The New Straits Times, January 28, 2001
By Prof. Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
THE first month of the new millennium has been dominated by the depleted uranium scare. Just when it was thought that the scare had subsided, the US reportedly confirmed that some of the DU munitions contain traces of plutonium. This has rekindled interest over the issue, making it more complicated.
Generally, uranium can be classed into three radioactive forms –– the so-called isotopes uranium 234, uranium 235, and uranium 238. Each decomposes (or, more appropriately, decays) to other radioactive elements and ultimately to stable non-radioactive isotopes of lead.
In process of decay, uranium isotopes emit radioactive particles, which possess high energy but are poorly penetrating.
Thus, it poses primarily an internal radiation hazard to tissue in close proximity. What exactly is DU then? Depleted uranium is derived from natural uranium mined from the earth’s crust, a man-made by-product of the processing of mined uranium ore. The name refers to what is left of the substance after the process of decay from the less radioactive form isotope 238.
Like heavy metals such as lead or arsenic, the toxicity of DU is also a function of route of exposure, particle solubility, contact time, and also rate of elimination.
Some of these chemical properties, together with its high density and tensile strength, made DU an attractive material for use in weapons to give additional penetrative power to munitions against tanks and other armoured vehicles. Since the 1970s it has been incorporated in the casings and tips of conventional, non-nuclear missiles, shells and bullets, which on impact can cause burns.
However DU-laced weapons were not used until the 1991 Gulf War when US forces fired nearly one million rounds in Iraq and Kuwait. More recently, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces fired about 30,000 rounds against Yugoslav armoured vehicles in the 1999 Kosovo conflict; and another 10,000 in Bosnia (1994-95).
As a result many raised concerns about the environmental impact of DU, though according to United Nations environmental experts this will only be conclusively known in March based on test samples collected from a number sites in Kosovo where DU weapons were used.
There is also concern about the DU and the so-called “Gulf War Syndrome” or “Balkans Syndrome”, blamed for various cancers (such as leukaemia) and infant deformities. There are also a number of DU-related deaths, some among soldiers and peacekeepers during the wars.
Experts agree that any toxic and radiological hazard would be heightened by the tendency of DU to be pulverised on impact into a fine dust which stays in the environment, or the body, for many years. Despite this some are still in the state of denial. For example, according to an article in the British Medical Journal (Jan 20), “what we know about depleted uranium’s effects on human health did not begin there (in the Gulf War)”.
The writer, Melissa A. McDiarmid, claimed “a sizeable store of knowledge has been gathered over the past 50 years in studies of uranium miners, millers, and other processors worldwide. Two recent reviews of uranium exposure and cancer risk address overall cancer mortality and also lung, lymphoid, and bone cancer, those most likely to be related to internal uranium exposure”.
The first, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, concluded that “no significant differences in cancer of the lungs was found between workers who are occupationally exposed to uranium and control populations.“
The second, authored by the US National Academy of Sciences Institutes of Medicine, said, “the Committee concludes that there is limited/suggestive evidence of no association between exposure to uranium and lung cancer at cumulative internal dose levels lower than 200 mSv or 25 cGy.
This roughly corresponds to the burden occurring from a full year’s exposure to a dusty indoor uranium workshop environment.”
Other evidence comes from a small surveillance study of (then 30 and now 60) US Gulf war veterans who were victims of friendly fire with DU. About 15 possess retained metal fragments of depleted uranium in soft tissue and are excreting raised uranium concentrations in their urine.
None of these veterans has leukaemia, bone cancer, or lung cancer. Thus, the argument for uranium being the cause of leukaemia is thin, she concludes.
But others have a different viewpoint. Gino Spinelli, Professor of Microbiology of the University of Bari, for instance, says, “In fact only 60 cases are considered between US Gulf war veterans, where there are many independent reports which claim thousands of cases reported and hundreds of dead”.
Further, it “should be noted that about 60 years of studies on the effects of radiations have only one result: exposure to any radioactive material causes mutations in DNA sequence, chromosome break and many other phenomena connected to DNA mutagenesis. The DNA mutagenesis is the only cause of cancer both spontaneous and provoked by mutagenic substances”.
Professor Spinelli suggests that DU “should be considered dangerous and potentially mutagenic especially when distributed in enormous amounts in a war scenario. Moreover, there is a recent claim by the Italian Government that depleted uranium is not the only component of Nato weapons.
Again as mentioned by a researcher/writer, Cory Mermer, in reponse to the suggestion that “there is no conclusive scientific evidence of adverse effects of depleted uranium, this certainly does not mean that its safety is proven. Without such proof, it is should not be morally acceptable to use depleted uranium in any military applications. By polluting the ecosystems of other nations, we are essentially committing war crimes against the women, children, and all civilians of these countries”.
The admission that plutonium is also involved has further heightened the furore. Plutonium has also been linked to fatal cancer, if inhaled even in minute amounts. Plutonium is much more toxic.
“Simply put, if a nation is not willing to fertilise its own soil, treat its own water, and pollute its own air with depleted uranium, then it should not be doing so to others,” says Mermer.
