Talk:Depleted uranium

The section "What the Evidence..." was recently added by User:Counteraction. While I would love to assume good faith, his only other edits so far involve inserting statements of dubious quality into the Autism and Aspartame pages, and his edit here mentions pictures of Iraqi babies (which is already mentioned above in the article as not being evidence). Is someone willing to look into their stuff here? ThunderkatzHo! 21:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"What the kooks say" vs "What the evidence actually indicates"
So it seems after a cursory reading that we're saying that the evidence tends to support important parts of what the kooks say -- that this stuff is bad for people. Which section should we remove? P-Foster (talk) 02:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I investigated this a bit, and Counteraction's writeup contains quote mining, and dishonest use of references. None of these studies even investigate depleted uranium exposure. The entire argument is of guilt by association: "People who fought in the Gulf War are ill; Depleted uranium was used in the Gulf War; therefore, those people are ill because of depleted uranium". I am going to remove it, and point out that the mere existence of various illnesses in Gulf War veterans do not imply that DU caused them.

--Tweenk (talk) 18:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * uses an extremely small sample size, does not attempt to measure individual DU exposure, and uses an inappropriate control (people from the lab that ran this study). There appears to be an assumption that chromosomal damage must result from radiation exposure, and that this exposure is from DU. DU as used in munitions is only slightly radioactive, and it is predominantly alpha-radioactive - alpha radiation cannot penetrate the skin. Therefore, this interpretation of chromosomal damage is not very plausible.
 * Uranium levels in urine : this was a study of people who have retained pieces of uranium shrapnel in their bodies.
 * Birth defects study has very large confidence intervals. In case of renal agenesis, it is 0.09-294, so basically nothing can be said about this defect. Authors themselves concede in the abstract that "We did not have the ability to determine if the excess was caused by inherited or environmental factors, or was due to chance because of myriad reasons, including multiple comparisons." This one might be legitimate, but the general criticism at the start still applies to it. It has a comment here, but I don't have access to it:
 * Spontaneous abortion study has nothing to do with DU. It says: "GW-exposed conceptions and nondeployed conceptions had similar outcomes. However, GWV postwar conceptions were at increased risk for ectopic pregnancies and spontaneous abortions." So women who might have been exposed to DU during the Gulf War actually fared better than those who conceived after the war.
 * UK veteran study : "We found no evidence for a link between paternal deployment to the Gulf war and increased risk of stillbirth, chromosomal malformations, or congenital syndromes. Associations were found between fathers' service in the Gulf war and increased risk of miscarriage and less well-defined malformations, but these findings need to be interpreted with caution as such outcomes are susceptible to recall bias. The finding of a possible relationship with renal anomalies requires further investigation. There was no evidence of an association between risk of miscarriage and mothers' service in the gulf."
 * Effects observed in Navajo people have nothing to do with DU, it has to do with radon exposure in poorly ventilated mines.
 * The lung cancer study is weird, I don't understand the selection of the control group. Maybe someone can clarify this? In any case, this has nothing to do with use of DU in munitions.
 * Harlequin type ichtyosis study says: "Autosomal recessive inheritance has been established, and prenatal diagnosis for this disorder remains controversial." It is about Navajos not wanting to test themselves for this defect.
 * Anecdotal evidence from undisclosed Iraq baby photos. Iraq is such a mess that birth defects can be due to a multitude of factors.
 * The last ref is a propaganda book.


 * The review, which would be the only really relevant reference, contains errors in its introduction, and also uses some quote mining; for example, as a reference for a claim of how much DU is aerosolized on impact, it uses , which is notably unalarmed about DU. Many of the studies are either about something different than the review claims, or are of poor quality (e.g. small sample sizes, measuring things which are not relevant, etc.) There are also many cheap shots at inspiring radiophobia. --Tweenk (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm down with deleting all of it - see top comment, I was just looking for someone to look at Counteraction's edit, and I think you've pretty clearly demonstrated it's mostly counter-factual. ThunderkatzHo! 18:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Please don't drag politics into this
Just a note from me. I would like to point out that the article that it is not defending the legitimacy of the Iraq War, because this is a political question (FWIW, I think the war is not legitimate). It doesn't even defend the use of depleted uranium munitions, because that is a technical question which is out of scope of RW. This article is exclusively about the scientific question of whether depleted uranium is a significant radiological health hazard, and about attempts to exploit radiation hysteria to achieve a political aim. It does not comment on the validity of the aim itself, only on the methods. The consensus scientific answer on this one is that it's not, at least in common exposure scenarios that result from DU munition use. I'm aware that the issue of Iraq War is highly partisan in the United States and would be subject to confirmation bias. Please don't succumb to this - I think RW can provide factual information on politically sensitive topics, even if this information sometimes supports what the wacky U.S. conservatives say. They don't have to be wrong on every possible subject. --Tweenk (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Double standards.
While the DU (as long as its not the heavily contaminated DU from spent fuel reprocessing) is pretty harmless, it does hold that we are not using DU any more to e.g. make green glass, or, i dunno as the sparkler in the lighters, or fishing weights, or much for anything (and the airline use is being phased out). In the moral context, it is entirely irrelevant whenever the DU is a poison, or cures cancer; the important thing is that the users of it believe it to be a poison as evident from their own non-use of it at home. DU is a very cheap metal, with many interesting properties, and it would have had a zillion uses in everyday life. ALAS we are afraid of it, and we'd only use it on foreigners, and then declare that it is harmless for them; the belief in it's harmlessness is safely compartmentalized away. The thing that is wrong about conservatives, is not that they are wrong that the DU is harmless; it's that they have DU is harmful in one place, and DU is harmless in another, which is invalid regardless of truth value of harmfulness of DU. This inconsistency also aggravates the conflicts. No amount of studies that it is harmless can look very convincing when those referring to the studies don't themselves believe in them. Dmytry (talk) 10:42, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting perspective. There does seem to be a double standard. I think this situation is partly caused by radiophobia. --Tweenk (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * We don't use lead much any more either (mercury is the other one on its way out). Most of the old uranium applications have better alternatives. Of the other radioactives thorium oxide has been surpassed by calcium fluoride in optical applications. Geni (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)