Depleted uranium linked to cancer? New Scientist

[alfredo]

Will VA accept that?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426033.300-depleted-uranium-weapons-linked-to-lung-cancer.html


Governments deny it, but many people have long suspected that depleted uranium weapons may cause cancer. It looks as if the suspicions were right.

Depleted uranium (DU) is a dense, weakly radioactive metal used in armour-piercing shells. Hundreds of tonnes of them were fired by US and UK forces in Iraq in 2003. Previous research at the US government's Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico found that people exposed to DU dust were at little extra risk of developing cancers.

Now the first study of DU's effects on human lung cells suggests otherwise. Toxicologist John Wise and colleagues at the University of Southern Maine in Portland exposed cultures of human bronchial fibroblasts to particles of uranium oxide typically found in DU dust. Chromosomes in the cells mutated and the cells died, genotoxic effects that increased with the particle concentration. This may increase a person's risk of lung cancer, the team conclude

[Christa]

1. K & R

thanks for posting.

[Monkeyman]

2. K&R

[mnhtnbb]

3. happily given 5th rec. When is this going to attract attention in MSM?

[whistle]

4. Oh, who would have thought? What totally f...ing monstrous liars the

...the Pentagon officials and BushCo people are!

[reprehensor]

5. Depleted Uranium: an Introduction

Oldie but a goodie.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/reprehensor/14

[ComandanteChe]

6. Must read essay on Depleted Uranium in Iraq

The Killing Fields: Ghosts of the Walking Dead

http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2006/01/killing-fields-ghosts-of-walking-dead.html

Also of interest:

Holocaust Redux

http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2007/04/holocaust-redux.html


If you haven't read this writer's work, please do. Amazing writing and thinking.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi ComandanteChe!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ComandanteChe]

12. Thanks a bunch!!

Very glad to be here. A long time lurker am I. Hope to stay a while.

[chknltl]

7. Nah let's do lots more studies on this...

NAYSAYERS: (please insert link which backs up what the DU lobbyists have been saying all along) then tell us that we need to shut the f**k up.

Thanks for NOT listening! Thanks for trying to impede the inevitable.

Every moment that damned depleted uranium oxide sits out in the open is a moment that further contamination of innocent victims is possible. There are hundreds of tons of that poison spread out in Iraq alone! This material needed to be cleaned up years ago.
The reason it has not is because that would be an admission that there really IS a serious threat to life here...one that folks have been pointing out now for YEARS! (Well you told them though....didn't you! You told us that we were full of crap didn't you. WHY would you do that? What could you possible gain by flaming us?)

Thanks for aiding in delaying that clean-up! Those who profit from that material toast you for your efforts! Those who continue to be victimized and those who are yet to be victimized may not feel so pleased though. Those babies who were born so horribly deformed are not so pleased though, nor are their contaminated parents. Those vets who are even now experiencing PTSD from exposure to DU Oxide are not so pleased nor will the future vets who have yet to be exposed...many of which have heeded your words that this material is not hazardous...that we chicken littles have been spreading a false alarm! Thanks for giving them that!

Yeah go ahead and flame me and post your links here which back up your claims....I'll thank you for your continued efforts in helping to delay the inevitable...I no longer care why you would do that, that's between you and your conscious to work out.... I am busy trying to get folks to see the urgency here...I am busy showing what support I can for the few congressmen who have come to the same conclusions I have after doing the on-line research. That same data you CHOSE to ignore or reject! Thanks for choosing NOT to err on the side of caution...

Maybe it is long past time for YOU to sit down and shut the F**K up. We chicken littles are trying to get this crap cleaned up ASAP by drawing attention to it. If we are wrong and YOU have been right all along, the cost is in wasted time and $$...if you are wrong and we were right all along then ...well you figure it out....I am so done pointing it out to you!

Thank you for posting this alfredo. This is indeed encouraging news. Better late than never as some here would prefer.

[alfredo]

13. We have condemned generations of Iraqis to the likelihood of

slow painful deaths.

