Verarmd uranium is een alfa-straler met een halfwaardetijd van 4,51 miljard jaar. Een velletje papier houdt alfastraling al tegen. De straling is daarom alleen gevaarlijk als de stof die alfastraling uitzendt wordt ingeademd, in wonden terecht komt of met het voedsel ingenomen wordt.
Bron: NRG/Nucleair in de krant
De hoeveelheid uranium die in de lucht terrecht komt is echt enorm. Elke bunkerbuster bom bevat meer dan 100 keer zoveel uranium dan de bom die op Hiroshima in Japan gegooid werd in de tweede wereldoorlog.
[..]As alpha particles does not travel farther than 40 micrometers, the whole damage will be given to the flesh 40 micrometers in radius. The annual radiation dose received by the
exposed area of the flesh 40 micrometers in radius would amount to 10 sievert (as
described later) only by alpha ray emitted from a depleted uranium particle of ten
micrometers in diameter, ten thousand times higher than the dose limit.
One alpha particle passes hundred thousand atoms before it stops, blowing out hundred
thousand electrons constituting a molecule. The destruction (ionization) of molecules will
damage DNA, or will induce mutation in the cellular structure itself. There will be a great
possibility of only one depleted uranium particle causing cancers and organ disorder. With
the half-life of DU being 4.5 billion years, there will be almost no change in the rate of alpha
emission 10,000 or 100,000 years later. This means once DU is inside the body, one will
remain exposed to radiation as long as he/she lives unless it is discharged, while the
environment continues to be polluted forever.
Regrettably, investigations carried out by the World Health Organization and other
institutions do not go deep into the realities of internal exposure. For example, the U.S.
Department of Defense states that it does not find relationship between DU and the cancer
incidence in Iraq (from a scientific report made by the Research and Development
Corporation on cancers and DU on the Pentagon budget). The investigations conducted by
the WHO and European Community made the same conclusion. These researches
determine that the radiation level found in Balkan and Iraq is not harmful to health. Yet in
reality in both places there are many cases of babies born with birth defects and the high
incidence of cancers. What is the purpose of those researches? It is fair to say that their role
is to cover up the facts about the damage caused by DU and the responsibility for the use of
atrocious weapons. Meanwhile, a non-governmental organization called Uranium Medical
Research Center conducted a urine test instead of the environmental research, and found
the presence of high levels of uranium in Afghan citizens.
[..]
First, the used amount of radioactive atoms of DU weapons dispersed into environment
in the real wars was far beyond that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. It is estimated that in the First Gulf War, 320 to 800 tons of DU were used,
scattering indeed 14,000 to 36,000 times more radiation than in Hiroshima. In the recent
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least 500 tons of DU shells were said to be dropped.
Second, while most of the radiation released by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki had very short half-life periods, DU has an extremely long half-life of 4.5 billion
years. Dose amount of DU will last in the same level of as ever even after tens of
thousands years. Residents in the DU-affected area will have to live forever, for
generations to generations, under threat of radiation. Humankind has never experienced
such horrible damage of war.
[..]
Bron:
Depleted Uranium Shells, The Radioactive Weapons
Wat ik erg vreemd vind is dat er op verschillende plekken geschreven wordt dat het niet gevaarlijk is omdat het een halfwaardetijd heeft van miljoenen jaren.
Volgens mij is dat juist heel gevaarlijk, want het blijft voor altijd stralen. In ieder geval langer dan dat de aarde bestaat.