss babies though, they might be radioactive.

When all the money is made
And all the doers are daid,
Then we will find the terrible
The unbearable sad reality;
But only after the statute of
Limitations has run out.
Death is always in fashion.
When you have a pipeline to broker
Oil or drug you take your pick.
We did not go there to make life better,
Nor did we remove a single fetter.
The blue burkas blow in Kabul still,
The old men lie with the boys and the girls
They always will.
The Oilmen, the deathmen bored of their trailers,
Are brushing the dust off their khakis
Picking up their guns,
And looking for rich fields to drain,
Into the deathstream.
The nuclear dust now flows
In the Euphrates and the Tigris,
If only it were blood instead,
This history flows forever now,
Not just the tale of vicious monkeys,
But the tale of poison to deaden
A world. Poison on poison,
Into the veins of the world
The Amazon, the Mississippi,
The Orinoco, the Rhine, cannot
Drown our misdeads.
If there is a judgement day
How the scientists will cry,
I was just doing my job,
The figures bore this out,
The studies said...
It was within acceptible limits...
The risk outweighed the consequences,
I did what I was told to do.
It was the lesser of the two evils.

faust9

I don't think anyone here disputes the fact that DU is a know carcinogen. The sun is a know carcinogen. Diesel fuel is a know carcinogen. Acrylamide is a known carcinogen. Smoking is a known carcinogen.... I could go on but it'd be pointless. The simple fact that a material is a carcinogen doesn't make it any less or more dangerous than the 1000 plus things you encounter on a daily basis that are just as harmful. Heck working with epoxy or super glue can be more dangerous than the limited exposure to DU on a battle field.

Kojac

Seriously. Everyone absorbs carcinogenic material daily. Who really cares if DU is too? The point is that it's not really adding any discernable risk. Hell, our soldiers probably are in more danger from the cigarettes they smoke and the secondhand smoke their teamates blow their way. I kinda figure we've gone over this 5 zillion times now...there is no hard data that backs up claims of real danger stemming from DU. There are plenty of nay-sayers who don't like the word 'Uranium' and scream 'radioactivity', when in reality, what we've got is an emitter of alpha's and beta's (hardly a DEADLY killer), and a bunch of people who should be more worried that it's a heavy metal then a source of radiation poisoning. Shoot. Until you can really show us some data, quit with the poetry and the claims that it's as harmful as *gasps* Aspartamine.

Yggdrasil

Depleted uranium is uranium at its final isotope, where it can not release any more radioactivity.

swansont

Uh, no. There are no stable isotopes of Uranium.

russ_watters

Dayle, with statements like this, you continue to display your willful ignorance on the subject. Like the others said, of course its a carcinogen: its a heavy metal! What we've been trying to pound into you (unsuccessfully) is there is a difference between chemical properties and radiological properties. You are still mixing the two up. Besides which, just saying a substance is carcinogenic doesn't say much of anything about what the risks are with it.
There are a lot of things that could kill you - or me, or an Iraqi schoolchild. DU is one of them. But DU is so low on the list that it does not warrant the attention you and some others give it. Why not pick on cigarette smoke? Air pollution? Stairs! As I said before, you latched on to DU because of an emotional reaction to the word "urnanium."

Dayle Record

I "Latched onto this" because this stuff is being tested extensively less than 40 miles from where I live. There are a lot of conflicting discussions regarding this, in the scientific community. I know that as a heavy metal it is poisonous, and radiologically it is carcinogenic, if it is taken into the body. It is taken into the body if you are in close proximity to a DU weapon discharge, or if you pick up a shrapnel wound, or if you are a child, handling pieces of spent ordinance, and playing in the dust, and putting your hands in your mouth as children do. I am not sure what happens if you grow a vegetable garden over where DU explosions occurred. I don't need to be pounded. I have done a lot of reading about this, especially since starting this thread, and I have followed up on every point. I don't like the patronizing tone, you take with me.

The future of warfare needs to be peaceful distribution of the world's resources, and conflict resolution before it becomes war. The money spent on weaponry, and warfare, insures that it will persist, as it impoverishes the world, and instability from that results in warfare. When war becomes more and more toxic, and new and longer lived pollutants are disbursed we pay for generations into the future, for whatever short term gain came from warfare.

This substance is, whether mildly or massively, radioactive. This substance is toxic, and carcinogenic. These explosions occur at such a high temperature that new compounds are formed at impact whose nano properties have not been tested, because that is one of those side issues that was skirted when DU was approved for use. It is thought that the new compounds that form, and the unusual shape of the molecules are the main carcinogen.

Again, I don't need to be pounded, and why don't you substitute a more blatant mysogynistic name for the emotion that you are projecting onto me. All of this personal projection of my supposed emotional state, is highly subjective, and innacurate. I am concerned that this will turn out to be one of those things that will really cost this nation, enormous amounts of monies in reparations later.

Kojac

yeah...world peace would be nice. I agree. Nice, however, is a whole different ballgame then realistic. By the way, no one fusses about our soldiers handing out cigarettes to the residents of warzones, or the fact that we use x-rays, MRI's, or CAT scans in medicine, or the radiation emitted by smoke detectors, TV's, your computer monitor, microwaves...or any other things I see every day. Aspartamine is used in everything, along with MSG, and every circuitboard I've ever encountered is covered in soldering- tin and lead. no one fussed about the fact that when they started ripping asbestos out of schools and public buildings they actually put more asbestos into the air and exposed more people to it then would have happened had they just left it. you know what it is? it's political. it's a card that's being played to advocate change beyond just changing ammunition. it's a card that's being played because some people don't like the fact that we even have a military, because we're involved in conflicts that offend their sensibilities. I really don't know about you, but my view is that the bigger and badder our guns our, the more likely it is that the friends i personally have in Iraq right now will come home alive and well, because the tank that might have shot them, or the truck carrying radical gunmen was shredded with a nice, dense bullet, eliminating the threat before it really even became a threat. thank God they are testing such materials, and for all i care, they can test them around where i live. (as long as they're not too loud, i'd like to get some sleep at night) shoot. the things aren't any more harmful then tons of stuff we see every day. just quit it.

russ_watters

Ditto for you, though your tone is maybe a little more sanctimonious than patronizing. Thats all well and good, but 1. that has nothing to do with this discussion, 2. that world does not exist, and 3. wishful thinking will not make it happen. If you keep posting, I'll keep responding. If you interpret that as "pounding," that's up to you. The only person here to make an issue of your gender is you. With a name like "Dayle," I initially assumed you were male. But it doesn't really matter to me either way. On issues like this, being emotional is not strictly a female trait. Your initial arguements made comment on your emotional point of view relevant: your initial arguments were based largely on emotion, not science (your very first sentence was an emotionally charged accusation of disinformation). You've gotten better, but you haven't let go of the emotion and argued strictly based on science. edit: reading back, you argued specifically that emotion should play a role in science. You seem to be backing away from that, which is good, but you haven't let go of the emotional content of your argument yet.

Yggdrasil

Here is a website about DU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium