After the (first) Gulf war and in particular the Kosovo war, there was quite a bit of media scare about the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) in anti-tank ammunition, and many accusations that there was an increased occurrence of leukemia and other cancers. Medical studies were done on the soldiers that had served both places, but by the time the studies were completed, media's attention had moved elsewhere, so not many people heard that the claims were rejected as totally groundless.
Most of the sites you get if you google for DU are entirely worthless, as any application of a sensible bullshit detection kit will reveal pretty fast.
Pugwash is the nuclear disarmement organisation that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. On their websites they have one article that I have been able to find that discusses DU (in second half of article). It will be very difficult to dismiss Pugwash as being in cohorts with the industrial-military complexTM, and their all-but rejection of DU as particularly dangerous is well worth a note.
After a number of hysterical newspaper reports and politicians following the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in the Yugoslavia conflict, almost all relevant countries set down expert groups to assess the risks.
The expert analysises of a number of countries and the WHO consistently concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that DU had any relation to negative health effects.
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has just published a report based on a very careful analysis of all available evidence in Bosnia. This could be an interesting apropos to a debate on DU on this blog earlier.
The extremely sensitive equipment used was able to detect residues of DU in drinking water and in the air in two buildings.
The recorded contamination levels, however, are very low and do not present immediate radioactive or toxic risks for the environment or human health.
While including the standard disclaimers and asking for more work, this study was surprisingly strong in dismissing claims from certain quacks:
The existing scientific data on uranium and DU health effects indicate that it is highly unlikely that DU could be associated with any of the reported health problems.
It is worth noting that the expression "extremely unlikely" is about as strong as it gets in scientific literature.
Let's see how far this information is able to penetrate.
Based on blog postings on March 11 and March 26, 2003.I also could not resist the temptation to make my own "news item" about this on April 1st.
