[ RadSafe ] uranium birth defect causation details

[JGinniver at aol.com]

Apologies to all for the length of the posting, I hope the contents justy  
the extra bandwidth.
 
James I would like to draw you attention to the following statements issued  
by the Royal Society in the UK.  A well respected, independent, scientific  
body. Between 2000 and 2003 they instigated an independent review of the  
potential health effects of DU to both combatants and non-combatants.  This  review 
wasn't limited to the use of DU in the Gulf but also included information  
from other areas where DU munitions had been used and also looked at the  
possible consequences of the future use of DU munitions.  I have copied  below 
excerpts from both the web site and the summary document published after  the 
completion of both parts of their review.  There are many hundreds of  pages of 
supporting information published on the Royal Societies web site ( 
_http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk_ (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk)  )which  underpins their conclusions 
given below.  As you can see, they concluded  that the health effects from 
exposure to DU would not be significant for the  majority of exposure situations. 
 The only groups that they considered may  have the potential for significant 
exposure and consequent health effects were  individuals exposed within the 
confines of a vehicle struck by DU munitions or  small groups of workers 
(soldiers?) exposed for long periods of time as part of  the collection and 
treatment of vehicles struck by DU munitions (this latter  issue appears to be based 
in part on the testimony of D Rourke (sp?) who's  claims have already been 
subjected to much debate on Radsafe.  I've  highlighted these reports as they were 
produced and published by a respected  group of scientist who had/have no 
vested interest in the outcome of the review  other than that it was based on 
scientific principles.
 
Regards,
    Julian
 
[SNIP]    The military use of depleted uranium (or DU)  has generated 
considerable public controversy. DU is a chemically toxic and  weakly radioactive 
substance. Its use on a battlefield can lead to it being  spread over a wide 
area, and many have claimed that this has adverse health  effects for those on the 
battlefield and those living or returning to live in an  area where DU 
munitions have been deployed. In response to these concerns, the  Royal Society 
convened an independent expert working group in 2000 to review the  present state 
of scientific knowledge on the subject
 
 
 
Conclusions
Based on our own estimates of intakes of DU, we have drawn  the following 
conclusions:

a     Except in extreme circumstances any  extra risks of developing fatal 
cancers as a result of radiation from internal  exposure to DU arising from 
battlefield
conditions are likely to be  undetectable above the general risk of dying 
from cancer over a normal lifetime.  This remains true even if our estimates of 
risk
resulting from likely  exposures are one hundred times too low.

b     The extreme circumstances will apply only to  a very small fraction of 
the soldiers in a theatre of war, for example those who  survive in a vehicle 
struck by a DU penetrator, or those involved in cleaning up  struck vehicles. 
In such circumstances, and assuming the most unfavourable  conditions, the 
lifetime risk of
death from lung cancer could be about twice  that in the general population.

c     Any extra risks of death from leukaemia,  or other cancers, as a result 
of exposure to DU are estimated to be  substantially lower than the risks of 
death from lung cancer. Under all likely  exposure scenarios the extra 
lifetime risks of fatal leukaemia are predicted to  be too small to be detectable.

d     The radiological risks from the use of DU in  munitions are for the 
most part low, but there are uncertainties in the levels  of exposure that could 
occur under unfavourable conditions, and for small  numbers of soldiers there 
could be circumstances in which the excess risks of  lung cancer are 
substantial. It is for this reason that further work should be  undertaken to clarify 
the extent of intakes on the battlefield.

e     The estimated DU intakes for most soldiers on  the battlefield are not 
expected to result in concentrations of DU in the kidney  that exceed 0.1 
microgram per gram of kidney, even transiently. Consequently, in  these cases it 
is not expected that adverse effects on the kidney or any other  organ would 
occur.

f     Levels of uranium in the kidney of soldiers  surviving in tanks struck 
by DU rounds, or of soldiers working for protracted  periods in heavily 
contaminated vehicles, could reach concentrations that lead  to some short term 
kidney dysfunction, but whether this would lead to any  long-term adverse effects 
is unclear as adequate studies of the long-term  effects on the kidney of 
acute or protracted exposures to elevated levels of  uranium are not available. 
According to worst-case assumptions, kidney uranium  levels in some soldiers 
could be very high, and would probably lead to kidney  failure within a few days 
of exposure. However, we are not aware of any cases of  kidney failure, 
occurring within a few days of exposure, in US soldiers who  would have received the 
highest DU intakes during the Gulf War, but we cannot  rule out some kidney 
damage for such soldiers under worst-case  assumptions.

g     For those returning to live in areas where DU  munitions were deployed, 
including peace-keepers, the inhalation intakes from  resuspended DU are
considered to be unlikely to cause any substantial  increase in lung cancer 
or any other cancers. The estimated excess lifetime risk  of fatal lung cancer 
is
about one in a million, although there could be  higher risks for some 
individuals with worst-case intakes of DU due to higher  levels of local 
contamination.
Estimated risks of other cancers are at least  100-fold lower. There are, 
however, large uncertainties in the estimates of  inhalation intakes in the years 
following a conflict.

h      No effects on kidney function from  inhalation of resuspended DU are 
expected for most individuals who return after  a conflict. Small effects on 
kidney function  are possible using  worst-case assumptions, but would at most 
only apply to a small number of  individuals.

i     Ingestion of DU in contaminated water  and food, and from soil, will be 
highly variable and may be significant in some  cases, eg children playing in 
areas where DU penetrators have impacted,  ingestion of heavily contaminated 
soil, or where a buried penetrator feeds  uranium directly into a well. 
Environmental movement of DU from buried  penetrators into local water supplies is 
likely to be very slow and over a  period of decades levels of uranium could 
increase in some local water supplies.  [SNIP]