[calteacherguy]

23. That's not true. You are exaggerating. There is no proof this increases cancer risks.

“The real question is whether the level of exposure is sufficient to cause health effects. The answer to that question is still unclear,” he said, adding that there has as yet been little research on the effects of DU on civilians in combat zones. “Funding for DU studies is very sparse and so defining the disadvantages is hard,” he added. (from the chief researcher in the study)

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/08/1059/

[chknltl]

24. Trying hard not to flame you calteacherguy

When it came to Global Warming, WE "exaggerators" had to fight like hell through a bunch of yahoos who wanted us to shut the hell up! Wanted us to stop playing chicken little and allow the scientist to do their thing. Well guess what: That slowed the hell out of the process. Even today the bushbots want us to shut the hell up! Ask your self this "Why Do They Want Us To Shut Up?" Why do they attempt to deflect our words...make it sound like things are not so bad... want us to drink a little more kool-aid?

YOU are doing just that... Your post reflects the same exact sentiments bush tried to pawn off on us about Global Warming: "The science is unclear..." The science is unclear about gravity too but that does not mean we should ignore it or suggest a wait and see policy. You quote the lack of funding: DUH! and why is that? Because this reflects the public concern here...and who my fellow DUer would attenuate the public concern here? Yep the same bastards who have been attenuating public concern over Global Warming! I for one am totally disgusted over seeing that same song and dance played out with the Depleted Uranium Oxide issue!

The bottom line is ONE side is right. If we "exaggerators" are wrong, what was really lost here? Time? Money? (Go ahead tell me we strengthen Al-Quida). If we are right and we have to fight our way through a bunch of yahoos in order to S-L-O-W-L-Y bring the public up to speed, up to the tipping point where our politicians feel the need to acknowledge the facts or risk their jobs...then how much more suffering must happen? How many more must die? How many more babies must be born maimed! How many more of our exposed vets must suffer? THAT my fellow DUer is what is at stake.

If we "exagerators" are right, each day that this horror gets blown around on the winds which blow through the contaminated zones, the further the problem compounds itself. Do you feel so sure of yourself that you would risk those future contaminations? Do you REALLY want this issue dragged out for decades like Global Warming has been?

I'll ask nice: Let us "hysterical" types have our way UNIMPEDED. If we are wrong we will look like fools soon enough. I can live with that. Then you can tell us all the "I told You so's" you like. I ask you to err on the side of caution here and stop peeing on our parade. Let us BOTH agree to PUSH to have this issue resolved rapidly as opposed to slowly dragging it out...can you at least go that far with us? Would it be so hard for you to just say here that you disagree with those who "exagerate" on this issue but will support getting this resolved rapidly one way or the other so we can get on with life? I urge you to write your congress-critters and demand that research funding be allocated here...and NOT to a bush appointee either....could you maybe try those shoes on? I know they will never fit a freeper but you are my fellow DUer...give it a try, that's all I am asking.

I'll post this and hope that those on my side of the fence can check their anger and not flame anyone here. This post also applies to each and every one of my fellow DUers who would attempt to dampen, what many of us feel is a critical issue, with their words. The risk is far to grave!

[alfredo]

28. Take into account a child born into that enviroment and their

susceptibility to such compounds. I wouldn't put money on that child's future.

[diane in sf]

20. Any amount of radiation is harmful.

Even"weak" radiation. Part of my biology education...

[Greyskye]

8. How long until the DU DU apologists show up here?

I'm continually boggled that there are some Depleted Uranium apologists that regularly show up on threads like this in order to announce that anyone believing that DU can cause cancer or birth defects is a scientific ignoramus. :eyes:

And no, I highly doubt that the VA will make any changes in their views or actions regarding DU. :grr:

[pa28]

15. I got flamed by one of them once.

I dared to suggest that inhaling DU particles could still be toxic (like lead) even though it is not significantly radioactive. Hopefully that person will come off his high horse long enough to study this article.

