Humans and the Environment

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Humans and the Environment

Post by Riggerjack »

According to them, DU becomes an aerosol when exploded and releases heavy metals and DU in micron sizes that easily pass the lung barrier. The sizes are so small that they pass in and out of cells easily and are not removed efficiently by the kidneys for the same reason. And since the DU particles are smaller, more surface area is exposed per dose which allows DU to release Alpha radiation more efficiently within the body.

Everything you posted, which I've read, makes sense and refutes a lot of what I've read. But some of the interviews and data that I absorbed prior to your post states the risks are completely different when DU is used as a kinetic weapon because of the changes it undergoes upon impact.
U238 is TOXIC. from the Canadian study I linked to:
Toxicological Effects of DU
As noted earlier, whereas U is more radioactive than DU, there is no difference between
them chemically. Like other heavy metals such as lead, mercury and plutonium, U is
chemically toxic (Roth et al. 2001) and consequently, so is DU. All three isotopes that
comprise U and DU are equally toxic from a chemical perspective (McDiarmid 2012).
Whether DU is inhaled or ingested, most ends up being excreted in urine and in feces.
As mentioned earlier, the rapidity with which this occurs is dependent largely on the
solubility of the compounds involved. The kidney is the organ most at risk for damage
because of its role in clearing the U from the blood and excreting it. In the process of
doing this, the U accumulates in the epithelium of the renal tubules which, within a few
days of heavy exposure, causes the epithelial cells to die and the tubular walls to
atrophy. There are also glomerular changes. These changes lead to a decrease in the
reabsorption of glucose, sodium and amino acids into the blood resulting in increased
glucose levels in the urine and in proteinuria (TRS 2002; IOM 2008). The severity of
damage depends on the U level. A single inhalation of 8 mg of soluble U is regarded as
the threshold level for transient kidney toxicity, that is, these changes are totally
reversible; permanent damage can be caused by 40 mg. (Roth et al. 2001). There is still
much to be learned about the link between levels of U in the urine and clinical
symptoms despite the fact that many animal studies have been conducted to better
understand the mechanisms of kidney injury that U can cause.
Kidney toxicity at 40 mg. The math I used in my previous post was 1000mg. I honestly don't know how big a dose is necessary to achieve a 40 mg dose at the kidney, the study goes into a great deal of detail about the metabolic processing, if you are interested.

Huge amounts of DU fired, google A10 video for what that looks like. Most rounds hit sand. Each round is encased in lead. If it hit sand, the lead went with the DU, and it is probably still there. If it hit a hard target, the lead peels back like it was butter, the DU penetrates, superheating and burning along the way. Burnt DU is not fun, but if you are in that vehicle, long term toxicity is the least of your worries.

There was an ammo fire, some friendly fire incidents, etc. We have a population exposed to burning DU to study. It is being studied. And yeah, I can see the heavy handed general trying to put his thumb on the scale (but that might just be my prejudice against field grade officers). But most of this work is done by DOE scientists, not military, and the VA reports to an entirely different chain of command. Honestly, there aren't enough cases of DU exposure to make a blip on the VA budget, even at 100% disability for all of em. PTSD is a far bigger budget concern.

I expect, like lead, U238 toxcity is tied to particle size. A chunk, sitting in your hand, is no big deal. I have handled 20mm minigun DU rounds. they are heavy, but not that heavy. Burning, in an enclosed environment, it's going to be a real problem. Sitting in the sand 60km away? that's only a PR problem.

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: Humans and the Environment

Post by Campitor »

@Riggerjack

Thanks for posting your latest info. You've given me plenty to read and it's been very educational. I agree with your final assessment regarding the true danger of DU. I'm just posting some of my info, with links, to wrap up my part of this discussion.

The kidney toxicity for U is 40mg. According to this report (The Toxicity of Depleted Uranium - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819790/), the lethal does is 14mg per kilogram depending on chemical composition, so a 160lb male (72.57kg) would need to ingest 1.01grams of U. This reports also states "Once absorbed, uranium is widely distributed throughout the body. Bone acts as a reservoir for the metal and once environmental uranium exposure has stopped it will be released from the bone for months or years to come."

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_ ... Ammunition) lists DU content by weight for the following projectile calibers: 20mm (180g), 25mm (200g), 30mm (280g) - used in A10 Warthog, 105mm (3.5kg), and 120mm (4.5kg) - used in M1A1 Tank. The toxicity report also states that DU in kinetic weapons will aerosol into particles 0.2 - 15 microns in diameter upon explosion. The EPA states that anything smaller than 10 microns will get deep into the lungs. (https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/partic ... -pm-basics). The Canadian Occupational Health states that anything less that 5 microns will get into the deepest recesses of the lungs (https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/how_do.html). According to this UNEP report (http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/uranium.pdf) only 10-35% of the bullet, with a maximum of 70%, is converted into an aerosol and can spread according to wind direction. And Nellis Air Force Range shows that DU can be found 100m from impact of target. If we use the smallest aerosol percentage (10%), the smallest caliber DU projectile (20mm) will create a minimum of 18g of aerosol and the M1A1 round will produce 450grams of aerosol.

