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Depleted Uranium: The American Legacy

by Sara S. DeHart, MSN, Ph.D. and Louis Farshee, MA
March 15, 2003

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a by-product of nuclear power plant generation. Because there are more than one billion pounds stockpiled in the US and it is in such abundance, the US Department of Energy (DOE) provides it free of charge to munitions suppliers who manufacture it into military projectiles. DU projectiles have emerged as a preferred weapon because of its ability to penetrate tank armor and other fortified targets. It is also used in non-military products such as cement, fertilizers and certain paints.

All uranium, whether natural, depleted or enriched, is a toxic radiological element. Each differs from the other in atomic structure by less than one percent. DU emits three types of ionizing radiation: alpha and beta particles and photons. Alpha particles are blocked by objects as light as a sheet of paper and humans exposed to them are naturally protected by their skin. Beta particles (high speed electrons) can penetrate human skin to a depth of one centimeter while photons (x-rays and gamma rays) are more penetrating and can pass completely through a human body. Many factors determine the potentially harmful effects of DU including the source of radiation which may be external, that is, originating from outside a human body or internal which occurs when particles enter a human body by way of food, water, inhalation or a wound. (National Radiological Protection Board, June 2002).

Statements and findings on dangers related to DU might be generalized under two broad headings, US government departments and non-US governmental groups. Although there are disagreements between these two broad groups, one fact is not disputed. If DU oxides are inhaled, there is a high probability that residual alpha particles will be distributed throughout the organs of the body and are potential sources of radiation emission. This fact was not thoroughly researched prior to the 1991 Gulf War and not until 1994 was an explosion/burn test conducted (Rostker, 2000).

Findings of the 1994 test, cited in the DOD's Environmental Exposure Report, are based on one tank explosion that produced a flume of aerosolized radioactive uranium oxide that burned for five hours. Analyses of this poisonous aerosol revealed that approximately 33 percent of the residual oxides were capable of entering the lungs in unprotected breathing (Rostker, 2000). The single-case report was not extrapolated to determine the effects of multiple explosions that occurred during the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. government and military assertions continue to minimize or deny the environmental and health dangers of DU but their statements are inconsistent with certain of their own reports. For example, at the same time dangers are being minimized a contradicting report reads: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical complications. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological...Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposure" (U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute Report, 1995).

Other Pentagon statements concerning the safety of DU are inconsistent with findings of non-government funded research which document that aerosolized particles are dangerous if inhaled. Once inside the lungs these particles pass through the lung-blood barrier and circulate freely throughout the body. At this point they act as a heavy-metal poison as well as cause "low-level" cell irradiation in the bone marrow, brain, kidneys, and reproductive organs. The more immediate heavy-metal oxide damage, i.e. kidney failure, brain damage, is well documented in the scientific literature and the potential for radioactive damage leading to carcinogenic disease is ever present (Durakovic, et al 2002).

Given the concerns for hazardous waste used during wartime or for civilian use, one might expect clear and unambiguous research following the 1991 Gulf War. This did not occur until US Congressional hearings in 1996 directed the Veterans Administration (VA) to fund studies to determine the incidence and cause of the serious illnesses reported by Gulf War Veterans (GWV). In spite of this congressional directive, much of the research remains fragmented and largely based on survey (questionnaire) data rather than more rigorous clinical assessment/biological assay methodology.

Other VA and DOD statements about the safety of DU have relied on secondary interpretation of non-military related data extrapolated to the GWV sample. In this instance, the much-cited Institute of Medicine Report based its conclusions on uranium worker studies conducted at DOD's Oak Ridge facility rather than the more pertinent GWV cohort (a statistical term for a group that shares certain common characteristics). It is noteworthy that data from the Oak Ridge project was a report on the incidence of cancer in workers who had handled uranium under highly controlled conditions. But under uncontrolled battle conditions DU's pyrophoric qualities allow it to blaze like a foundry furnace, spewing flumes of aerosolized, microscopic radioactive uranium oxide into the atmosphere. These were the empirical field conditions faced in the Gulf War that had not been present in the Oak Ridge case.

The GWV cohort that is more appropriate to study to determine the effects of inhaled uranium oxide are the 697,000 American military personnel deployed in 1991 to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. According to the official Gulf War Veterans Briefing, the total causality count for the 100-hour war was 760: 294 dead and approximately 400 wounded or ill. In the decade following the war 30,000 Gulf War Veterans are dead and 221,000 are receiving medical disability benefits for war related causes (May 2002 GWV Report). Neither the VA nor DOD has provided clear research needed to answer the basic question: what part did depleted uranium play in causing death and illness among more than 30% of Gulf War veterans? Basic epidemiological studies such as identifying cause of death as recorded on death certificates have not been reported in the literature.

The DOD asserts that:

1.	There is no scientific evidence of any increased health risks from exposure to Depleted Uranium, including cancer and leukemia.
2.	Depleted Uranium was not a problem in the Persian Gulf War and is not a potential hazard in the Balkans, except under very limited circumstances.

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