[NobleCynic]

21. You're absolutely right

Many carcinogens aren't radioactive at all. And other elements like lead actually soak up radiation, but are still virulently toxic. DU dust may be harmful beyond what its relatively low radiation level would seem to indicate, it is pretty much a heavy metal after all.

But in any case, how could anyone defend the PR nightmare that DU weapons are? In terms of image damage to the US, there is almost no weapon in our arsenal more damaging.

[OneBlueSky]

9. "will the VA accept that?" . . . not as long as it will cost them money . . . n/t

.

[alfredo]

16. I know. I am going to see if they can do anything about my

hearing. I was a radio operator for four years. I have had a ringing in my ears since then. I wanted the Army to look at it while I was still in, but they told me that I would have to re up.

[chknltl]

25. It sounds like you need legal aid. Call your congress-critter!

The military is not allowed to deny aid to the troops unless they re-up. Something is fishy here.

I have heard of "Tinitinitus": a constant ringing in ones ears, among musicians. Google it. If this is service related, and it easily could be, then you may be eligible for disability. I urge you to check into it.

[alfredo]

29. I'm going in today.

[ComandanteChe]

10. k and r...n/t

[magellan]

14. It's amazing that anyone would believe otherwise

How many people would knowingly snort depleted uranium dust? Or let their children play in it day after day? Those people are fools. There are plenty of examples of people who did this unwittingly and are paying the price in failing health and passing on genetic deformities to their children.

[Rex]

17. Well gee, if you fire tonnes of the shit all over the place - cancer? Ya think?

Getting out of the Army in 98 was the best decision I ever made. Criminals.

[TheWraith]

18. This is supposed to be news?

Uranium is a heavy metal. All heavy metals are genotoxic. That's been established for years. How is this new information? Aside from the fact that it'll be taken and stripped of all context by the wingnuts who seem bound and determined to call depleted uranium a "nuclear weapon."

[truedelphi]

19. Related URL http://tinyurl.com/2y98bt

Depleted uranium of and by itself is a low grades emission. Not much problem in and of itself

Example: if the military parked a tank made out of DU hardened metal in my backyard with neighborhood klids playing close by:
Several heavy duty denim tarps covering the tank would prevent the harmful rays from impacting the granddaughter.

But if the tank was blown up - the aerosolized dust from the tank would be immediately harmful.

One of the difficulties in dealing with the DU discussion is that these aerosolized radioactive components are difficult to discuss.

There are probably radioactive particles that have never even been studied - various forms of radioactivity occur only in minute levels at precise and fleeting moments. For instance, some speck of aerosolized dust may experience a brief moment of a particular type of radioactivity two weeks after the tank was impacted. And the radioactivity might only last for a nano nano nano second of a second. So some of these forms of radioactive material have been looked at by whatevver researcher happened upon them, but others are still (possibly) unknown.

[calteacherguy]

22. The study does not prove that DU causes cancer.

Prof Wise said it is too early to say whether DU causes lung cancer in people exposed on the battlefield because the disease takes several decades to develop.

“Our data suggest that it should be monitored as the potential risk is there,” he said.

Prof Wise and his team believe that microscopic particles of dust created during the explosion of a DU weapon stay on the battlefield and can be breathed in by soldiers and people returning after the conflict.

Once they are lodged in the lung even low levels of radioactivity would damage DNA in cells close by. “The real question is whether the level of exposure is sufficient to cause health effects. The answer to that question is still unclear,” he said, adding that there has as yet been little research on the effects of DU on civilians in combat zones. “Funding for DU studies is very sparse and so defining the disadvantages is hard,” he added.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/08/1059/

[MadHound]

26. Actually it has already been proven that low level radiation, combined with heavy metal toxicity

Does indeed cause cancer. Ask anybody who works in a nuclear reactor, that is one of the standard safety spiels given to employees. While DU is a low level alpha and beta emitter, energy which is so weak it can be stopped by your skin or clothing, once a particle gets inside your body, you're screwed. There are no protective layers of epidermis to protect your cells, they are exposed directly to radiation. Given the half life of DU, this will continue for the rest of your shortened life(getting these particles out of the body is extremely difficult, ranging into impossible) In addition, like any other heavy metal, DU is both toxic and a carcinogen. Any DU dust that one inhales or ingests is going to stay with the person, slowly, painfully killing them.

