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Revision as of 22:57, 21 March 2017 editFlorentPirot (talk | contribs)122 edits →Edit on the biological effects of uranium weapons← Previous edit Revision as of 22:59, 21 March 2017 edit undoFlorentPirot (talk | contribs)122 editsm →Edit on the biological effects of uranium weaponsNext edit →
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:The UMRI source is incorrect by about 9 orders of magnitude, unsurprising since it fails ]. ] is a great webcomic, but is unusuable as a source for anything except itself. Claiming a causal relationship between DU weapons use and cancer mortality rates based on generic WHO disease rates violates ]. ] (]) 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC) :The UMRI source is incorrect by about 9 orders of magnitude, unsurprising since it fails ]. ] is a great webcomic, but is unusuable as a source for anything except itself. Claiming a causal relationship between DU weapons use and cancer mortality rates based on generic WHO disease rates violates ]. ] (]) 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
::I have another source of calculation which provides very similar results (60 milliSieverts per year for a 1 micron particle, 7,5 Sieverts per year for a 5 microns particle : http://bienprofond.free.fr/hiroshi/2005/IrradiationUA.htm (in French)). These calculations (in the article in French) were made by Maurice Eugène André, who was NBCR protection instructing officer for NATO. The XKCD chart, as I said, mentions its sources but if you want here is a page by the insurer Allianz which says exactly the same https://www.allianz.com/en/about_us/open-knowledge/topics/environment/articles/110407-radiation-how-much-is-harmful.html/#!m07960b8c-086f-4934-829d-1ed6bff167ab ::I have another source of calculation which provides very similar results (60 milliSieverts per year for a 1 micron particle, 7,5 Sieverts per year for a 5 microns particle : http://bienprofond.free.fr/hiroshi/2005/IrradiationUA.htm (in French)). These calculations (in the article in French) were made by Maurice Eugène André, who was NBCR protection instructing officer for NATO. The XKCD chart, as I said, mentions its sources but if you want here is a page by the insurer Allianz which says exactly the same https://www.allianz.com/en/about_us/open-knowledge/topics/environment/articles/110407-radiation-how-much-is-harmful.html/#!m07960b8c-086f-4934-829d-1ed6bff167ab
To me the causal relationship between use of uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high rate of leukemias / lymphomas is simply common sense. ] (]) 22:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC) ::To me the causal relationship between use of uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high rate of leukemias / lymphomas is simply common sense. ] (]) 22:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


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High cancer rates, and dust from abandoned open-pit uranium mines

Uranium in dust in desert areas in the Middle East, and on Native American lands.

  • The Dirty, Deadly Front End of Nuclear Power -- 15,000 Abandoned Uranium Mines. 11 March 2016. By Josh Cunnings and Emerson Urry, EnviroNews. From the article: "To our understanding there are about 15,000 abandoned uranium mines that have been left in complete ruin with very little cleanup or remediation at all, just in the western United States. This has happened, by-and-large, because of an antiquated mining bill -- the 1872 Mining Bill -- still affecting these situations today -- that kind of allowed miners to just walk away from these situations -- but yet, they remain in the open leaching off tailings -- blowing around radioactive dust. I think there's about 4,500 of these exposed mining sites just in Navajo country -- another 2,500 or so in Wyoming. ... The Northern Great Plains' levels are higher than Fukushima -- and these are not from nuclear power plants or from an atomic weapon, or atomic bomb being exploded. These are from 2,885 abandoned open-pit uranium mines and prospects, and we are subject to that radioactive pollution constantly. We, the people of the Great Sioux Nation, we are the miner's canary. We are the miner's canary for the rest of the United States. We have the highest cancer rates now. We never gave permission for uranium mining to occur in our treaty territory. It's not just the nuclear power plants that people have to be afraid. All of these abandoned open-pit uranium mines in the Northern Great Plains are affecting everyone, but they are genocide for the Great Sioux Nation -- for my people. This is genocide." --Timeshifter (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Regulation of DU at 15 military sites in the USA

Paid health claims concerning depleted uranium at Wah Chang facility in Oregon

While Wah Chang workers were eligible to apply for EEOICPA benefits from the time the law went into effect in 2001, few seem to have been aware of it before the creation of the special exposure cohort and designation of a residual exposure period in 2011.

In general, eligible Wah Chang workers are covered under Part B of the program. Those who qualify receive a lump sum payment of $150,000, plus medical benefits covering the cost of treatment for 22 different types of cancer.

So far, 451 current or former Wah Chang employees — or their survivors in cases where the employee has died — have filed 672 claims for benefits. To date, 302 of those claims have been approved and the government has paid out $32.6 million in cash compensation and $2.3 million in medical bills.

But an unknown number of people who might qualify for benefits still have never been told about the program.

