BSE was such a huge political debacle that no government could fail to learn
from it. Right? Well, it seems not. There is a familiar sound echoing round
Europe and the US this week: governments telling us that something is safe, on
the basis of little discernible science. This time it鈥檚 weapons made of depleted
uranium (DU). Maybe they are safe. Maybe not.
There is every reason to suspect that DU may be unhealthy. It is a heavy
metal, like lead. It also emits alpha particles, which are definitely not good
for you
(see 鈥淥ne too many鈥�).
DU shells form a fine dust on impact, and armed forces that
use them know enough about uranium toxicity to make their people wear full
protective gear when handling the resulting debris.
And yet governments that use DU weapons tell us only that they don鈥檛 emit
enough radiation to be harmful on a whole-body basis. In a move reminiscent of
then-minister John Gummer feeding his daughter a beefburger at the height of the
BSE epidemic, NATO officials in Brussels last week carried around lumps of DU to
show journalists during briefings.
Advertisement
Get serious. A lump of DU in your pocket is a different proposition from
specks of DU zapping alpha and beta particles directly into a lymph node or
bone. If officials really want to convince us, let them inhale a pinch of DU
dust, as they are asking the people of Kosovo and Iraq to do.
As the DU crisis deepens, the parallels with BSE get even starker. In the
1980s and 90s, British government politicians insisted for as long as they could
that they didn鈥檛 have any evidence that beef was unsafe. Of course they didn鈥檛.
They hadn鈥檛 done the research that would have found it.
Now 鈥渟cientists have no evidence that DU weapons are harmful鈥� is the mantra
in London, Washington and Brussels. The weapons may or may not be safe. There is
no evidence of a hazard because nobody has looked in the right place.
The US and now Germany have measured total uranium levels in the urine of
service personnel. They found no elevations that correlated with service or
medical history. Look! It鈥檚 not harmful, they say.
Uranium pharmacology isn鈥檛 that simple
(see 鈥淎fter the war is over鈥�).
Those urine measurements
are meaningless. There are other tests that will show whether someone has been
exposed to DU, but apart from a few activists in Canada and the US, no one has
commissioned them.
So why all the bland reassurances? Could it be something to do with the cost
of cleaning up battlefields contaminated with DU? Or perhaps the fact that the
only potential replacement for DU is tungsten, which is a lot more
expensive?
If generals really want to use DU, they must first do a proper examination of
veterans. And, yes, the same tests should be done on the people now living amid
DU debris, to see who was exposed and by how much. The tests should be followed
up for long enough鈥攁nd that means many years鈥攖o see what illnesses
emerge. Then we鈥檒l know.
