Depleted Uranium Weapons Turning Iraq Into Nuclear Nightmare

Originally posted by porky1981
ImaginaryReality1984 stop saying the radiological danger is nil because of the long half life... that is not true. I just told you the dose rate from a slab of DU is 2-5 mrem/h... background is on the order of microrem/h.

Yes you told me that but you are talking about a slab. A slab is a concentrated amount, a concentrated source of particles that will mean the rate of decay is the same but the number of decaying atoms is increased and therefore the overall output is increased. When we are talking about DU we are talking about small amounts spread around and so this is nowhere near the same as a slab.

Also i never said it was nil if you read up my posts i said it's minimal. That is not the same as nil so please don't misquote what i have said. I said the very small increase is like having an x-ray each year. Your comparison with a slab of the material is simply not applicable.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


You must be quite the brilliant independent scientist then, yourself. If so, then I'm so pleased you're here to add your "findings" into DU dust and dna.

www.mindfully.org...

Well, if you think about the thousands of tons of depleted uranium the US/UK have admitted using since 1991, that would be the same as releasing the radiation from at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the atmosphere since 1991, ten times more than during atmospheric testing...

The DU is globally mixed in 1 year — it is found in the ice record in Antarctica, Hawaii, the Alps, the Himalayas, and even in the Andes of South America. There is nowhere to hide or any way to escape...

www.newswithviews.com...


Only 7,035 men were injured in this war. A total of 580,400 soldiers served in the first Gulf War. By the end of 2000 325,000 of these troops had become disabled This means that 56 % of those who served in the first Gulf War were disabled within less than 10 years...

This translates into 40 % of the soldiers in that one unit developing malignancies within a 16 month period of time...

prop1.org... (Depleted Uranium UN Resolutions)

www.brusselstribunal.org...

and another pdf out of a British study they were able to do with the freedom of information act: www.llrc.org... and concluded that fine particles of depleted uranium along with sand and dust particles from Iraq, that took only 7 to 9 days to get there, was responsible for the dramatic increase in radiation in the atmosphere over Britain.

members.shaw.ca...

Since the the radioactive nano-sized particles of uranium behave like a gas, they are easily carried with the air currents over long distances. The larger particles, of course, get eventually rained out or settle locally onto the ground where they become a part of the environment in which people live and work. They also get into the water, and become a part of the food that people eat. We really don't know for how long the minuscule particles remain suspended and in the air and the environment before they become washed out into the oceans.

The small particles that remain suspended in the air become a part of the air and are inhaled with the air (typically a minimum of 50,000 particles a day). Once inside a person the minuscule particles, in some cases, become absorbed into the cells of the human body or become trapped otherwise, where they do their damage. ...


In fact, the trapped particles can cause enormous damage. They act like miniature cannons that fire off high energy particles at a rate of 12,000 shots per second that can wreck the DNA chains by blasting links out of them or damage links, etc, or they can cause chemical changes in cells, or injure the human cells in many other ways. Scientist and radiation expert Dr. Rosalie Bertell testified, “DU is a very powerful alpha particle emitter, with each particle carrying a force of about 4.2 MeV (million electron volts). It requires only 6 to 10 eV (electron volts) to break the DNA or other large molecules in the body.” ...


Half of the particles, by volume, are so fine that they are smaller in size than the wavelength of light, and more than 30% are said to be substantially smaller than that (smaller than 0.18 microns - see table of particle sizes). They are so small that they disperse in the air like a gas. Being smaller than the wavelength of light, the vaporized DU-gas particles literally vanish from sight. Nevertheless they remain radioactive with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

and

www.scienceagogo.com...

The use of depleted uranium in munitions and weaponry is likely to come under intense scrutiny now that new research that found that uranium can bind to human DNA. The finding will likely have far-reaching implications for returned soldiers, civilians living in what were once war-zones and people who might live near uranium mines or processing facilities...

