[ RadSafe ] Fwd: [Know_Nukes] Tungten Armor-Piercing Cure May Be Worse Than the Depleted Uranium Disease?

[John Jacobus]

>From another list server

--- gumsh0e <gumsh0e at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To: 
> From: 
> Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 01:03:06 -0000
> Subject: [Know_Nukes] Tungten Armor-Piercing Cure
> May Be Worse Than the Depleted Uranium Disease?
> 
> 
> http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7791/7791.pdf
> 
> ABSTRACT
> Continuing concern regarding the potential health
> and environmental
> effects of depleted uranium and lead has resulted in
> many countries
> adding tungsten alloy-based munitions to their
> battlefield arsenals as
> replacements for these metals. Because the alloys
> used in many
> munitions are relatively recent additions to the
> list of militarily
> relevant metals, very little is known about the
> health effects of
> these metals after internalization as embedded
> shrapnel. Previous work
> in this laboratory developed a rodent model system
> that mimicked
> shrapnel loads seen in wounded personnel from the
> 1991 Persian Gulf
> War. In this study, we used that system and male
> F344 rats, implanted
> intramuscularly with pellets (1 mm x 2 mm cylinders)
> of weapons-grade
> tungsten alloy, to simulate shrapnel wounds. Rats
> were implanted with
> 4 (low dose) or 20 pellets (high dose) of tungsten
> alloy. Tantalum (20
> pellets) and nickel (20 pellets) served as negative
> and positive
> controls, respectively. The high-dose tungsten
> alloy-implanted rats
> (n=46) developed extremely aggressive tumors
> surrounding the pellets
> within 4-5 months after implantation. The low-dose
> tungsten
> alloy-implanted rats (n=46) and nickel-implanted
> rats (n=36) also
> developed tumors surrounding the pellets, but did so
> at a slower rate.
> Rats implanted with tantalum (n=46), an inert
> control metal, did not
> develop tumors. Tumor yield was 100% in both the
> low- and
> high-dose tungsten alloy groups. The tumors,
> characterized as
> high-grade pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcomas by
> histopathology and
> immunohistochemical examination, rapidly
> metastasized to the lung and
> necessitated euthanasia of the animal. Significant
> hematological
> changes, indicative of polycythemia, were also
> observed in the
> high-dose tungsten alloyimplanted rats. These
> changes were apparent as
> early as 1 month post-implantation in the highdose
> tungsten alloy
> rats, well before any overt signs of tumor
> development. These results
> point out the need for further studies investigating
> the health
> effects of tungsten and tungsten-based alloys.
> 
> 
> 
> 

+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


		
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