This study regarding cytoplasmic irradiation (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664637/) records a bystander effect for cells that haven’t been directly irradiated : “Radiation-induced bystander effects are defined as the induction of biological effects in cells that are not directly traversed by a charged particle, but have received signals from these irradiated cells. Early investigations of the radiation-induced bystander effect measured the frequency of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) in populations of cells exposed to very low fluencies of alpha particles. In CHO cells irradiated with low doses of alpha particles where less than 1% of the nuclei were estimated to have been traversed by a particle, an increase in sister chromatid exchanges was observed in over 30% of the cells. 17)In other words, either cytoplasmic damages or signals received from an extracellular component may have modulated the observed genotoxic response. Results from experiments using microbeam provide evidence that the bystander effects can be demonstrated using a variety of endpoints of biological damage, including micronucleus induction, cell lethality, gene expression and oncogenic transformation in various human and rodent cell lines. 18-26) se relationship. It has been shown, for example, that irradiation of 10% of a confluent human hamster hybrid (AL) cell population with a single alpha particle per nucleus results in a mutant yield similar to that observed when all of the cells in the population are irradiated. 26) A similar observation has also been made using primary human bronchial epithelial cells and incorporating G2 phase premature chromosome condensation as an endpoint. 3)” So perhaps even a small dose of ingested radiation can have a multiplicative effect.

PS - I talked to some of my military buddies about this and they tend to agree that DU is harmless unless you start inhaling the dust or get shot with it. They think the problem with Gulf Vets isn't the DU but all the burn pits. Their anecdotal stories say anyone near those burn pits were the ones that got sick.

Take care..

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Humans and the Environment

Post by Riggerjack »

OK, so U is detected 100m from impact in test ranges. That is no real surprise, U is very easy to detect. But it isn't going anywhere, it isn't doing anything, and if you don't walk around sniffing the ground, you shouldn't have any negative effects. M1A1s had better ways of dealing with targets that weren't armored. They wouldn't have used many AP rounds. Only against Republican guard tanks. With a 105 you don't need AP rounds to destroy armored cars and trucks.

A 30MM round won't penetrate tank armor, but will throw tracks and punch thru running gear, external fuel tanks, etc. A10s shot up tanks when they saw them, and called for an Apache to come back to that site with missiles.

So your initial post of 1200 tons of DU ammunition used, set off my BS alerts. But then I thought of my time, and the way my unit operated, and had to back down on that. First, while I am sure 1200 tons would be about right for the DU ammo brought along, It probably wasn't nearly all fired, what was fired would be a round that may weight a few pounds, but only contain a few ounces of DU. A lot of that was probably buried along the side of the road when word got around about decon procedures to get equipment and supplies shipped back to the states. A lot of it is "off the books" in some Marine supply warehouse, that's where our Stingers went... So while 1200 tons sounds wrong, I could see a line item of inventories that reflects it.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Map_v2.svg As you can see, the ground war in the first gulf war, when there were armored targets, happened in Kuwait, and south Iraq. Here's the abstract from your link:
Iraq is suffering from depleted uranium (DU) pollution in many regions and the effects of this may harm public health through poisoning and increased incidence of various cancers and birth defects. DU is a known carcinogenic agent. About 1200 tonnes of ammunition were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. As a result, contamination occurred in more than 350 sites in Iraq. Currently, Iraqis are facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7000 to 8000 new ones registered each year. In Baghdad cancer incidences per 100,000 population have increased, just as they have also increased in Basra. The overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, has doubled even tripled. The situation in Mosul city is similar to other regions. Before the Gulf Wars Mosul had a higher rate of cancer, but the rate of cancer has further increased since the Gulf Wars.
So, if DU was the problem, it could be an influence in Basrah, but Baghdad? Mosul City in the North? Just looking at where the fighting happened, and looking at a map should be enough to see how little one could have to do with the other. Remember those burning oil fields? How the Iraqis set fire to all those oil wells, and then set mines to kill the firefighters? So much smoke it was hard to tell day from night, as most light just came from the fires. It took forever to put that out. If there were an environmental cause to cancers in Basrah, you really need to have an axe to grind to look past that. Honestly, if DU were anywhere near as bad as that report claimed, it would be obvious and absolutely clear in Kuwait, where most of that armored fighting happened.

My main point is, don't get shot at by DU. For that matter, try avoiding getting shot at. However, if you do get shot at by DU, leave the area. It won't follow you, it will be dispersed quickly, what remains in the area Isn't a problem unless you go back and stir it up, pick up pieces, take them home to use for amateur DIY dental work, etc. The dispersed U will quickly just lead to a slightly higher background count, but still lower than that of Colorado.

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