Now however, Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns has established that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations, triggering a whole slew of protein replication errors, some of which can lead to various cancers. Stearns' research, published in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis, confirms what many have suspected for some time - that uranium can damage DNA as a heavy metal, independently of its radioactive properties. "Essentially, if you get a heavy metal stuck on DNA, you can get a mutation,"

www.globalresearch.ca...

The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP....


DU is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: “Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity and particle toxicity.”...


For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.

“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” Moret wrote. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

www.iicph.org...

«After some time, all air-borne particles fall slowly down and settle on grass and vegetables, fruit or expanses of water where they become inevitably a guest of food and drink to animals and [people] alike. Even if the unwanted presence is known in advance - but very often it is utterly ignored - getting rid completely of inorganic particles can be very difficult»

Particles of one nanometer in diameter, can float in air indefinitely due to Brownian action or thermal motion of its molecules. How far it travels will depend on wind, air currents, and obstacles in its path...


The focus of Dr. Gatti's research has been solid inorganic particles of sizes one nanometer to 0.1 micron, i.e. ultra-fine particles or metal fumes. According to her:

«Once the debris that size enters the body, be it via the digestive or respiratory system, they can easily negotiate the luminal (cavity of a tubular structure) tissues and either be captured by the tissue itself...


The physical characteristics of DU fragments released in combat include: their ceramic smooth surface, fragility and potential shattering, nanometer particle size, foreign body irritation, and potential to stay in the body for very long periods of time and be transported through the lung-blood, blood-brain, and placenta barriers...

rinf.com...

MORET: There’s no way to clean it up. What happens is these tiny particles float around the Earth. There are still plutonium and uranium floating around the Earth from bomb testing. These particles are so tiny that molecules bumping into them keep them lofted in the air, and so the only way for them to get out of the atmosphere is rain, snow, fog, pollution, which will clear them out of the air and deposit them in the environment. What happens is the surface of these particles gets wetted by the moisture in the air. They come down and land on stuff and stick to it like a glue. You can’t ever get the particles off whatever they’re sticking to because have you ever put a drop of water on a microscope slide and then put another one on top of it? Can you pull those apart?...


ICONOCLAST: So the guys coming back from the war, their sperm is probably going to be —

MORET: Damaged. Yes. They also have depleted uranium in their semen. When they’re intimate with their partners, they internally contaminate them with depleted uranium. The women become sick themselves. They have depleted uranium in their bodies, and there is something called burning syndrome. Just absolutely horrible. You can read about it in an article by David Rose in the December Vanity Fair. It’s on the Internet.
A friend of mine is the widow of a Canadian Gulf War veteran. David Rose interviewed her, and she griped about the burning semen. She said, \”I had 20 condoms full of frozen peas in my freezer at all times, and after we were intimate, I would insert one into my vagina, and that is the only way I could bear the pain from the burning semen.\” And it goes through condoms, to...


ICONOCLAST: Let’s talk about the children of Iraq.

MORET: After the Gulf War, they had maybe one baby a week born with birth defects in the hospitals in Basra. Now they are having 10-12 a day. The levels of uranium are increasing in the population every year. Every day, people are eating and drinking while the whole environment is contaminated. Just what you’d expect. There are more babies born with birth defects, and the birth defects are getting more and more severe.

reply to post by mystiq


Mystiq.

I appreciate the articles you have submitted must have taken you time to find out. I am about to head out the door and won't be back for a day or two. I will read the articles in full when i get back (or possibly on the move if i can get internet access) and will reply to it all when i get back.

My apologies for any delay this causes and hope you understand.

All the best.

IR84.

[edit on 7-12-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

mutage.oxfordjournals.org...

