The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, HEAL Utah, and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, IEER, based in Maryland, say that depleted uranium grows more radioactive over time and will eventually exceed the hotter standards of Class B and Class C waste. http://www.sundance.tv/blog/2010/02/utah-governor-turns-back-two-uranium-trains
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2-2-15 Birth defects and cancer rates seem to have skyrocketed in Iraq in the last 15 years, and mounting evidence indicates that depleted uranium (DU) munitions could be responsible. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-constitutional-rights/poisoning-iraq_b_6262538.html
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movie chronicle of d.u. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-kors/chris-martini-director-of_b_6702050.html
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Enrichment of uranium for use in nuclear weapons and reactors produces various waste byproducts,
including so-called "depleted" uranium. For over 25 years the US Dept. of Defense has
produced ammunition using this nuclear waste which is both radioactive and chemically
toxic. Evidence of environmental and human health damage caused by d. u. has steadily
increased, despite Pentagon assertions that such impacts would not occur. There is
now significant evidence that d. u. can cause or accelerate cancer, mutate genes and
affect the kidneys, immune and nervous systems, respiratory and reproductive
systems.
http://www.dmzhawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/depleted-uranium-fact-sheet.pdf.............................................................................................................
d. u. in Iowa: http://health.phys.iit.edu/extended_archive/0101/msg00393.html
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Depleted uranium munitions are proliferating and being exported around the world, as conventional weapons, but they are not. They are radiological weapons with extremely long-term effects....
The cover-up began in 1991 with the Los Alamos memorandum10, continued with 2003 U.S. State Department Press Releases claiming that warnings regarding adverse health and environmental effects are/were Iraqi propaganda11 designed to prevent effective and essential use of DU munitions in combat. This still continues with the recent briefing to a U.S. Congressional Committee claiming that no adverse health effects have been observed as a result of exposures....
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/nuclear_free_zone/2009/12/du--depleted-uranium---testimony-of-leuren-moret-for-the-international-criminal-tribunal-for-afghanistan.html
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12-21-06 In 1991, an estimated 375 tons of Depleted Uranium were dumped on Iraq, and approximately 2200 tons were dumped in the war in 2003. According to geiger counter readings in four different sites, the radiation levels were between one and two thousand times higher than normal background radiation. Millions of Iraqis have been affected. Of the 697,000 American troops that were there in 1991, about half of them have since reported serious medical problems and significant increases in birth defects in their newborn children.
For perspective, in Vietnam, about 10% of veterans reported problems, and in WWII about 3% reported, and now we are looking at 50%. About 1/3rd of the Iraq vets – 230,000 people – are on Veterans Administration (VA) Disability. That is a huge increase over previous wars.
What we are looking at is something beyond the imagination. DU has been blamed on the health level for the effects of the Gulf War Syndrome, including chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue, and memory loss among at least 200,000 soldiers.
Cancer in Iraq, according to a UN Subcommission, seems to have increased between 7 and 10 times, and deformities, or congenital defects between 4 and 6 times expected levels of the norm. A United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority report said up to 500,000 people would die before the end of the century due to radioactive debris left behind in the desert. http://www.i-amperfectlyhealthy.com/DepletedUranium.html
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Aug. 2014 Highly-enriched uranium in US and Russian weapons and other military stockpiles amounts to about 1500 tonnes*, equivalent to about seven times annual world mine production.
* according to TradeTech: Russia 720 t +/- 120 t, USA 600 t.
World stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium are reported to be some
260 tonnes, which if used in mixed oxide fuel in conventional reactors
would be equivalent to a little over one year's world uranium
production. Military plutonium can blended with uranium oxide to form
mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.After LEU or MOX is burned in power reactors, the spent fuel is not suitable for weapons manufacture....
In June 2000, the USA and Russia agreed to dispose of at least 34 tonnes each of weapons-grade plutonium by 2014. The USA undertook to pursue a dual track program (immobilisation and MOX), self-funded, while the G-7 nations were to provide some US$ 2.5 billion to set up Russia's program. The latter was initially MOX-oriented for VVER reactors, the high cost being because this was not part of Russia's fuel cycle policy. The USA agreed to allow the Russian plutonium to be used in BN-600 and BN-800 fast neutron reactors, and the timeline stretched to 2018. However, the G7 funding was not available on this basis and Russia is funding most of the program, with the USA contributing $400 million. The 68 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium in both countries is equivalent to about 12,000 tonnes of natural uranium.
In 2011 an amending protocol to the 2000 agreement came into force, confirming the Russian use of fast reactors and specifying a weapons plutonium disposition rate of 1.3 t/yr in each country from 2018. High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTRs) may be used if they are commissioned around 2019-21, and this may increase the rate.
Weapons-grade plutonium entering the civil fuel cycle needs to be kept under very tight security http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/military-warheads-as-a-source-of-nuclear-fuel/
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In a 1999 paper for a Hague Peace Conference, Dr. Rosalie Bertell laid out a concise explanation of the potential dangers of DU exposure.
"Uranium oxide and its aerosol form are insoluble in water. The aerosol resists gravity, and is able to travel tens of kilometres in air. Once on the ground, it can be resuspended when the sand is disturbed by motion or wind. Once breathed in, the very small particles of uranium oxide, those which are 2.5 microns (one micron = one millionth of a meter) or less in diameter, could reside in the lungs for years, slowly passing through the lung tissue into the blood."[4]Dr. Asaf Durakovic, founder of the Uranium Medical Research Center continues the case, stating that in the course of one year, 1 milligram of depleted uranium emits 390 million alpha particles, 780 million beta particles and associated gamma rays. This is over one billion high energy, ionizing, radioactive particles and rays which can produce extensive biological damage to ovaries, lungs lymph nodes, kidneys, breast, blood bones,stomach and fetuses.
Supporters of DU weapons argue that the dangers of DU, particularly from radiation, are not as catastrophic as experts such as Dr. Bertell and Dr. Durakovic think. But many of these arguments lean heavily on two studies by the Rand Corporation which were commissioned by the Department of Defense in 1999. [5] [1]
However, critics of these studies contend they are flawed because they use existing data from natural and Depleted uranium which assumes a particle size much larger than that actually produced when DU weapons explode and burn. (A good presentation of this controversy can be seen in the award winning documentary "Beyond Treason".) [2] An independant study published in "Military Medicine" in Aug 2, 2003 examines the issue of exposure to DU in greater depth. [3]
The health concerns, particularly for those living in Iraq, are particularly acute due to the young ages of those exposed. In a recent article, Sherwood Ross quotes noted anti-nuclear crusader Dr. Helen Caldicott:
Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground... Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults. My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities.[4]Although the Department of Defense continues to deny DU's health risks, its own actions belie such claims. In a May 15, 2003 Christian Science Monitor article, Scott Peterson reports that in Iraq, "Six American vehicles struck with DU "friendly fire" in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump."[5]
Companies involved with manufacture of DU weaponry include:
- Alliant Techsystems
- General Dynamics
- Day and Zimmerman
- Starmet Corporation
- Cameco Corporation (Canada)
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American government has increasingly championed exceedingly bizarre propositions--ISDS in TPP, the CO2 scare, massive chemical and genetic engineering contamination, homosexuality, the massive economic/hightech gamble with China, and spread of depleted uranium. -R, Mt. Shasta
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