Depleted uranium weapon risks mulled
DENVER, Colorado (AP) --As soon as it's safe, the United Nations and international scientists plan to fan out over Iraq's smoking battlegrounds to investigate whether the leftovers of U.S. firepower pose serious health or environmental threats.
Thousands of rounds containing tons of depleted uranium were fired in Iraq over the past four weeks. Fragments of the armor-piercing munitions now litter the valleys and neighborhoods between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. That's where most of the combat occurred and where most of Iraq's 24 million people live.
Wounded fighters and civilians also may carry depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies.
Many medical studies have failed to show a direct link between DU exposure and human disease, though a study of rats linked intramuscular fragments with increased cancer risk. Test-tube experiments also suggest DU may trigger potentially dangerous changes in cells.
The munitions are conventional and do not generate a nuclear blast. Depleted uranium, a very dense metal fashioned from low-level radioactive waste, allows them to easily pierce armor and buildings that would deflect other projectiles.
Used by tanks and jets
U.S. defense officials vigorously defend the decisive battlefield advantage that the super-hard metal provides and says the munitions do not create pollution or health hazards. Tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and A-10 attack jets all fire depleted uranium rounds. Some missiles also contain the material.
"There's going to be no impact on the health of people in the environment or people who were there at the time," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official.
"You would really have to have a large internalized dose," Kilpatrick said. "You are not going to get that with casual exposure."
However, experts differ as to what qualifies as casual exposure.
Some worry that it could affect civilian populations -- especially children -- if it enters groundwater used for drinking water and irrigation.
"The soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators might be heavily contaminated," said Brian Spratt, chair of the depleted uranium committee of the Royal Society, England's scientific academy. "We recommend the fragments should be removed."
Some experiments suggest DU may cause serious illness even if tiny particles are inhaled or ingested.
Critics complain that studies so far have not been nearly large or long enough to conclude the munitions pose no long-term risks.
"Depleted uranium is toxic and carcinogenic and it may well be associated with elevated rates of birth defects in babies born to those exposed to it," said McDermott, a Washington state congressman who is also a physician.
Before the current war, Iraqi doctors were blaming high rates of cancer and birth defects in Basra and other southern cities on U.S. munitions fired 12 years ago -- when fighting was concentrated along the southern border with Kuwait. Iraqi officials claim their number of cancer patients has risen 50 percent in 10 years, although complete medical surveys have not been conducted.
Some U.S. veterans also blame certain mysterious symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome -- illnesses tens of thousands of American veterans reported suffering after returning from the 1991 Gulf War -- on DU exposure.
Specter of Agent Orange
To many, the issue could mushroom into a controversy similar to that involving Agent Orange spraying during the Vietnam War. Exposure to the herbicide has caused catastrophic health problems even to generations born after the war.
"The fact that most of the fighting in Iraq has been in population centers is of great worry to me," said geochemist Vala Ragnarsdottir of the University of Bristol in England. Ragnarsdottir was one of 17 scientists from five European nations who conducted DU field assessments for the U.N. in the Balkans in 2000.
That investigation, the first of its kind, found no direct link between DU munitions and current disease rates in Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. However, the study was limited to 11 combat sites. About 12 metric tons of depleted uranium ordnance was used in the Balkans; that compares with 300 metric tons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and far more in the current campaign.
In Iraq, Ragnarsdottir said, "many hard targets were hit and therefore DU dust was produced, which still could be blowing around."
"I think that DU water pollution is likely to occur with time," she said.
The U.N. inquiry would sample DU residues in soil, air, water and vegetation throughout the battle theater, as well as measure for radiation hotspots.
Investigators will need information from the Pentagon to calculate how much DU ordinance was used and the coordinates of specific Iraqi targets.
"An early study in Iraq could either lay these fears to rest or confirm there are potential risks which then could be addressed," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environmental Program, which will manage the investigation.
Twice as dense as lead
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the industrial process in national weapons labs that enriches the energy content of nuclear fuel rods and warheads by adding more of the fissionable U-235 isotope. What's left is a concentrated metal waste that is about twice as dense as lead, but 40 percent less radioactive than uranium in its natural form.
A DU-hardened projectile can bore straight through an enemy tank. DU shrapnel also ignites, engulfing the target in fire.
What happens then has been studied by several government labs and international agencies with varying conclusions.
The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland and other labs suggest that DU fragments embedded in the muscle of laboratory rats cause cancerous tumors.
But do the animal trials really mimic battlefield exposures? Studies of human patients and health records by the World Health Organization and others found no direct link to cancer rates and other illnesses.
Studies by the RAND Corp. and others suggest the radiation danger from handling the munitions is low.
A 2002 study by the Royal Society concluded that most battlefield soldiers won't be at risk. But dangerous vapors are generated when the weapons are fired or explode. If the particles are inhaled or ingested, they might settle in the kidneys and skeleton of some soldiers, or raise the risk of lung cancer.
But at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore, more than 500 urine samples from veterans concerned about DU exposure were evaluated by toxicologists. The medical center reported 20 samples showed elevated uranium levels, but those could be attributed to natural uranium in food and water.
Urine provided by patients carrying DU shrapnel in their bodies from friendly fire during the Gulf War also showed elevated uranium levels, but the higher levels were not tied to disease.
DU critics complain those studies examined fewer than 100 veterans of the 1991 conflict.
"The military's policy is don't look, don't find," said Dan Fahey, a U.S. Navy veteran in the Persian Gulf who now works for a San Francisco environmental group.
Fahey said: "If they don't do proper studies of veterans, they can say there is no evidence of adverse health effects."
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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