The purpose of the current study was to measure the toxicity of depleted uranium as uranyl acetate (UA) in mammalian cells. The activity of UA in the parental CHO AA8 line was compared with that in the XRCC1-deficient CHO EM9 line. Cytotoxicity was measured by clonogenic survival. A dose of 200 µM UA over 24 h produced 3.1-fold greater cell death in the CHO EM9 than the CHO AA8 line, and a dose of 300 µM was 1.7-fold more cytotoxic. Mutagenicity at the hypoxanthine (guanine) phosphoribosyltransferase (hprt) locus was measured by selection with 6-thioguanine. A dose of 200 µM UA produced ~5-fold higher averaged induced mutant frequency in the CHO EM9 line relative to the CHO AA8 line. The generation of DNA strand breaks was measured by the alkaline comet assay at 40 min and 24 h exposures. DNA strand breaks were detected in both lines; however a dose response may have been masked by U–DNA adducts or crosslinks. Uranium–DNA adducts were measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) at 24 and 48 h exposures. A maximum adduct level of 8 U atoms/103 DNA-P for the 300 µM dose was found in the EM9 line after 48 h. This is the first report of the formation of uranium–DNA adducts and mutations in mammalian cells after direct exposure to a depleted uranium compound. Data suggest that uranium could be chemically genotoxic and mutagenic through the formation of strand breaks and covalent U–DNA adducts. Thus the health risks for uranium exposure could go beyond those for radiation exposure.

The damage it does to the dna is incredible. It bonds permanently and breaks down our dna. The consequences for the entire planet, and all life upon it are profound.

This wasn't done in ignorance of the outcome. Though the US had some faulty research shoved in through the World Health Organization, they stood on their own research for many years starting in the 40s, The Manhatten Project, and they deliberately chose to do this.

There is no sentencing that could be severe enough.

iDUst is an international group of non-government scientists working to stop all DU weaponry.

www.idust.net...

It is this difference in particle size and the ceramic nature of the dust’s crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day.



In the first place, natural uranium dust in the environment seldom reaches micron dimensions, as the conditions needed for this are simply not commonly available in nature. When inhaled, these larger particles cannot access the deepest air pockets in the lungs and are moved out of the air passages through exhalation and the action of millions of cilia in the trachea. They are then deposited into the esophagus and swallowed. Once in the digestive system, 67% of the uranium ingested is excreted within 24 hours. Of that which does make it into the circulatory system from the digestive tract, 90% will be excreted through the kidneys within a few days. Only a small portion will take up permanent residence in bone tissue, gonads, liver and the like. Solubilized DU can also cross the blood-brain barrier, leading to neurological disorders, and cross through the placenta to infect a developing fetus.



Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time. Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs.



Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is somewhat possible to extrapolate backwards and approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. (See Addendum A (#1-4) for supporting calculations.)...

This is where the second issue related to particle size comes into play – namely surface area. Any chemist or technician working with catalysis knows that the effectiveness of a catalyst is proportional to its surface area. The same factors apply to the “effectiveness” of a particle emitting ionizing radiation. 0.34 mg of DU dispersed as 4.3 million 2.5 micron diameter particles has nearly 50% more surface area than a single 0.34 mg sphere of DU. From such small particles, all of the gamma radiation emitted and most of the beta radiation emitted will escape the particle and affect the surrounding tissues. For the bulkier and less penetrating alpha radiation, most will be absorbed within the particle itself. Only alpha radiation from those atoms on or near the surface of the particle has any chance of escaping outside the particle and causing damage. For this reason, it is apparent that the smaller particles with larger surface area are significantly more hazardous than the larger particles in natural uranium dust....



Alpha and beta particles are charged particles that are emitted from a decaying DU atom at speeds approaching 10% the speed of light. Because they are charged (“ionized”) they can fracture molecules without even colliding with them. The effect is similar to that observed when a magnet is brought near a pile of iron filings. The ionic charge on the radiation particle can displace bonding electrons in nearby molecules as it whizzes by, creating in its wake free radicals, DNA cleavage, etc. Because of this, one beta particle, for example, may adversely affect dozens of cells before it finally actually strikes a molecule and comes to rest. Alpha particles, being larger, don’t travel nearly so far, but they have twice the ionic charge as beta particles and are thousands of times as massive. So when an alpha particle actually collides with a molecule, the results are cataclysmic and often result in cell death and the release of dozens of free radicals into neighboring cells.



