- #36
kyleb
But while I'm sure you would feel perfectly safe chuging down a glass of dihydrogen monoxide, I doubt you be willing to suck down the gas created in the vaporization of a DU round. Eh, LunchBox?
Ok, correction: at this point, it is just suspected, as it is classified (though I'm willing to concede it is probable that the GBU-28 does use it): http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pdfs/DU2102A3b.pdfhitssquad said:There is a conventional bomb with uranium in it? What bomb are you talking about, Russ?
Bob Nichols said:To the woman above who was concerned about a family member about to go. 518,000 of the Troopers who've served in Iraq are now on Medical Disability. That is a staggering 56%. Do everything you can to try to keep him or her out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Be creative! Don't be timid.
The US Military used 375 Tons of weaponized poisonous uranium oxide gas in the First Gulf War.
The World Health Organization was nonetheless able to assess the health risks of Depleted Uranium in a post-combat environment thanks to a 2001 mission to Kosovo. A 2001 WHO fact sheet on depleted uranium concludes: "because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer." In addition, "no reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans" as a result of DU exposure.
source: http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/env/du/en/
Thank you for picking up on the sarcasm... I was wondering if I laid it on thick enough. And thank you for helping to prove my point. The only time a DU round vaporizes is when it... you know... slams into something at high speed. Considering anyone in the vehicle when it is hit is going to die a pretty quick death, I doubt they have time to get cancer. The uranium in a DU round is completely encased in a sheath (sabot) that makes up the outside of the munition. Even if you abrade the outside of a DU round, you will not generate any uranium laced dust or gas.But while I'm sure you would feel perfectly safe chuging down a glass of dihydrogen monoxide, I doubt you be willing to suck down the gas created in the vaporization of a DU round.
The latter does not follow from the former.kyleb said:inhaling the gas directly off a vaporized DU round is a serious health risk; so when you vaporize enough of it into the air over the landscape [...] eventually an unhealthily dose of the stuff is bound to wind up inside peoples bodies.
Another route of aerosol exposure is the manual clearing of jams in automatic cannons that fire DU rounds.LunchBox said:The only time a DU round vaporizes is when it [...] slams into something at high speed.
Pretty much impossible, DU is used in penetrators who don´t come into contact with the barrel of guns but are saboted (M829 and M919) or contained in the bullet as a smaller diameter core (PGU-13).hitssquad said:Another route of aerosol exposure is the manual clearing of jams in automatic cannons that fire DU rounds.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/071304Nichols/071304nichols.htmlThis story is about American weapons built with depleted uranium components for the business end of things. Just about all American bullets, tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000-pound bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered to help our side in the war of us against them has depleted uranium in it. Lots of depleted uranium.
Speaking of crap, did you read the BBC article posted on the last page? It contains The Most Ironic Thing Ever Written.SK said:It never ceases to amaze me how supposed "Journalists" can write down crap like this which is fundamentally wrong (as everyone googling for 3 mins can find out).
You don't say?!A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute, for example, said: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."
I don't see how you can argue that. The logic holds true for fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and the like; what makes DU exempt?hitssquad said:The latter does not follow from the former.
Its irony via unintentional, self-evident understatement: 'a bullet in the chest might be harmful - especially if it tears a big hole in your heart.'kyleb said:I don't see the irony there Russ, could you elaborate?
(well, the meaning isn't clear - there are a fair number of people with more or less permanent shrapnel wounds. But...) Yes, I know: that's why it was unintentional. That's what makes it so funny! You have heard of "irony", haven't you? Definition:kyleb said:That is more like irony via avioding the intent; the report was obviously referring to less forcefull ways in which the substance might enter the body, such as though inhalation or ingestion
-The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
-An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
Considering that the normal way metal from a bullet or shrapnel enters your body is through a bullet or shrapnel wound and that there are a fair number of vets with permanent imbedded shrapnel, its not a stretch to say the quote was worded too loosely. ie, the following quote in the same article in which both meanings are relevant:kyleb said:Seriously though, the apparent and intended meaning are the same unless in this situation unless one makes a contious effort to avoid that meaning.
Dr Kilpatrick said a study that had followed 90 US Gulf War veterans exposed to the dust and to shrapnel from DU rounds in "friendly fire" incidents had found no DU-related medical problems. [emphasis added]
Do you know what 10,000-year flood levels are? If you don't, neither do most persons who live below them.kyleb said:The dangers of water are far cry from those of radioactive heavy metals.
Depleted uranium is not a significant health hazard unless it is taken into the body. External exposure to radiation from depleted uranium is generally not a major concern because the alpha particles emitted by its isotopes travel only a few centimeters in air or can be stopped by a sheet of paper. Also, the uranium-235 that remains in depleted uranium emits only a small amount of low-energy gamma radiation. However, if allowed to enter the body, depleted uranium, like natural uranium, has the potential for both chemical and radiological toxicity with the two important target organs being the kidneys and the lungs. The most likely pathways by which uranium could enter the body are ingestion and inhalation. The relative contribution of each pathway to the total uptake into the body depends on the physical and chemical nature of the uranium, as well as the level and duration of exposure.
