Contaminated uranium in the news again

[AndrewsJP@AOL.COM]

http://www.newsday.com/ap/text/national/ap165.htm



This is on AOL news today and elsewhere.  How bad is this contamination? 

Anybody know?

It would be nice to have the numbers so we could answer questions.



AP National 

Contaminated Uranium Threat Widens



ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Thousands more workers than first thought could face 

serious health threats from exposure to plutonium and other highly 

radioactive matter that fouled a large amount of uranium recycled by U.S. 

nuclear weapons programs, a published report says.



>From 1952 until 1999, when the shipments ended because of the contamination 

threat, vast quantities of recycled uranium were shipped worldwide.



New government studies, reviewed by USA Today and reported in Monday's 

editions, found that the recycling program yielded 250,000 tons of tainted 

uranium, or about twice as much as earlier estimated. The highly radioactive 

material was handled at about 10 times the number of sites previously 

revealed and reportedly reached more than 100 federal plants, private 

manufacturers and universities.



''This stuff circulated much more widely than we'd thought,'' said Robert 

Alvarez, an official at the Energy Department when the new studies were 

started in 1999.



USA Today said the latest studies suggest that thousands more workers than 

expected might have unwittingly faced radiation risks beyond those associated 

with normal uranium. That exposure could significantly increase their odds of 

developing cancer and other diseases.



AP-NY-06-25-01 0617EDT<  





06/25/2001 





John Andrews

Knoxville, Tennessee

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.