[ RadSafe ] Uranium and genotoxicity

[John R Johnson]

Otto

Thanks for this background (non radioactive -:).

John
***************
John R Johnson, PhD
CEO, IDIAS, Inc.
4535 West 9th Ave
604-676-3556
Vancouver, B. C.
V6R 2E2, Canada
idias at interchange.ubc.ca

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe at ucdavis.edu>
To: "James Salsman" <BenjB4 at gmail.com>; <bcradsafers at hotmail.com>; 
"radsafelist" <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Uranium and genotoxicity


>
>>June 7, 2008
>
> Over half century of biological studies and the body of scientific 
> literature has shown that uranium is probably one of the least toxic of 
> all the heavy metals. It is essentially inert in the human body, 
> sequesters in the skeleton, and is slowly excreted through the kidneys. 
> High uptakes can temporarily interfere with kidney function associated 
> with deposition in the kidney tubules and glomeruli, but uranium is not 
> readily taken up by or metabolized in the body.
>
> While in graduate school at the University of Rochester I had the 
> opportunity to observe the inhalation studies being conducted with uranium 
> oxide using various animal species. The Rochester studies began in the 
> 40's as part of the Manhattan project and were still in progress when I 
> was a graduate student in the 60's. Two of the key papers summarizing the 
> uranium dioxide inhalation studies were published by Leonard Leach and his 
> associates. The references are Heath Physics  18: 599-612 (1970) and 
> Health Physics 25: 239-258 (1973). The opening sentence of the Abstract of 
> the 1973 paper states: "Inhalation studies show that dogs, monkeys and 
> rats can breathe a natural uranium dioxide (UO2) aerosol of approximately 
> 1 um mass median particle diameter at a mean concentration of 5 mg U/m3 
> (25 x TLV or 28 x MPCa), for periods as long as 5 yr with little evidence 
> of serious injury."
>
> Natural and depleted uranium are chemically and biologically identical in 
> their behavior and radiologically very similar. There is really no basis 
> for claims of inordinate hazards from exposure to oxides of uranium.
>
> References: "Handbook of the Toxicology of Metals", Friberg et al.(1990), 
> "Uranium, Plutonium, Transplutonium Elements", Hodge et al. (1973), "A 
> five year inhalation study with natural uranium dioxide", HEALTH PHYS 25, 
> 230-258 (1973), "Depleted Uranium In The Gulf": 
> http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii
>
>
> **********************************************
> Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
> Center for Health & the Environment
> University of California
> One Shields Avenue
> Davis, CA 95616
> E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
> Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
> *********************************************** 
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