The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children

cuppa

I watched this on rte last night its quite an eye opener ,here it is from google videos.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5146778547681767408#

I think they are still using this ammunition,after watching that they should stop using them and clean up where they where used.

Has anyone here been anywhere near Du rounds.

Manic Moran

Yes, I use them routinely.

The biggest problem with them is heavy metal poisoning. If you are in the area where DU is used (or any other armour piercing ammunition, such as tungsten), you run the risk of inhaling or ingesting near-vapourised material. If this gets into your bloodstream (And at levels far higher than one would ordinarily get by living in an area where DU is used), you have relatively nasty side-effects. The solution is not to play around on recently destroyed tanks, which is something which sensible people wouldn't be doing anyway.

Various organisations including the WHO have looked into the claims of unusual effects caused by DU ammunition and have not been able to determine a link.

DU has actually not been used very much in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The insurgents have not been particularly fond of using tanks, which is what DU is predominantly designed to deal with. Whatever may be causing a sudden upsurge in ailments there, DU isn't going to be it.

There is one exception, the DIME bomb as used by Israel, but I am unaware of them having been used in Afghanistan or Iraq.

NTM

Manic Moran

The official positions of multiple countries and organisations: (Repost from a thread about a year ago)

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From the doubtlessly unbiased site http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/, I'd copy these official statements from various fairly reputable organisations:

Canada: The health impact of depleted uranium has been extensively studied by specialists from around the world, and no study — including those conducted by UNEP and WHO — has found any definitive link between the use of depleted uranium in operational theatres and damage to human health.

Finland: The exposure of Finnish peacekeepers to depleted uranium has been scientifically examined. Analyses were made of samples taken from troops serving in Kosovo in 2000 and 2001. No indication of abnormal exposure was found.

Germany: Analysing more than 1,300 urine samples from peacekeeping personnel serving in the Balkans, residents of Kosovo and adjacent regions of Serbia and people living in Germany (unexposed control subjects) during the period from 1999 to 2006, as well as measuring ground and tap water samples from regions where depleted uranium munitions were deployed, the study concluded that peacekeeping personnel and residents serving or living in the Balkans were not exposed to significant amounts of depleted uranium and thus no health effects related to the toxicity of incorporated uranium are expected.
<snip>
The result of these studies, conducted to determine the potential harmful effects of ammunitions and armaments containing depleted uranium on human health and the environment, was that significant effects could not be detected.

Netherlands: The Netherlands recognizes the need for additional research on the effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium and appreciates that this issue is being discussed in the forum of the United Nations. However, the resolution’s reference to the “potential” harmful effects of the use of depleted uranium munitions on human health and the environment cannot so far be substantiated by scientific studies conducted by relevant international organizations such as WHO.

Spain: In forming its opinion on this issue, the Spanish Government has drawn on the experience it accumulated in response to the expressions of national and international public concern, beginning in December 2000, over reports that military personnel of NATO who had served in the Balkans as part of various national contingents had abnormally high rates of cancer. This, in turn, was attributed to their having allegedly handled ammunition containing depleted uranium or the debris of such ammunition following detonation. In light of the possibility that Spanish soldiers having participated in peacekeeping missions in the Balkans in the 1990s or currently on mission had contracted such diseases, a Scientific Committee was established to provide healthrelated advice to the Minister of Defence.
The report’s conclusions bore out all those of the preliminary report, to the effect that the situation presented no abnormalities. In comparison to the general Spanish population, the distribution of cancers in the sample studied was lower than expected, and no significant anomalies were identified in the study on exposure to the heavy metals analysed.
Spanish studies have not been able to demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between the weak radiation detected in the debris of targets attacked with depleted uranium projectiles and the development of cancer or other diseases in soldiers or civilians. In addition, the numerous studies on the use of armaments containing depleted uranium in various situations, carried out by UNEP, WHO, the European Commission and NATO, indicate that the use of depleted uranium does not pose a significant radiological risk.

European Union:
The European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General published a report by a group of independent scientific experts commissioned to study the effects of depleted uranium. The group, made up of 35 physicians, chemists and nuclear scientists from member States, concluded that, on the basis of available information, exposure to depleted uranium could not produce detectable health effects.

NATO:
NATO established an ad hoc committee to study the effects on
troops and the civilian population of the depleted uranium used in Alliance
operations in the Balkans (depleted uranium was used in the 1991 Gulf War and in the 1999 Kosovo operations). The results of this study, to which institutions such as the International Committee of the Red Cross contributed, indicated that:
(a) There was no evidence of an increase in incidence of illness among peacekeepers in the Balkans compared with the incidence of illness among armed forces not serving in the Balkans;
(b) There was no evidence of a link between depleted uranium and health problems such as leukaemia or other cancers.

IAEA: A number of evaluation of the environmental and health impact of depleted uranium munitions have been performed by national and international organizations. IAEA participated together with UNEP and WHO in several international appraisals like those in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and Lebanon. In general, the results of these assessments indicated that the existence of depleted uranium residues dispersed in the environment does not pose a radiological hazard to the population of the affected regions. Estimated annual radiation doses that could arise from exposure to depleted uranium residues would be very low and of little radiological concern. Annual radiation doses in the areas where residues do exist would be of the order of a few microsieverts, well below the annual doses received by the population from the natural sources of radiation in the environment and far below the reference level recommended by IAEA as a radiological criterion to help establish whether remedial actions are necessary.

World Health Organisation:
•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.

•In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium [Read: Heavy metal poisoning]
•In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, 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.
•Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).
•No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.
•No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.

•For the general population, neither civilian nor military use of DU is likely to produce exposures to DU significantly above normal background levels of uranium
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There may be other causes for the ailments in the movie, for example, an issue that Iraq had which Kosovo didn't after the 1991 war was a hell of a lot of oil wells burning and polluting the skies, also a number of chemical munitions depots were bombed.

NTM

BuckJamesRogers

Whats the standard round in A/stan or Iraq MM?

SABOT? HEAT? HEDP?

I know HEAT is high explosive anti-tank so maybe that rules that one out?

Manic Moran

For a tank?

HE-OR, MPAT, Cannister. Might be a few HEAT rounds left in the inventory, but they're being replaced by MPAT. A tank may bring one or two sabots along, just in case they encounter some bunker that needs cracking, but in 04/05 I didn't have any.

NTM

BuckJamesRogers

Manic Moran wrote: »

For a tank?

HE-OR, MPAT, Cannister. Might be a few HEAT rounds left in the inventory, but they're being replaced by MPAT. A tank may bring one or two sabots along, just in case they encounter some bunker that needs cracking, but in 04/05 I didn't have any.

NTM

Cheers MM. As I say, I'm not really up to date on tanks but I figured the SABOTs would be useful enough around the caves if yous could hit them handily enough. How do the MPATs stack up against HEATs?

Manic Moran

Less bang, more expensive. More dangerous to people you're not aiming at due to sabot petals.

NTM

Steyr

The A-10 Thunderbolt fires DU Shells. I have a shell case at home.

Manic Moran

As can the bradley, lav, stryker, anything flying with an m61... They're just not always in the load out.

NTM