Gamma rays are not charged particles like alpha and beta particles, but are photons of electromagnetic radiation. A gamma photon must actually strike a molecule to cause damage. When a gamma photon strikes a molecule, its energy is absorbed by the electrons in the molecule, placing the molecule in an “excited state”. The molecule releases this newly obtained energy by immediately shooting a bonding electron (identical to a beta particle) into the surroundings along with another gamma ray of less energy than that of the original gamma ray. The released electron acts like any other beta particle, but it has originated some distance away from the original irradiating source of DU. The new gamma ray proceeds on its own new course until it too strikes a distant molecule and the process repeats itself. This goes on until all of the energy originally present in the first gamma ray has been used up. Thus one gamma emission from a radioactive atom can result in the production of many beta particles in a zig-zag track throughout the tissue, and each beta particle leaves its own wake of destroyed molecules.

and

g. With these assumptions, we can adjust the total number of radiation events calculated in step 4 to determine the number of radiation events that actually reach surrounding tissue and cause damage:

For Alpha Radiation:

0.2% (5.2 events/sec) (60 sec/min) = 0.6 alpha radiation event per minute

For Beta Radiation:

80% (10.4 events/sec)(60 sec/min) = 499 beta radiation events per minute

For Gamm Radiation:

100% (10.4 events/sec)(60 sec/min) = 624 gamma radiation events per minute



Thus the total number of damaging radiation events to penetrate living tissue from a 0.34 mg body burden of depleted uranium will be approximately 1100 events per minute, 1.6 million events per day, or 578 million radiation events per year.

I cannot believe what they've done, to entire regions, and to the entire world.
This kind of warfare is illegal, because its not a battle anyone can win, its massive environmental/bio destruction for 4.5 billion years, and involves the world. How can one equate such destruction to warfare, versus the destruction of a planet?

reply to post by mystiq


I've read the facts you have posted here a number of times, and I cry each time before I can finish.

What evil people have done to this beautiful planet and to all life in it is unbelievable.

Yes, I don't think words can describe the horror of this. This is one of the biggest things they've done, on a global scale. We need a miracle, because they've destroyed a planet.

I had heard about the use of DU and the relation with cancers and deformitys among other things, but I was not aware yet of the Global impact of this issue yet..

I think the people who made these weapons, armors and such using depleted uranium are the same S.O.B's who try to push for 'mini-nukes' to get produced and used.

Warcriminal is too light a word to describe both the inventors and the politicians who would use them. I don't think the death penalty would be an outlandish thought when it comes to serving a just punishment to these 'brilliant' traitors..

good post, starred and flagged.

reply to post by mystiq



i've been trying to explain this to family and friends for years. problem is, whenever i tell anybody the U.S. uses these "weapons of mass destruction" they smile and giggle like i'm nuts. i plead with them to research it, but i know they never do. have tried to show them various evidence on the internet, but they refuse to even take one step.

denial is a powerful thing and it's the key to making the masses understand it all. if you can get past denial, only then can this kind of info spread the way it needs to. problem here is denial has to be dealt with case by case. this is why i think a lot of problems go unnoticed for so long? if you could only treat denial in numbers? in my opinion, and i've thought long and hard about this, the solution to denial should be the focus for all these subjects.

reply to post by Zerbst

In spite of all the complaining we do, most of us want to believe that our government and places like the world health org. are basically good institutions looking after our interests.
Its too frightening to think that they are not, because then what do we have left? We feel vulnerable.
Unfortunately, its these very institutions that are making me feel vulnerable now, and violated.
Nevertheless, there is a greater willingness now amongst people to question the government than there has been for a while. I hope we can take advantage of this to make some real changes, provided it isn't already too late.

What about serbia! they have had their fare share of (du) the shadeys also dumped it over their farm land.Cancer is at its highist in beograd too,all that part of europe is contaminated,macedonia,albania & north greece...