[ RadSafe ] half of burning uranium becomes gas vapor

[James Salsman]

When I see posts like this...

  http://lists.radlab.nl/pipermail/radsafe/2006-November/004495.html

I wonder why Dr. Johnson is agreeing with someone who has been proven to
have lied about epidemiological birth defect research results.  To make a long
story short, Dr. Kang, a Veterans Administration epidemiologist, has been
tracking an increasing trend of birth defects in the children of 1991 Gulf War
veterans, and Colonel Daxon claimed that Dr. Kang's unpublished research
indicated the trend had decreased.  In fact, in is increasing more sharply than
ever.  (Roger H, did you ever call Dr. Kang to confirm after I gave
you his phone
number?)

The only reason I can think that Dr. Johnson would want to agree with a proven
liar is because he was responsible, in the 1990s for proving the "safety" of
depleted uranium munitions.  In doing so, he never considered the amount of
uranium which becomes gas vapor instead of particulates, which settle much
more quickly, when it burns.  Neither has anyone else in the military
or industrial
production of DU munitions.

Sadly, this state of affairs has caused otherwise-intelligent people to propose
using urine testing to measure uranium exposure, instead of measuring
chromosome damage from uranyl poisoning, which is a much more accurate
method of measuring exposure to uranium trioxide gas.

I note that fully half of burning uranium becomes gas vapor, see page 836 of
Carter, R.F. and K. Stewart (1970) "On the oxide fume formed by the
combustion of plutonium and uranium" Inhaled Particles 2:819-38:
  http://www.bovik.org/du/CarterStewart.pdf

I suspect that the people who lie about depleted uranium think that they are
doing our military a favor.  In fact, they are betraying the interests
of truth,
science, the health of our nation's armed forces, and their ability to recruit,
upon which they rely.

Sincerely,
James Salsman