Depleted uranium and media hysteria.(Health)

URANIUM WAS NAMED after the Greek god Uranus. For many, that heritage could not have been more appropriate. Uranus sired abnormal children, some with only one eye, and the metal is supposed to do the same. Uranus was castrated, and the metal is alleged to sterilise. Uranus shed blood on the earth, releasing furies; uranium has shed blood, and continues to inspire furious debate. For others, however, the fact that Uranus was a myth is the most important feature, because to them the public understanding of uranium is mired in fable.

The heritage of Uranus is alive in Iraq, where one of the isotopes of uranium has been used by American and British forces as a special weapon to pierce enemy tanks. Unlike its use in Japan in 1945 when its fissile properties were the basis of exploding bombs, in Iraq the physical properties of uranium have allowed it to be fashioned into unexploding projectiles that can pierce armour plate. Uranium is, however, weakly radioactive and there are now claims that radiation from spent shells is deforming babies--even producing some with only one eye. The metal is alleged to be shedding innocent blood by causing cancers in children, and castrating by reducing fertility in adults. For the claimants, uranium is the weapon of mass destruction in that country, wielded furiously against the innocent by the USA and its lackeys.

The claims against the form of uranium wielded in Iraq, called depleted uranium, are being publicised in major international media, few being more persistent than our own Australian Broadcasting Corporation. None would appear to be more influential, however, than Al Jazeera, the Middle East outlet known for broadcasting to millions the speeches of Osama bin Laden and the spectacle of atrocities by his followers. According to Al Jazeera, depleted uranium has "ruined the lives of just under 300,000 people during the last decade--and numbers will increase", meaning "thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of thousands of years to come" with "by far the most devastating effect [being] on unborn children".

Those denying the claims that depleted uranium has these effects include the World Health Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the UN Environment Program, the Royal Society, the Rand Corporation and multiple lesser authorities. Peer-reviewed monographs, editorials, articles and comments appear regularly in the medical and scientific literature in refutation of the claims, but these sources appear ignored by the ABC and other media who, curiously, in other matters, can be predicted to promote the wisdom and authority of the United Nations and its various branches.

THE METAL

URANIUM is a ubiquitous metal that exists in the natural state as three isotopes: U238 (99.2 per cent), U235 (0.7 per cent) and U234. In the preparation of nuclear fuel, natural uranium is "enriched" by increasing the concentration of U235 to about 3 to 5 per cent, leaving a residue that is "depleted" of the more radioactive component. This residuum, known as "depleted uranium" (DU)is almost all U238 and, in accordance with the reduced proportion of the fissile isotope, U235, DU is about 60 per cent less radioactive than the natural metal.

DU is twice as dense as lead and has been used as a counterbalance in aircraft, as ballast in yachts and as protective screening against radiation. Its military use is based on its density and the fact that it sharpens rather than deforms on impact, thus making it an ideal "kinetic weapon" against armoured targets. That it pulverises and ignites under the high pressures and temperatures of impact adds to the misery of the crews of penetrated tanks.