Re: Two DU articles with a different slant

["Michael S Ford" <MFORD@pantex.com>]

Dave, thanks for the article.

In retrospect, it's difficult to reconcile the significance of an effect from a single alpha particle from DU against the significance of the effects (or lack thereof) of the hundreds of thousands of alpha particles we inhale every year from radon and radon daughters.

How is it that a single, lower energy (4.2 MeV) alpha particle from DU causes cancer when the higher energy radon chain alphas (5.5 to 7.7 MeV) we've been exposed to for millennia haven't eradicated all life on earth?.... That is, if I've correctly followed the hypothesis below.

The single particle theory applied with broad brush strokes across *all* of humanity just doesn't hold water.  The human body is much more resilient than that.

v/r
Michael

>>> necnp@necnp.org wrote on 23 Jan 01 9:58:11 AM >>>
I usually just lurk on this list, but I thought that the following articles 
from the UK might give you all some food for thought.  Dave Pyles

  The Sunday Herald (Scotland)

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/newsi.hts?section=News&story_id=13815 

21 January 2001

Revealed: how just one single atom of DU can trigger cancer

By Rob Edwards Environment Editor
Publication Date: Jan 21 2001

The furious international row over the risks of depleted uranium weapons is 
set to flare up again with the revelation that a single atom of uranium 
inside  the body is enough to trigger cancer. Scientists from a 
government-funded medical research laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire 
have produced the first direct proof that a single alpha particle emitted 
by uranium can damage human cells. The damage, they say, is a crucial step 
in the development of tumours.

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