Depleted Uranium: Army Use & Radioactivity Risk

[russ_watters]

Lets not turn this into a political thread. If you guys want to keep talking about the science behind DU (including combat effectiveness), fine - otherwise this thread will need to be closed.

 

[Dayle Record]

The money is flowing out of the military and into the private sector, where research, and acts occur that are not sanctioned by military governance, or by the legislature of the United States. Many things that you might trust to the government are now handled by private companies, that owe their allegiance to the bottom line, and can be owned by whomever has the money to buy in. So, for instance, the computer systems for the FBI are handled by a private concern, who also ships chemicals all over the world, maintains aircraft in South America, and has its own large private army. Please someone, do the math on this? The MATRIX system for tracking everything and everyone, is privately owned; but used by the government. We wouldn't allow the government to do this, but the private sector making money off the government does this as they please. Many weapons systems considered too heinous to be developed by the military of a free nation, microwaves and mind control; are handled by private corporations that contract for, but aren't the US Government. The money flows to them from our pockets, but in a carefully stacked scheme to avoid control by the conscience of legislators, elected by the American People. What I am saying here is that the Soldier on the ground, the people on the ground, whether American, or civilians in harms way; are at the mercy of ruthless corporations that operate outside the control of the military, or tor the enemy, or the American People.

I have the deepest respect for the American Soldiers in harms way, and the civilians caught in the middle. The war we are currently engaged in, is full of innocents at risk. We can start with the multitude from Utah alone. The Salt Lake papers today are again discussing the ill effects of radiation on the Utah populations, as the bill to fund nuclear research on nuke bunker busters, was scuttled in congress.

Questioning what is being done in the name of the American People, is the name of the game, in a democracy. Just as "enlightened obedience" is the name of the game, in the Military. The culture of the defense of this nation, and sales in regarding to the defense of this nation; surely has to be scrutinized on a continuing basis. The theft inherent in the system is enormous, but the theft of life from long term ill effects of some sell-jobs, is particularly grim. For instance, when the shuttle crashed, there were severe warnings regarding touching any part due to the toxicity of hydrazine fuel. Now that the shuttle is scuttled, suddenly there is being marketed several domestic uses for hydrazine. You know that has to do with selling off toxic waste instead of just dealing with it, and hanging on to the technology to produce it in quantity. I can see NASA handling some hot stuff, but I can't see Zeke down at wherever, living through the experience.

Numbers is always in interesting game. In the opening days of the war in Iraq, your chances of dying as a us combatant were 1/600. If you were a journalist your mortality rate was 1/30. In war the figures are well established that 80% of casualties are civilian, women, and children. The combatants are the best protected. So upwards of 10,000 Iraqis have died from this current conflict. According to Iraqi medical people, untold thousands have died from cancers related to the earlier conflict, and will die because of the current one. Please don't forget how long it took for the Government to recognise Gulf War Syndrome. The Iraqi people surely have a huge case of this. This isn't happening in a vacuum.

A Ranger, or a Navy Seal makes a certain amount of money. A civilian defense contractor, paid out of the same budget makes $15,000-$30,000 per month to be in Iraq, or Afghanistan; or wherever they contract to. Do the math, there is a large scale robbery taking place, and it is happening, because it can happen. This cavalier use of nuclear waste to make weaponry is a result of some very slick sell job. You can't prove that lives have been saved by this stuff. I mean really, do it, prove it. You will see that the loss of life will be catastrophic in aftermath, and a very slim numbers game, in real time.

But, anyway, read this. This regards promises made and kept, this whole rant of mine isn't necessarily off topic, because I know that hucksterism, rather than science often rules the arena; where scientists could and should be heard; but are silenced.

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jun/06102004/commenta/174102.asp

 

[Dayle Record]

Dear Russ, I wrote this reply just after reading the last entry. There is some science in here, but it has to do with the relationship of the scientific community, and its responsibility to the world at large. I have learned a lot during this thread, but mostly I have learned about how a wall can be effectively built around a real issue; by weighted issues that have little bearing on the reality, but a lot of bearing on spin.