And these particles are floating all over Iraq now, fine as dust, fine as talcum powder. And sadly it is going to take a while before they go away. A few hundred years at least, and probably more.

This is going to be part of the US legacy in Iraq. A slow motion genocide that will continue to kill future generations of Iraqis.

[intheflow]

27. My SO worked munitions in the Army

back during the first Gulf War. I worry about this every time he gets sick. :(

[NNN0LHI]

30. Where did all the depleted uranium deniers go?

:shrug:

[Greyskye]

31. One of them....

...announced that he was changing his screen-name a few days ago. Maybe he decided to leave that part of his persona behind. I certainly would in his shoes!

[Gregorian]

32. Dr. Helen Coldicott has been discussing the evidence for years.

Five years ago I listened to one of here talks.

Your "study" is right there in Iraq. Just look at the fucking dying children, you numbskulls!

God this pisses me off. There is no hell hot enough for the ammunition manufacturers and neocon sympathizers.

[JohnyCanuck]

33. So who you gonna believe....

the same conscienceless, war-enabling creeps who also assured the Viet Nam era GI's and vets that there was no danger from exposure to Agent Orange or the toxicologists at the University of Southern Maine (plus others, e.g. see below). Now there's a tough one for you.

The Health Effects of DU Weapons in Iraq by Thomas Fasy MD PhD.

Dr. Fasy is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He has longstanding interests in carcinogenesis and environmental toxicology. In the past two years, he has lectured at conferences and university campuses on the toxic effects of inhaling uranium oxide dusts derived from depleted uranium weapons.


Uranium is radioactive and it is a toxic heavy metal. Inside the body, uranium exists as uranyl ions. Much of the toxicity of uranium is chemically mediated, in addition to the effects mediated by radiation.

In 1896, while conducting experiments with crystal of potassium uranyl sulfate, Henri Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity. Uranium, however, was known to be toxic since the 1820's.

SNIP

By the early 1900s, uranium was well recognized to be a kidney toxin. By the mid-1940s, uranium was known to be a neurotoxin. By the early 1970s, uranium was recognized to be a carcinogen based on mortality studies of uranium workers and on experiments with dogs and monkeys. The first evidence that uranyl ions bind to DNA was reported in 1949 and by the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a mutagen. Also, in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

Now let us briefly consider the routes of exposure to uranium. In the context of the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons, this means exposure to uranium oxides. By far the most dangerous route of exposure to uranium oxides is the inhalational or respiratory route. Absorption of uranium oxides through the gastrointestinal tract, the skin and the conjunctivae is possible but quite limited.

Following impact with hard targets, uranium metal undergoes combustion releasing large quantities of very small uranium oxide dust particles into the environment.

These dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons are drastically different from the natural uranium that is normally present in rocks and soil.

Soil particles contain uranium at very low concentrations, typically less than 5 parts per million; the vast majority of these soil particles, however, are too large to be inhaled deep into the lungs. In contrast, the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons contain very high concentrations of uranium, typically more than 500.000 parts per million; moreover, most of the D.U. dust particles are sufficiently small to be inhaled deep into the lungs. Thus, compared to the uranium naturally present in the environment, D.U. dust contains uranium in a form that is vastly more bio-available and more readily internalized.

Uranyl ions bind to DNA; they bind in the minor groove of DNA. While bound to DNA, uranyl ions are chemically reactive and can give rise to free radicals which may damage DNA. Chemically mediated DNA damage of this type may contribute to the ability of uranium to induce cancers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4124449

[alfredo]

34. Slow genocide.