[ RadSafe ] "Toxicity"

[franz.schoenhofer at chello.at]

RADASAFErs,

When talking of toxicity of uranium and other isotopes of heavy metals one has to strictly distinguish between "radiotoxicity" and "Chemotoxicity"! In the recent discussion about different uranium isotopes this has not been done this has not been done 
clearly. Natural uranium is far more chemotoxic than radiotoxic, enriched uranium is more radiotoxic than chemotoxic. Without specifying the isotopic composition any discussion is useless. 

One thing is for sure - even though there is one "eminent scientist" on the list who denies it: Depleted uranium is due to the smaller amount of U-235 far less radiotoxic than natural one, but since it is chemically the same as any other uranium it has the same chemical toxicity. The difference in the masses of the isotopes are so small that there can practically no different chemical behaviour expected - and what are organisms other than chemical laboratories? Think also how difficult it is to separate isotopes by physical methods.

Hope this helps.

Franz

--
 Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
mobile: ++43 699 1706 1227