Re: Re :LNT and educating the public[Scanned]

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 11/1/02 1:48:32 AM Mountain Standard Time, chofmeyr@nnr.co.za writes:


> "Very radioactive" is of course not a quantified statement, but depleted uranium has about half the activity of the natural isotopic composition (almost 20 000 Bq/g).  The short-lived daughters will grow in in a few months.  Compare this with the exemption levels of between 1 Bq/g (natural) and 10 Bq/g (U isotpes), and I think the lady still might have a point.  



Even so, I would suspect that any health effects would be due to the chemical effects as a heavy metal rather than radiological effects.  A gram of uranium is a very large quantity to inhale or ingest -- 10 microns is usually the upper limit for respirability and uranium is very dense, so it seems to me that the effects of inhaling that much uranium would be those of ordinary dust inhalation and of heavy metal inhalation, rather than any radiological effects.   No one is saying that inhaling DU dust is pleasant or doesn't have effects, but that the effects are most likely to be those of any heavy metal munitions dust inhalation, rather than any radiological effects.   


Ruth

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com