angryDespite claims that depleted uranium is not really harmful, it is. Let's see:
DU is a heavy metal. Heavy metals tend to poison humans and other animals. Many symptoms of heavy metal poisoning correspond to symptoms reported by people who were exposed to DU and subsequently lost their health.
DU is a radioactive material. Radioactivity tends to poison humans and other animals. Many symptoms of radiation poisoning correspond to symptoms reported by people who were exposed to DU and subsequently lost their health.
Admitting that DU is damaging to health would be embarrassing and expensive for the government, so there is reason to lie about that.
When it looks like something is harmful, I am generally inclined to believe it is harmful, and I am not easily dissuaded by claims to the contrary. People have lied about the safety of materials way too many times in the past for me to trust them over a plausible danger.
The article goes into a great deal more detail. I am pleased to have so much specific information over something I had long suspected to be the case.
Paul Zimmerman | Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans
Paul Zimmerman, Truthout: "The United States insists that weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) pose no health hazards to exposed populations. This charade persists because an artful propaganda matrix has infiltrated and corrupted certain aspects of the radiation and biological sciences. The facts which follow will introduce how our debilitated veterans are being misinformed of the possible role played by uranium in their illnesses."
The Gulf War started quite a few years ago now, and has never really quit. Many of the soldiers deployed to that field have subsequently lost their health. There have also been reports of extreme poor health among the people who are stuck living in the most war-torn parts of the Middle East. We have tossed around so many chemicals and weapons and other contaminants that it's difficult to pin down the exact cause of a particular ailment. However, the results do make it pretty clear that something we've done has poisoned not just the land, but the people who live there -- and even people passing through. That damage doesn't stop with the people there now; it carries through to their children. While the frequency of birth defects reported in Falluja is higher, they are similar to those appearing among children of combat veterans who served in the Gulf War, and birth defects in military families here are also running higher than normal.
Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting. The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born. Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.
So think about this: when soldiers deploy to the Middle East, they are not the only ones on that battlefield. Alongside them are all of their unborn children, who may be crippled or killed by what their parents experience. Teratogenic damage is bad enough, but some of this is germline damage: changes to the DNA and chromosomes, the blueprints of humanity. That problem doesn't stay "over there." It comes home, here, where it creates grief and suffering and expense and havoc of all kinds.
As if the human traffic wasn't enough, there is this to consider as well: the Middle East is not separate from America. We have one planet, one atmosphere, one hydrosphere. Things that poison part of it don't necessarily stay in one place. Chemicals get into the ecosystem and travel far and wide. Dust -- say, that deadly DU dust -- hitches a ride on the wind and lands anywhere on the globe.
We aren't just harming ourselves. We're doing serious damage to the species, damage that will outlive all of us. That is the kind of sin that really is visited on the sons and daughters, punishing the innocent for the mistakes of others. It is wicked to kill for no good reason. It is evil to do so in a way that continues to cause harm to those who were in no way part of the original conflict.
EDIT 11/24/09: I also found this piece linking a lot of info about depleted uranium. The tone is over the top, so I suspect some details may be exaggerated, but gist is probably accurate.
http://vfp109rcc.org/depleted_uranium1.htm
November 23 2009, 06:08:56 UTC 11 years ago
Still, though, you're right on about it being a heavy metal.
November 23 2009, 07:52:04 UTC 11 years ago
Uranium is still radioactive, but not overtly so. It's an alpha-particle emitter, which means your skin will protect you. And even then, it doesn't emit enough particles to generate heat. So on it's own, it's relatively stable.
However...
Cut it thin enough, and it becomes pyrophoric, meaning that it spontaneously ignites. If you were to scrape a tiny sliver of metal from a DU round, it would flash ignite, much like the sparking flint of a lighter. The oxides produced have many industrial applications, provided they're contained in those applications. But out in the open, they're exceptionally toxic. As you can imagine, it also oxidizes very easily, which is why all the rounds you see in pictures are painted over.
DU is also very rare in that when you make something sharp out of it, it stays sharp, especially if it breaks. This is why DU is used in "penetrator" rounds. These weapons look like spears, and when they hit a target, such as tank armor, they pierce the metal. But unlike lead or steel, which mushrooms and becomes blunt, DU will fracture and become sharp once more, making it easy to keep penetrating. So penetrator rounds can punch their way through just about any kind of armor, and they can do it without the need for explosives of any kind. A DUP round is nothing more than a spear made of DU.
But here's the killer? As it's self-sharpening and cutting into the armored vehicle, the spear keeps breaking into little bits. When those little bits finally punch through into the crew compartment, they spontaneously ignite. If the crew isn't killed by flying metal, they're incinerated by the cloud of burning DU, or by the fuel or ammunition cooking off.
Here's a more graphic example of what happens when a tank is hit by such a round, carrying a full load of fuel and ammo.
What you're seeing there is the powder charges cooking off. The pops are from small rounds, like .50 cal going off, and the bigger *POMP*s are actual high-explosive rounds detonating. So it's easy to see the appeal of DU in weapons? Quite simply, they work. First time, every time.
The worst part is that some of the DU will survive in tiny bits that will last in the environment for thousands of years, still toxic, still dangerous. And all that roaring flame-aside from incinerating the crew-is also spewing uranium oxides all over a very wide area.
And that is why it's such a threat.
November 23 2009, 08:03:14 UTC 11 years ago
Well...
November 23 2009, 23:38:13 UTC 11 years ago
Only the if the uranium stays outside your body. The problem is that it's being used as ammunition, so there are many shrapnel injuries and vast quantities of inhalable dust created. The worst damage seems to be done by DU dust inhaled after combat. It remains dangerous for the indefinite future, gets everywhere, and is essentially impossible to clean up.
Re: Well...
November 24 2009, 01:56:13 UTC 11 years ago
A round going down the barrel leaves a trail of uranium oxide because tiny amounts get scraped off and ignite. They used to tell us "Don't pick up the sabots if you find them on the deck!" and they always made sure to fire the CIWS so the "dust" was carried downwind and away from the ship. We also had to do freshwater washdowns after each firing.
Not harmful, eh?
The government doth protest too much, methinks.
Re: Well...
November 24 2009, 02:21:34 UTC 11 years ago
Friendly fire isn't.
A weapon that you can't fire without harming your own troops is a bad weapon.