Testimony: SB 6732: Studying Military Uranium Exposure
1/31/06 & 2/1/06 George Hill MD, ABFP (Retired)
Position on Bill: Strongly in favor.
Significance
Uranium (DU) U 238 is only depleted in that U 235 has been removed. It has radioactive toxicity, and heavy metal chemical toxicity, similar to mercury, arsenic, and lead.
The alpha particles it releases are the most damaging form of radiation, in terms of cellular injuries affecting enzymes, metabolism, and chromosomes.
These toxicities affect rates of cancer, leukemia, and birth defects. They affect lung, kidney, immune function, and other systems.
Absorption and excretion
The metal powders on impact, and is explosive and incendiary. It oxidizes to a very insoluble ceramic form, which is much less soluble than the metallic shrapnel form.
The particles are microscopic and are inhaled into the air sacs of the lungs, where they lodge.
Being almost insoluble, only ½ of these particles leave the lungs in a four year span.
The microscopic size results in a huge surface area, from which the alpha particles bombard lung and blood cells traveling through the lungs.
One gram of U238 gives off 12,400 alpha particles per second.
Some microscopic ceramic particles enter the blood stream, and travel to all other organs of the body, where they may lodge again, and expose other tissues to the same hazards.
Tests
Registry
A registry comparing symptoms and diagnoses of exposed and non-exposed veterans would be a valuable and cost-effective way to learn about the effects of U 238. (This approach is referred to as epidemiology, the study of illness in various populations.)
Urine tests
Tests in the US are not currently adequate to find the less soluble ceramic form of U 238.
They are adequate to find the more soluble oxides from metallic shrapnel.
Tests done in the UK and in Germany with mass spectrometry are capable of finding and differentiating isotopes of uranium, up to eight years after a heavy exposure, and are about 30x more sensitive than US tests.
US tests use 10 ml. random urine diluted with water, and cost about $200 per person.
UK and German tests use about 400 ml. of a 24 hour collection of urine, boiled down, and cost about $1000 per person.
Blood tests
Chromosome damage can be tested on a blood sample, and costs about $775 per individual, with a significant discount for testing of a group.
Blood tests of kidney function may show injury, but are not specific for the cause.
Hair
Testing on hair can be done, but is not considered sufficiently reliable.
Tissues
Studies on war casualties, surgical specimens, or on accident victims, looking for retained isotopes, would be feasible and very helpful.
Biopsy (sampling a tissue surgically) could be very helpful, but is not being done at present.
Studies that have been completed thus far include:
Populations near manufacturing facilities
NY State closed a plant manufacturing DU (U238) munitions, because it was releasing less than one pound per month into the air. Public health authorities deemed it unsafe for NY citizens.
Near a weapons factory in Concord Mass. the cancer rate was almost twice the state average, with a cluster of four lung cancers on one street, all in their 20’s and 30’s. Groundwater near this factory revealed 3100x Massachusetts’ state limits of U 238 for water supplies.
Balkan War Zone
Sarajevo area cancer rates for lung, breast, and urinary system have increased 3 to 3½ times since U 238 munitions were used there by NATO in 1999.
Iraq
Warheads shelling southern Iraq in Gulf War I (1991) released 64,000 pounds (320 tons) of U238 into the atmosphere, to be distributed by prevailing winds.
Thomas Fasy MD, PhD, Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Pathology, Mount Sinai Medical School, NY NY, visited Iraq and reported a 4x increase in childhood cancer and leukemia, and a 5½ times increase in birth defects, in southern Iraq (Basrah Regional Hospital) in an 8yr span 1993-2001, following Gulf War I (1991). The graph shows a progressive steep increase, especially 1998 to 2001, consistent with a 7 yr latent period. Latent periods are characteristic of carcinogens.
A United Nations WHO team visited Iraq in 2001, and called for a large study to confirm the increase in cancer and birth defects, but it was not approved and funded by the UN General Assembly.) Amount of U238 used in Gulf War II is not public information.
Exposed troops
Reported death rates in young military crews who cleaned equipment contaminated with powdered ceramic U 238 are reported as 35% (Rokke’s group) and 75% (Sterry’s group.)
Birth defects in children of troops exposed in Iraq are reported at about twice usual rates, with fathers at 1.7x and mothers at 2.7x the general population.
Chromosome abnormalities in UK troops exposed to U 238 were found to be 14x the numbers seen in non-exposed German citizens, higher than found in Chernobyl personnel who were radiated in the Russian accident. (This appears to reflect the difference between internal and external radiation.)
US populations downwind, near military firing and disposal ranges
Aberdeen Proving Ground: Delaware has the highest cancer rate in the US, and Maryland 4th place, with Harford County,next to the base, the highest in Maryland.
Sierra Army Depot: Lassen County, including Susanville, in Northeastern California, has almost 2x the cancer rate of the rest of California.
Nuclear industry workers
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) predicts health benefits for nuclear workers will be about $100 million/yr. Yet they are concerned that there is no overall registry of the types of illnesses.
Cautions regarding these types of studies:
Beware of statistical models. Inadvertently, they are often unaware of significant factors, which can lead the researcher to make erroneous conclusions. Observation is the core of the scientific method. Computer modeling generates hypotheses, which then need observational testing.
Beware predictions based on external radiation exposure. Hiroshima observational studies and International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) predictions of risk are based on external radiation exposure. The damage from U 238 is based on absorption of tiny particles, of 1-10 micron diameter, which are inhaled deeply and retained in the body, leading to internal radiation injuries.
References
“The Recent Epidemic of Pediatric Malignancies and Congenital Malformations in Southern Iraq” Thomas M. Fasy, MD, PhD. www.uraniumconference.org/fasy_jun_14_03.pdf-supplemental result
Movie: “The Doctor, the Dying Children, and Depleted Uranium” a documentary about a German physician, Siegwart-Horst Gunther, MD, who worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and who then spent 40 years consulting in tropical medicine in Baghdad. He was very impressed with the sharp increase in birth defects and pediatric leukemia in Iraq after Gulf War I.
“Methodology and the Difficulties of Testing for DU” Leonard Dietz, MS. http://www.umrc.net/testdescription
“Health Risks Following Exposure to Aerosols Produced by the Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons” Chris Busby, PhD, Nov 2001. http://www.llrc.org/du/subtropic/pragrept.pdf
“How Good is Good Enough? Chapter 5: The Best Test” Bob Evans, Daily Press, Dec 15, 2004.
“Baltimore Follow-Up Program” Mellissa McDiarmid, MD, Oct 15, 1999. (This is the US VA shrapnel study.)
There is a large bibliography on DU at the Veterans for Peace Chapter 109 website, compiled by Dennis Mills, PhD. http://www.criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium.htm
“Discounted Casualties” by Akira Tashiro, 2001, published by The Chugoku Shimbun, translated by Transnet, 144pages. This is a series of newspaper articles, based on four months travel and interviews, which won Japan’s highest award for journalism. It was published without an index; I have prepared one, which is on the Veterans for Peace Chapter 109 website.
“Depleted Uranium as a Weapon of War” Rosalie Bertell, PhD, August 1999. www.iicph.org
‘Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium” Rosalie Bertell, PhD, Hague Peace Conference, May, 1999. http://www.ccnr.org/du_hague.html
“Radioactive Wounds of War” Dave Lindorff, In These Times,” August 29, 2005. National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. http://www.ngwrc.org/index.cfm?page=Article&ID=2043
“Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect their Soldiers and Veterans” Kevin Zeese July 19, 2005, Democracy Rising. National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. http://www.ngwrc.org/print.cfm?ID=2010