Rejjeye said:The use of Depleted Uranium Munitions or DUMb as I like to call them, will kill us all, even if we do not participate in Our Illustrious Leader's wars.
Those that support it's use, either actively or passively not caring about it one way or another, will have hell to pay after the deaths of billions if not trillions of people. That crap is going to be around for a long long long time and those that think the Middle East is a long way from downtown where ever had better think again. The wind carries. That crap is going to be around for a long long time, i.e., it has a 4.5 billion year half life.
It's use is a crime against nature.
TheStripey1 wrote:
I found this archived radio program on one of the other forums where I post... this is a recent show and has several of the heavy hitters involved in the anti-DU movement, including but not limited to Doug Rokke, Bob Nichols, Loren Moret and Susan Riordan...
I've read some of this material before, but... it is a whole different ballgame to actually hear these experts talk about DU...
Just hit Play Now! beside this show...
X-Zone Radio Archives
March 24, 2005 - Thursday - DEPLETED URANIUM: CAUSE & EFFECT- Dr. Doug Rokke - Pentagon's man in charge of Depleted Uranium Project and Clean Up, Leuren Moret - Famous former Nuclear Weapons Lab assistant who has spoken in over 42 countries on US Uranium Weapons - Dennis Kyne - After 15 years in the US Army, he knows the story of war and learned the hard way how to Support The Truth, Bob Nichols - Writer, Project Censored Award Winner, he has written Uranium Weapons materials and articles for hundreds of newspapers, magazine, radio and television shows, Karen Parker - A veteran American lawyer at the UN, she wrote the book on Uranium Weapons Law, Susan Riordan - Famous Canadian Uranium Weapons celebrity.
faust9 said:So is cadmium--are you waving signs and cry foul on the internet because of NiCads?
kyleb said:We have safe safe disposal procedures for NiCad batteries for a reason; if were were vaproising tons of the suff across our landscape, woudln't you cry foul?
Bold add.The oxide particulates may be much more refractory to dissolution than the metal, if they are primarily composed of UO2. Refractory particles inhaled at the time of their production or subsequently, as a result of resuspension, could be of greater significance radiologically than through the chemical toxicity of their uranium content. This is because such particles can be retained in various organs and tissues, including the respiratory and reticuloendothelial systems, irradiating their surroundings. If such particles are leached only slowly, they will contribute to only a limited degree to an increase of uranium concentrations in the kidneys.
The distribution and retention of inhaled radioactive refractory particulates has been studied extensively. In particular, a great deal of work has been undertaken on high-fired PuO2. Particles, with aerodynamic diameters of up to a few tens of micrometres are readily inhaled. Particles with aerodynamic diameters of more than a few micrometres are mainly deposited in the upper part of the respiratory tract (the nasal passages, trachea and larger bronchi) and are largely cleared by mechanical action on a time scale of a few hours. Smaller particles penetrate more deeply into the lungs and sub-micrometre particles are deposited mainly in the respiratory tissues (the pulmonary parenchyma) comprising the bronchioli and alveoli. (ICRP 1994)
Here the report changes its mind and admits that DU might not be that radioactive, but then lead on to:These ultra-fine particles may be more soluble in physiological fluids, thus creating a local environment of enhanced uranium concentration in the cells proximal to the particle of DU-oxide. In this respect it is notable that DU-UO2 2+ cation is capable of transforming human osteoblast cells in culture to a tumourigenic phenotype (Miller, Fuciarelli et al. 1998). Similar transformation can be achieved with nickel and, to a lesser extent, with lead, leading to the conclusion that this transformation may have little to do with the radioactivity of DU. This conclusion is confirmed by the small fraction (0.0014%) of cells hit by alpha particles at the uranium concentrations used.
So out with DU, out with Pb, and out with Nickel too.It is relevant to note that nickel is an established carcinogen (IARC 1990) and has been shown to induce a genomic instability similar to that induced by radiation (Coen, Mothersill et al. 2001).
faust9 said:Ah, the cry of a demagogue. "Millions of tons are killing babies all over the world! For the love of innocent babies do something before the evil destructive DU vapor clouds rain down death on all!"
:grumpy:faust9 said:Quit falling back to the emotional respone and start looking at this froom a scientiffic stand point.
Chances are, no one is going to listen to 4 hours of that - if you have any facts to present, please do. Your posts appear to reflect some common misconceptions, ie: long half life=bad. In fact, the longer the half-life, the less radioactive something is. Also, this was an interesting comment:Rejjeye said:The radio program is four hours long. Perhaps, faust is still listening to it and has had his mind changed by what he has learned from it.
On the other hand, perhaps he doesn't believe experts in their field and prefers to speculate or believe what the government tells him about it.
Um, a trillion people?Those that support it's use, either actively or passively not caring about it one way or another, will have hell to pay after the deaths of billions if not trillions of people.
kyleb said:I didn't say anything about killing babies, so maybe you should take your own advice.
:grumpy:
Davorak said:They have the dangers switched in this report. Also they are comparing U238 to P238 but neglect to mention the half lifes Pu-238 with its 87.8 years. Du's half life is 4.5 billion years.
brewnog said:So what?
Is the use of the word "billion" supposed to incite reactions of fear here?