Study shows depleted uranium causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer

This article from the Guardian points out the obvious, that depleted uranium can cause cancer and is very dangerous, but often these days such obvious truths are completely buried and unknown.

Deadly Dust: Study Suggests Cancer Risk from Depleted Uranium
by James Randerson
The Guardian/UK
May 8, 2007

Depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing ammunition, causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer, according to a study of the metal’s effects on human lung cells. The study adds to growing evidence that DU causes health problems on battlefields long after hostilities have ceased.DU is a byproduct of uranium refinement for nuclear power. It is much less radioactive than other uranium isotopes, and its high density - twice that of lead - makes it useful for armor and armor piercing shells. It has been used in conflicts including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq and there have been increasing concerns about the health effects of DU dust left on the battlefield. In November, the Ministry of Defense was forced to counteract claims that apparent increases in cancers and birth defects among Iraqis in southern Iraq were due to DU in weapons.

Now researchers at the University of Southern Maine have shown that DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise, exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different concentrations.

The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. “These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,” the team wrote in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

Previous studies have shown that uranium miners are at higher risk of lung cancer, but this has often been put down to the fact that miners are also exposed to radon, another cancer-causing chemical.

Prof Wise said it is too early to say whether DU causes lung cancer in people exposed on the battlefield because the disease takes several decades to develop.

“Our data suggest that it should be monitored as the potential risk is there,” he said.

Prof Wise and his team believe that microscopic particles of dust created during the explosion of a DU weapon stay on the battlefield and can be breathed in by soldiers and people returning after the conflict.

Once they are lodged in the lung even low levels of radioactivity would damage DNA in cells close by. “The real question is whether the level of exposure is sufficient to cause health effects. The answer to that question is still unclear,” he said, adding that there has as yet been little research on the effects of DU on civilians in combat zones. “Funding for DU studies is very sparse and so defining the disadvantages is hard,” he added.

From the Wikipedia entry on depleted uranium:

An external radiation dose from Depleted Uranium is about 60% of that from Natural Uranium with the same mass...Its use in ammunition is controversial because of its release into the environment. Besides its residual radioactivity, U-238 is a heavy metal whose compounds are known from laboratory studies to be toxic to mammals, especially to the reproductive system and fetus development, causing reduced fertility, miscarriages and fetus malformations.

From Wikipedia: "Graph showing the rate per 1,000 births of congenital malformations observed at Basra University Hospital, Iraq, as reported by I. Al-Sadoon, et al., writing in the Medical Journal of Basrah University."

America continues to use depleted uranium in anti-armor rounds, poisoning civilians and soldiers alike and polluting Iraq with radioactive dust for centuries. From Wikipedia:

When a DU penetrator reaches the interior of an armored vehicle, it catches fire, often igniting ammunition and fuel, killing the crew, and possibly causing the vehicle to explode.

Such incendiary devices create a fine aerosol dust of radioactive uranium that is toxic by its properties as a heavy metal (similar to mercury poisoning) and as a radioactive substance, and which can easily be inhaled by anyone in the area. Use of such rounds in civilian neighborhoods has been documented.