Talk:Depleted uranium/Archive 8

message: Nearly all of those who protest the use of DU in warfare as a result of its supposed health problems due to radioactivity cite its half-life of 4.5 billion years.  These people have absolutely no knowledge of what the half-life entails.  They claim that this shows that the substance remains radioactive for a very, very long time, and thus dangerous for that amount of time.  This is completely false.  The half-life only shows just how long it takes for half of that substance to decay through the emissions of alpha particles (He2+ nuclei), beta particles (electrons or positrons) or gamma rays (pure electromagnetic radiation).  The given amount of radioactivity is less for a substance of a long half-life than with the same amount of another substance that has a shorter half-life.  The substance with a longer half-life has more time to emit the same amount of particles or quanta of gamma rays.  Decay is thus lower.  A substance is also more or less hazardous at the same radioactivity levels as evidenced by the type of decay.  An alpha decay is considered harmless unless the source is ingested or inhaled, because alpha particles are easily blocked by the skin.  A beta decay is considered slightly more hazardous, but is still most harmful if the source is ingested or inhaled.  Gamma decay is more of a concern, because it is not blocked by skin and organs.  Gamma radiation is the same as X-Rays, which have different names to simply distinguish the source (decay or other nuclear processes).
I am uncertain about the levels of decay for each type of emitted particle, but I believe I can safely say that even the gamma emissions are safe enough for day-to-day handling, if we rule out the chemical toxicity of the substance itself, which is likely the leading contributor to all health problems cited as a result of exposure to DU munitions and the dust from such munitions. -- Scetoaux 02:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "An alpha decay is considered harmless unless the source is ingested or inhaled" - yes, and the point is that DU ammunition burns leaving a fine uranium oxide dust, which is easily ingested or inhaled.  Once inside the body, an alpha-emitting substance is tremendously hazardous (see EPA: Exposure Pathways).  In other words:  when it comes to the safety of DU ammo, "they didn't inhale" isn't much of an argument.--ActiniumBlue 06:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Depleted Uranium: Radioactivity as cause of health problems from exposure

message: Would it be better to refer to "soluble uranyl compounds" than "soluble uranium(VI) salts"?  Are there any uranium(VI) compounds which are not uranyl compounds?  If not, then the wikilink would be an advantage.  Also, are we saying that only the soluble uranium(VI) compounds are toxic, or that they are all soluble, and toxic?  If the later, then the "soluble" adjective should come after the predicate instead of before the subject. 71.132.128.168 05:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some uranium(VI) compounds which are not uranyl compounds, eg uranium hexafluoride. The general consensus is that that chemical toxicity is related to solubility. Physchim62 (talk) 15:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "soluble uranium(VI) salts, such as uranyl compounds"? 71.132.128.168 17:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uranium (VI) salts 

message: The two forms paragraf is stange and far from scientific. Without ony citation it does give an impreesion like two modifications or crystal structure, but this is not the case. Alloys or other modifications are the only suitable answer, but this nites a citation of literature stating this two conditions.--Stone 08:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How is this?  - --Fieldlab 14:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: two forms

message: Stone 08:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, you refer to the RAND Corporation.  You can argue that they may have bias, and you can argue against their conclusions, but few people will argue their understanding of the issues they address, as they have some very brilliant folks on the payroll.  Give Peace A Chance 08:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rand report

message: Why write two times the same in one article? The same is in the ammunitionsection already written.
The small particles created after the imact of ans staballoy penetrator...... --Stone 08:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The pyrophoric characteristic of DU is the primary

message: See here for a summary of all prior material on the subject. Talk:Depleted uranium/health. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 14:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "However, a study conducted by the Department of Veteran Affairs did find that 67% of post-Gulf War babies have serious birth defects or serious illnesses, such as missing eyes, limbs, and organs; fused digits; or organ malfunctions" ... 67% of post gulf-war babies would include every child born since the gulf war throughout the world., shouldn't it state the number and demographics of the group under study? Also, since we don't appear to have a link to the study quoted it cannot be verified that the study specifically attributes these claimed defects to DU exposure?
I fixed that statistic - what I'd meant to say was 67% of children born to Gulf War veterans, not 67% of the whole world. According to the secondary source I listed, the Dept of Veteran Affairs noted the statistic, but it was the secondary source that claims that uranium (actually non-depleted uranium) is the cause. CClio333 00:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Prior Material

message: Can anyone answer my question at Talk:Donna Nook? E  Asterion u talking to me? 07:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Donna Nook]] 

message: As all other links in the section are without quotes from the linked articles I removed a quote from one of the published links (Scientific reports, Hindin R, Brugge D, Panikkar B.) as I feel that the section, as its title suggests, is there to link out to further sources of information for those interested in taking their research on the topic further and the use of quotes from the linked articles is superfluous. 195.92.168.165 02:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

message: This section needs to be NPOV'd. For one thing, starting with the sentence "any connection between...is purely speculative" is probably wrong. State the evidence first, in a npov way by attributing sources. Then state what people say about the evidence, still attributing all opinions. The use of weasel words in this section is also pretty evident. With appropriate sourcing and careful rewording this could be better. 
The section currently only contains a rebuttal of the hypothesis that DU causes GWS, without even cohrently stating the hypothesis first. savidan(talk) (e@) 08:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For a while, it had both points of view.  Look at the edit history for "TDC" to see who started the recent edit war with both sides deleting the others' paragraphs. Peter Cheung 02:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV-Gulf War Syndrome 

