About DU

Uranium Weapons Briefing
ICBUW's uranium weapons briefing.
Depleted Uranium
An introduction to depleted uranium and depleted uranium weapons.
Who uses it
Research into the murky world of arms industry exports and the proliferation of DU weapons around the world
Producers
Who manufactures DU and why.
Radioactivity
The effects of low level radiation, and in particular the effects of internal radioactive emitters, on human health are hotly debated. What is clear is that the safety standards governing radiation exposure have been growing increasingly rigid as our understanding of radiation has increased. However, powerful vested interests and pro-nuclear lobby groups continue to make this a challenging area to campaign on.

The chief radiological hazard from uranium 238 is alpha radiation. When inhaled or ingested, alpha radiation is the most damaging form of ionising radiation. However, as U238 decays into its daughter products thorium and protactinium, both beta and gamma radiation are released, increasing the radiation burden further. Therefore DU particles must be considered as a dynamic mixture of radioactive isotopes.

Inside the body alpha radiation is incredibly disruptive, it is estimated that chromosome damage from alpha particles is about 100 times greater than that caused by an equivalent amount of other radiation. The heavy, highly charged particles can punch holes in DNA and leave a trail of ionised free radicals in their wake, disrupting finely tuned cellular processes.

In one day, one milligram of pure DU can release 1,071,000 alpha particles. Each particle is charged with more than four million electron volts of energy; this goes directly into whichever organ or tissue it is lodged in. It only requires 6 to 10 electron volts to break a DNA strand in a cell and these emissions cover a sphere with a radius of between 7 and 20 cells.

Novel effects from internal emitters are highlighting the hazards posed by exposure to internal alpha radiation. This includes the Bystander Effect - whereby cells adjacent to those struck by alpha particles also exhibit signs of radiation damage, and Genomic Instability, where the descendents of radiation damaged cells show increased rates of mutations: the precursor to cancer growth.

Ionising radiation is a human carcinogen at every dose-level, not just at high doses; there is no threshold dose and any alpha particle can cause irreparable genetic damage.
Chemical Toxicity
Detailed research into uranium’s chemical toxicity began in the 1940s, since then it has become clear that, like many other heavy metals, such as lead, chromium, nickel and mercury, uranium exposure can be damaging to health.

While many studies have only investigated the possibility of kidney damage, since 1991, and triggered by concerns over DU, dozens of papers have highlighted other, more worrying, effects of uranium toxicity. Repeated cellular and animal studies have shown that uranium is a kidney toxin, neurotoxin, immunotoxin, mutagen, carcinogen and teratogen.

Compared to the uranium naturally present in the environment, DU dust is a concentrated form of uranium, which is vastly more bioavailable than natural uranium.

Uranium has been shown to bind to DNA strands, where it causes oxidative damage through the generation of free radicals. In mice, it has been shown to irreparably damage white blood cells and alter gene expression, while in hamsters an entirely new form of mutation generation was seen in exposed cells.

Such findings, and others, suggest that not only is DU highly toxic, but that its toxicity and radioactivity may combine to create a synergistic effect, amplifying each other, and thereby increasing the damage caused to cellular structures and mechanisms - which in turn express themselves as tumours or a range of whole-body symptoms.

This page is under construction and further documents will be available soon.
Current Research
The latest independent DU research projects supported by ICBUW.

Children of war

Children of the Gulf War

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