Depleted Uranium
(Up to: Truth )
A work in progress.
There has been a lot of talk recently, mostly from the anti-war campaign, regarding the militarial use and consequences of Depleted Uranium. At first glance, statistics claiming that child deformations per births have exploded since the DU impacts of the Gulf War, and pseudo-scientific cases implicating the air-borne propensity for DU particle dissemination paint this material as a killer cloud of toxicity. Here's what I can dig up...
Always a good place to start, a quick Google search points to various organisations and news articles, both of which will be relatively biased. In the middle of them, there's a link to a WHO report. However this is missing, so a search specifically on the WHO site is called for. This returns their proper fact sheet on DU, as well as their main DU page, which has some links to various reports, which may be of interest.
The Kosovo Mission Report
Dating from January 2001, the WHO Depleted Uranium Mission to Kosovo [pdf] contains some information on the physical properties of Uranium, its Depleted form, its use in war tech. [tbc]
Following a snippet in The Ecologist magazine mentioning a report entitled "Depleted Uranium and Health: incidence and pattern of congenital abnormalities among births in Basra 1990-2001", and mentioning Green MEP Caroline Lucas.
References remaining unincorporated or that need further examination...
Ecologist article from 2001
Caroline Lucas' press release
Depleted Uranium - A Post-war Disaster for Environment and Health
A Google for "uranium nephritis"
Attribution: Googling for Rosalie Bertell
Rosalie Bertell's CV
Criticism of Rosalie, leading to...
DECIDE THE NUCLEAR ISSUES FOR YOURSELF
A letter from Rosalie
A page all about Depleted Uranium
BBC News article on Uranium in Afghani blood and urine
Christian Science Monitor provides a whole shedload of stuff to go through
