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Fwd: Re DU source and Gulf Illness
I replied directly to Richard before I saw that he had also sent to his question to RADSAFE, so here is my reply to him.
Bob
The material that is present in parts per billion have shorter half-lives than does uranium-238 (4.5 billion years). That is why, even at parts per billion, they can raise the decay rate of DU about 0.6%. If they were present in higher concentrations, the radioactivity would be noticeably higher. They would be easy to detect.
But even at higher concentrations they still would have virtually no effect on DU's chemical toxicity. Remember those two rows of elements set off separately on the bottom of the periodic table on the wall of your high school chemistry class. One of those rows is the actinides, named after the first element in the row, actinium. Uranium and the transuranics, neptunium, plutonium, and americium, are all in the same row. They are all very similar to each other chemically. So extra transuranics in DU don't change its chemistry.
I have my doubts that the Gulf War Syndrome is even real, but I mostly keep that to myself since I am not qualified to make that call. What I do say is that DU cannot be the cause of it. We all have about one microgram of uranium in our bodies our entire lives. I doubt the ingestion of a little more would have much effect as the soldiers with DU shrapnel still in their bodies have demonstrated.
Thanks for asking,
Bob