message: From the Associated Press:
Sickened Iraq Vets Blame Depleted Uranium
(AP) NEW YORK It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it — thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.
"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."
Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
___
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.
Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."
The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said.
The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.
"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."
Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.
An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous — not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.
A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector.
"I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes."
At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitutes genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001.
"The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans."
There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.
Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.
Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.
Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.
In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops.
___
Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium.
Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000.
The study group's size is controversial — far too small, say experts including Fahey — and so are the findings of the voluntary, Baltimore-based study.
It has found "no clinically significant" health effects from depleted uranium exposure in the study subjects, according to its researchers.
Critics say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting one soldier who developed cancer, and another who developed a bone tumor.
So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million.
About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.
Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.
But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.
But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested?
It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.
It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange — a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy — was linked to those sufferings.
It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.
In 2002, Congress voted to not let that happen again.
It established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses — comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates. It reports to the secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better?
The answer, according to the committee, is no.
"Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report. "Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective."
And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq.
___
Herbert Reed is an imposing man, broad shouldered and tall. He strides into the VA Medical Center in the Bronx with the presence of a cop or a soldier. Since the Vietnam War, he has been both.
His hair is perfect, his shirt spotless, his jeans sharply creased. But there is something wrong, a niggling imperfection made more noticeable by a bearing so disciplined. It is a limp — more like a hitch in his get-along.
It is the only sign, albeit a tiny one, that he is extremely sick.
Even sleep offers no release. He dreams of gunfire and bombs and soldiers who scream for help. No matter how hard he tries, he never gets there in time.
At 54, he is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison.
He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq.
According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words depleted uranium long before he ended up at Walter Reed. He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. He says he didn't get anything of the kind. Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups.
Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.
But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.
Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado.
Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke — one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over.
"Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body."
After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.
He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU.
"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."
No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.
Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.
He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.
"I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete.
"Then we come back and we're all sick."
They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name.
GVWilson 18:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  115 news articles in the past day 

message: The recent edits by TDC, GVWilson, and Give Peace A Chance are all equally BAD and POV!
If you don't agree with something, put in the other side, but DO NOT DELETE THE PART THAT YOU DON'T LIKE.
This article needs to be protected, or at least carefully watched by a neutral party. 
Peter Cheung 02:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Horse shit.  Neutral party?  You?  Who started an account today?  I'm laughing my ass off.  Give Peace A Chance 02:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Questions about my identity can be answered by WHOIS on any of my home office's static IP addresses, such as this one. 69.228.65.174 04:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I could give two shits what your "real" identity is.  You still think you can create an account today, and then dictate how other editors should contribute?  What a joke.  Give Peace A Chance 05:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP:CIV, please. I think you can discuss your opinions about PC's contributions to the talk page without calling them "horse shit." Icewolf34 20:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  He called me out by name, and said my contributions were BAD in all caps.  I equated his contributions to equine feculence in lower case.  Seems even to me. Give Peace A Chance 01:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmmm, I wonder what the real Dr Peter Cheung from Texas thinks about being impersonated on Wikipedia? Lets email him and find out. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop edit warring! 

message: Should the Health concerns section contain one side's selected text, or both pro and con arguments?
*Both. Peter Cheung 02:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's nice of you to show up and PRETEND to be the honest broker.  Except nobody is buying it.  Give Peace A Chance 02:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Hooray! Now James has lots of sockpuppets in the fray! These issues had been brought up numerous times before. The vast majority of the material being introduced is either OR or a gross distortion of the source material. Provide the information here and it can be evaluated. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hah.  I've filed an RFCU to clear Peter and I from these accusations. --James Salsman, LossIsNotMore 17:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  James, I don’t know if you recruited these guys or what, but the fact that this is the first article either of them have edited, and the fact that they are attempting to add the same discredited garbage that you were, the fact that Peter Cheung's second edit was to explain that he was not James Salsman, the fact that he found the survey tool so quickly coupled with the fact that you still cannot drop this debate leads me to suspect otherwise. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 18:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You suspect everyone who edits this article in a way you don't like of being me.  Maybe Peter and the other newbies read the AP story.  It got prominent placement in my local Sunday paper. LossIsNotMore 18:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Absolutely both!! just so long as all of them are cited to reliable and notworthy sources. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 14:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Look at how the Health consideration (formerly Health concerns) section has changed over the past 50 edits, and you'll get the picture. GVWilson 22:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey 

message: My public library has an HW Wilson full text database, so I collected the following excerpts on subjects which don't seem to be represented in the article. Those who have more than my passing familiarity with this stuff, please consider adding some of this information to the article. I've been using wikis for years, but I'm mostly new to wikipedia and haven't really gotten my feet wet yet. I've only started reading about the subject of DU this month, and while it's fascinating, there's no hope of me being able to catch up with all of the archives of this discussion page. My plan for the time being is to get excerpts from reputable sources on subjects which the article doesn't seem to address. Maybe I will add some of this info later after I've actually read and understood some more of the archives. 
Note that these aren't all the complete news articles.  I omitted most things which were already mentioned in the article, unless it seemed necessary for context or continuity to understand the news item. -Alex- 08:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  News article excerpts from HW Wilson 

message: I have placed the current summary of evidence that uranium trioxide gas is produced when uranium burns here. I hope that those of you editing this article will please consider the changes suggested at the end. LossIsNotMore 12:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uranium trioxide gas update 

message: 1. How much DU (tons) was used in the first gulf war?  A lot of different sources say about 320 tons, for example http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du9.htm
2. How much has been used in the 2000's in Iraq?  The numbers from google searches are all over the map.  For example:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/1201polluting.htm -- 75 tons in 2003
http://www.wise-uranium.org/dissgw.html#MITKILP -- 143 tons in 2003
I would have thought those numbers would make it in to this article.
Steve Entman 21:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions