Re: [CPEO-MEF] DU munitions

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

I might as well weigh in on the depleted uranium DU issue. I believe
there is strong evidence that DU migrates through the environment,
particularly as uranium oxide particles. Those particles pose chronic
health threats both as inhalable alpha-emitters and an ingestable heavy metal.

Though I am reluctant to predict what a terrorist might do, I would
consider the threat to public health from a dirty "nuclear" weapon made
from DU penetrators as qualitatively comparable to the release of TCE
from an industrial or military facility. The quantitative risk, of
course, is a function of concentrations, pathways, and the nature of the receptors.

Because many of the health consequences from exposure to uranium weapons
and their byproducts are not likely to emerge for many years - in fact,
decades - I once labeled them the "Agent Orange of the 1990s."

Lenny
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org