 

[Kojac]

ok. no more politics. got it. however, I'm going to direct you to the page on the military's gulf war site that tells you all about DU and calmly tries to tell you that you're hyping the living crap out of it. Radiation hazard? hardly. Heavy metal? yeah, but how big is the likelihood of ingesting or inhaling it? it's not like we disolve them in water supplies. we shoot them at stuff.
anyway, go here-> http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm

 

[Kojac]

ooh. got another one. check out the risk of leukemia from inhaling 1 g of DU. 1 in 230,000. http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/dbkcr.html

 

[Dayle Record]

I have just read the pro statements, by the vested interests. I have also read some statements by WHO. Here is a statement from someone more actively involved with the scene. Now I am just concerned by the enormous variance in opinion regarding use of this stuff.

***************************************

Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.

Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.

"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.

Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.

Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.

"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."

Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."

Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.

"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.

"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.

"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."


BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ

 

[Dayle Record]

This is a long set of comparisons regarding cancers, and rates of cancers among military personnel exposed to DU explosions, and those not exposed. The graphs are fairly expressive, and the data is fairly clear. There is such a great divide regarding the pro and con data, the pro and con statements.

http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/DUREPORT/mirror_dureport.html

 

[geometer]

An interesting and illuminating quote from a World Health Organization Fact Sheet on DU.

"A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low."

 

[Mista T]

Yeah, nukes are these one bombs where you die.

 

[Kojac]

err... right. quit your jibberjabber. :) anyway, I see the work of one scientist (who may have gulf war syndrome) Which may or may not be related to DU, and may be related to quite a few other things as well, verses the analysis of many tests and studies run by the DoD which show, among other things, range of contamination, comparisons of radiation levels, and even such illuminating facts like the fact that abrams' tank crews have an overall radiation level much lower then they would outside their tank, despite being surrounded by DU plating (albeit the DU hasn't been recently vaporized) but they've noted DU dust pretty much settles in a 10 m radius, which doesn't really seem so bad.

In general, it seems to me that using DU is no more dangerous then hand-soldering a circuit board in terms of heavy metal exposure.

 

[swansont]

This is a long set of comparisons regarding cancers, and rates of cancers among military personnel exposed to DU explosions, and those not exposed. The graphs are fairly expressive, and the data is fairly clear. There is such a great divide regarding the pro and con data, the pro and con statements.

http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/DUREPORT/mirror_dureport.html

The data are clear? I can't tell from that report exactly what they were comparing. It looks like they think there's a difference in the occurrences of different types of cancer for people exposed to DU. I don't understand what their control group is.

The all have a common experience of exposure to a DU explosion, but I'll bet they also have a common exposure to MREs as well as a lot of other factors. Correlation is not causality. Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't look like good science at all.

 

[russ_watters]

The data are clear? I can't tell from that report exactly what they were comparing. It looks like they think there's a difference in the occurrences of different types of cancer for people exposed to DU. I don't understand what their control group is.

That was my assessment as well. I don't see a description of the groups - not even how many people are in each. Without that, its impossible to draw conclusions from the data.

 

[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]

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.

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]

The data is cross cultural, being combined efforts of Iraqi scientists, and data from the University Of New Mexico school of public health.

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

The Iraqi research was documenting a well defined rise in numerous cancers, over several years following the first DU use there.

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.

and the method was simple

It may have been, but I don't know because it wasn't explained.

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.

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]

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.

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]

...there were no nuclear weapons until after women got the right to vote in the US.

I am soooo using that one.

 

[hitssquad]

Meta analyses and Eysenck

Ahh - a "meta-study." I really, really hate those things.

...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]

And I thought he'd given up and gone home...

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]

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

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

 

[russ_watters]

Plenty of reputable scientists claim that DU is carcinogenic.

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.

I really don't have a lot of emotion about this subject...

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]

I don't like the patronizing tone, you take with me.

Ditto for you, though your tone is maybe a little more sanctimonious than patronizing.

The future of warfare needs to be peaceful distribution of the world's resources, and conflict resolution before it becomes war.

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.

Again, I don't need to be pounded...

If you keep posting, I'll keep responding. If you interpret that as "pounding," that's up to you.

...and why don't you substitute a more blatant mysogynistic name for the emotion that you are projecting onto me.

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.

All of this personal projection of my supposed emotional state, is highly subjective, and innacurate.

Your initial arguments 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

 

[Oyéah]

Today in New Scientist the link between plutonium and cancer is discussed. This is an article that discusses the fact that the DU being manufactured is not pure and contains Plutonium, and other more radioactive isotopes. The article also stated that the Navy has withdrawn from use of DU due to health concerns. Here is a link to the Dirty Du article.

http://www.firethistime.org/plutoniumcontamination.htm

Here is a link to today's New Scientist article

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996152