The Ron Paul Institute for Peace published a recent article on the U.S. use of depleted uranium (DU) in Syria, and what this means for health and the connection to cancer. A quick read, the article has good source to learn more about the risks of DU, something too many think is harmless.

Additional information from Heal and Protect: A Nuclear World:

Depleted Uranium (DU) is left-over from the enrichment process used to produce the quality of uranium needed for nuclear fuel or bombs. It is used mostly in armor-piercing rounds, armor, or nuclear weapons because of its high density and intense heat when combusted. It is also used as counterweight in aircraft and in radiation shielding applications.

When a depleted uranium round impacts a target, there is a flash of heat that vaporizes the uranium in temperatures as hot as the sun. This has great military advantage, but leaves a toxic dust that is littered around conflict zones, carried by the winds, and inhaled or ingested by soldiers or people in the region. DU residue leads to serious health issues, cancers, and the transmission of damaged genes to offspring.

Depleted Uranium is certainly a cause of ailments that American soldiers returned with following the Gulf Wars, termed the ‘gulf-war syndrome.’ The Iraqi people and surrounding countries were contaminated with large amounts of depleted uranium during the two Gulf Wars. There have been significant increases in cancers and birth defects in Iraq that some argue are caused by DU. Where DU has been used in the battlefield, the local people are typically found to be suffering from higher rates of cancer and birth defects. The irony is that calculating the effective doses of this DU radiation and comparing this to the risk models, the witnessed increases in cancer should not be possible. This causes people to conclude, in a circular way, that DU isn’t the trigger for these cancers because the calculated doses are too low. This is another example of how man-made internal radiation is very different.

Many people think DU residue is mostly harmless, has been depleted of its radiation, or is less radioactive than the ‘natural uranium’ present in the earth. This is simply not true. It is certainly radioactive. It is essentially pure uranium-238 since the U-235 percentage has been removed. U-238 is an emitter of alpha and gamma radiation with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. It decays to thorium-234 and protoactinium-234m, both more active, beta-emitting, isotopes. Many people will argue that DU is less radioactive than ‘pure uranium’ because the more radioactive isotope has been removed, and while correct, understand that naturally occurring uranium is not ‘pure uranium.’

Naturally occurring uranium is present in ores, rocks, soils, and water in very low concentrations (<10ppm).  You will never dig up a piece of pure uranium. Uranium that has been mined, milled, and processed to be pure does not exist in nature. Humans make pure uranium and it is purely toxic! Remove a tiny percentage of the more radioactive isotope, and it’s still pure uranium and toxic. Therefore, depleted uranium is still far more radioactive than naturally occurring uranium. This play on words has caused much confusion and is the reason governments are allowed to litter the world with depleted uranium as though it were as harmless as spreading around more topsoil.

Health effects associated with depleted uranium are likely due to two main aspects of DU that aren’t readily apparent when comparing its relative radioactivity. The first is the size of the particle is less than 1000nm (1micron), or 0.00004in — and the second is the natural toxicity of uranium, which is a heavy metal and extremely toxic^[1]. This means that the typical size range of depleted uranium particles is of the same magnitude as bacteria and viruses — easily capable of penetrating deep into cells^[2].

This means that fairly insoluble uranium compounds are able to pass through skin and lungs and migrate into cells. As a vaporized dust on the battlefield, the particles can pass right through the olfactory bulb of the nose and into the brain, likely contributing to many of the neurological issues returning soldiers complained of.

These particles move deep into our cells and tissues where they bombard them with the most damaging alpha-radiation their heavy-metal toxicity effects.

The insolubility of this depleted uranium oxide means it has a very long biological half-life. Naturally occurring uranium has to be fairly soluble to pass into the bloodstream and then it has a very short biological half-life of days, compared to years for depleted uranium particles. Naturally occurring uranium can’t penetrate the body the same way and so it is fundamentally different.

This source of radiation is obviously most prevalent on the modern day battlefields and the surrounding regions. It was used primarily during the conflicts in Iraq and Kosovo, but is used anywhere modern militaries engage in conflict. Depleted uranium is carried far by the winds, however, and unfortunate prevailing winds have the manner of depositing more in some places than others.

[1] “Military penetrators explode on impact…with conversion to micron diameter Uranium Oxide particles of a ‘ceramic’ nature.  These particles are highly mobile and extremely long lived in the environment…They can be inhaled and the sub-micron diameter particles are…able to circulate everywhere in the body…They can pass through the skin and through most gas-mask filters.”

^[2] Red blood cells are 7 to 8 microns in size, so on the order of 7-10 times larger than exploded DU particles.

Uranium exists naturally in soils and waters where we can ingest it, but mostly these natural forms pass through us. Uranium from nuclear weapons or depleted uranium weapons is more hazardous because the particle sizes are so much smaller than naturally occurring uranium. Depleted uranium used in weapons creates nano-particles and uranium-oxides less than one micron in diameter that are able to penetrate deeply into cells and regions of the body natural uranium cannot

Man-made radiation is so harmful because some of the forms bind deep into tissue and are difficult to remove. Take natural uranium found in our food and water compared to depleted uranium inhaled or ingested near conflict zones.

For natural uranium in our food and water to be absorbed into our bodies it has to be fairly soluble. Of the various uranium compounds that enter our bodies this way, only 2% of the soluble compounds are absorbed into the body^[3] (21). Because it is fairly soluble, the body moves it around and it has a biological half-life of around 15 days. Depleted uranium on the other hand can have biological half-lives in the years and decades because of different ways it can penetrate the body with insoluble and nano-sized particles of ceramic uranium oxides.

^[3] Compared to only 0.2% absorption of insoluble compounds.