Depleted uranium and human health: another view: Robert Green responds on behalf of the DU Education Team and the National Consultative Committee on Disarmament to suggestions that depleted uranium poses relatively few health problems.

• Author: Green, Robert

Fifteen years after the first operational use by the United States and United Kingdom of depleted uranium in antitank shells, the debate about reported health effects from use of depleted uranium munitions by American and British forces in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan remains unresolved. Since the 1991 Gulf War, there has been a surge of unexplained illnesses, cancers and children born with genetic deformities among the Iraqi people, especially in the south near the battlefields. At the same time, both American and British veterans have reported similar health and reproductive problems, collectively known as Gulf War Syndrome. Many of their problems, particularly cancers and birth defects, seem consistent with radiation exposure.

The official US casualty total in 1991 was less than 300 dead and another 500 wounded or ill. Now over 8000 are dead, and over 200,000 of those same troops are claiming disability benefits. In Britain, more than 600 veterans have died and 9000 are seriously sick with multiple ailments. This amounts to around 30 per cent of American and 17 per cent of British troops who went to the Gulf.

There has also been an eruption of illnesses and deformities among children of both the Allied military and Iraqi people. For example, a survey made by the US Veterans' Administration of 250 veterans' families in Mississippi showed that 67 per cent of children conceived and born since the war had rare illnesses and genetic problems. In Iraq among the civilian population there is data showing an increase in the congenital malformation rate from about six per thousand births to 25 per thousand since the Gulf War.

The Pentagon has been reticent about its use of DU munitions in Afghanistan. Several hundred tons of precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles have been used there, including some designed for use against hardened or deeply buried targets. Many of them almost certainly contain depleted uranium--up to 1.5 tons in the GBU-37 Bunker Buster bomb. This means that New Zealand SAS personnel as well as innocent Afghan civilians could have been affected. However, it may take a generation before some effects appear, as has been experienced by the New Zealand nuclear test veterans.

New concern

For the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States had at least 20 weapon systems suspected of using from 300 grams to 7 tons of depleted uranuium metal. Some estimates suggest that over 1000 tons of depleted uranium were used. A new concern is that US heavy machine guns can now fire DU ammunition, which means depleted uranium will be everywhere on the battlefield, including buildings in all the major towns. Moreover, all of Iraq has been occupied: so coalition forces, officials, civilian contractors and aid workers are all potentially exposed to DU dust--as of course are the Iraqi people.

In a speech in Canberra on 17 June 2003 Australian Democrat Senator Lyn Allison said:

 The Australian government used depleted uranium in weapons from 1981, and the Democrats first questioned

the government about this in parliament more than 20 years ago.

Thankfully, Australia stopped using DU ammunition in 1990, acknowledging

that this was for health and safety reasons.

Now however, the US military have been invited to use live firing ranges in Australia, reviving fears of DU contamination.

For these reasons, in May 2004 a group of concerned Christchurch citizens decided that there was a need to educate the public about depleted uranium. As the DU Education Team (DUET), they therefore invited Dr Chris Busby, a British expert on low-level radiation and DU, to conduct a five-day national speaking tour in April 2005. (1)

New insights

Dr Busby has a PhD in chemical physics, and has worked in both the UK pharmaceutical industry and university research on epidemiology with a special interest in the health effects of low-level radiation. In his first book, Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health (1995), he explained his revolutionary Second Event Theory, which distinguishes between the hazards of external and internal radiation exposure from artificial radionuclides. He is a member of the UK Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board, and of the Committee Examining Radiation Risk of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) established by the UK Departments of Health and Environment. He has visited Iraq and Kosovo to investigate the health effects of depicted uranium, and has given formal evidence on...