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

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US confirms DU use in Syria

Last month US CENTCOM confirmed that two incidents where it had previously been reported that DU was used in Syria in November 2015 were A10 strikes on Islamic State fuel convoys. Foreign Policy/Airwars investigation here: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/the-united-states-used-depleted-uranium-in-syria/ News that the US had used DU in Syria first appeared on IRIN in October 2016, following an investigation by journalist Samuel Oakford and ICBUW, coverage here: https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2016/10/06/exclusive-iraq-war-records-reignite-debate-over-us-use-depleted-uranium However at the time CENTCOM did not confirm the targets that it had been used against. The situation was of particular interest as fuel tankers are not armoured targets. In 2016 an analysis of A10 strikes in Iraq 2003 by PAX and ICBUW revealed that fewer than half of all targets struck were armoured vehicles, see: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/targets-of-opportunity ICBUW (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@ICBUW: the third source fails WP:RS and doesn't mention Syria, but the other two seem adequate. Due coverage for Syria would be to add to the sentence in the history section: "The US and NATO militaries used DU penetrator rounds in the 1991 Gulf War, the Bosnia war, bombing of Serbia, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and 2015 airstrikes on ISIS in Syria." Sound good? VQuakr (talk) 17:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@VQuakr: works for me, thanks ICBUW (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit on the contamination of uranium with other isotopes

Here are the edits I want to integrate in the page re. contamination of uranium with other isotopes :

Natural uranium contains about 0.72% U-235, while the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contains 0.3% U-235 or less, according to the US Mod, but this is debated. In urine tests of civilian populations in Afghanistan, for which the mean concentration of uranium was found to be considerably greater than what is regarded as a reference range, the U234/U238 ratios were consistant with natural uranium (not depleted)

Asaf Durakovic found several occurences of uranium 236 contamination in veterans.

DU used in US munitions has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium, according to the US army. The radioactivity near tanks destroyed by these weapons, however, can reach at least up to 1000 times the average background radiation. Trace transuranics (another indicator of the use of reprocessed material) have been reported to be present in some US tank armor as well as in weapons.

One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted uranium and 0.75% by mass of titanium, but there is a debate regarding the isotopic composition or the uranium that is used because of the findings of non depleted uranium in battlefields

Please tell me where does that violate ANY Misplaced Pages policy. I have been undoed by https://en.wikipedia.org/User:VQuakr. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. Koeppel, Barbara. "More Evidence Suggests Radiation Caused Illness in U.S. War Zones". Washington Spectator. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  2. Durakovic, Asaf (2005). "The quantitative analysis of uranium isotopes in the urine of the civilian population of eastern Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom". Military Medicine. PMID 15916293. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  3. Simons, Marlise. "Doctor's Gulf War Studies Link Cancer to Depleted Uranium". New York Times.
  4. ^ "Properties and Characteristics of DU" U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense
  5. "High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south". IRIN. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  6. "Remains of toxic bullets litter Iraq". Christian Science Monitor.
  7. "Iraq, Depleted Uranium Contaminated with Deadly Plutonium". Democracy Now.
  8. Koeppel, Barbara. "More Evidence Suggests Radiation Caused Illness in U.S. War Zones". Washington Spectator. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  9. Durakovic, Asaf (2005). "The quantitative analysis of uranium isotopes in the urine of the civilian population of eastern Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom". Military Medicine. PMID 15916293. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  10. "UN Press Release UNEP/81: Uranium 236 found in depleted uranium penetrators". UN.
  11. Simons, Marlise. "Doctor's Gulf War Studies Link Cancer to Depleted Uranium". New York Times.
  12. "Iraq, Depleted Uranium Contaminated with Deadly Plutonium". Democracy Now.

Edit on shaped charge warheads and uranium

Here are the changes I want to bring on the "Ammunition" section re. shaped charges and uranium :

It is known since the years 70s that uranium can be used as a liner in shaped charge warheads. Many shaped charge warheads patents include uranium as a liner. The "K-charge" patent EP 1164348 A2 notes that "other metals that have been disclosed as useful for shaped charge liners include depleted uranium and their alloys". Another patent seems to acknowledge that it is better, for incendiary (reactive) purposes, to use non-depleted uranium as it differenciates "depleted uranium" used for kinetic purposes and "uranium" used for incendiary purposes.

Please tell me where does that violate any Misplaced Pages policy. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Claiming that a specific warhead must contain uranium because a patent application says uranium could be used violates common sense, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:SYNTH. Claiming natural uranium is more flammable/pyrophoric than DU based on a patent application indicates a pretty remarkable lack of knowledge of chemistry, and of course also violates the same content policies. VQuakr (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
It does not says that uranium IS used in liners, it only says it COULD. It was thoroughly studied ( see for instance here http://www.arl.army.mil/arlreports/2007/ARL-SR-150.pdf on page 86). Jane's also reported once that uranium is used in "some guided weapons" which could include shaped charge warheads. https://web.archive.org/web/20011108102307/http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw010108_1_n.shtml
Regarding the effects of radioactivity on inflammability (the latent heat of the radioactivity acting as the activation energy), two chemists (one in a metallurgy lab, and one "agrégé" (French high exam for professors)) have told me that I am right, so I thought that simply making mention of the patent without explaining could be meaningful, but I acknowledge this contradicts WP:SYNTH.FlorentPirot (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. Trends in the use of depleted uranium. National Academy of Science. 1971. p. 38.
  2. "Building characteristics into a shaped charge to achieve unique performance requirements". International Journal of Impact Engineering. 17 (1–3): 121–130. 1995. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  3. "K charge patent". Google patents.

Edit on the biological effects of uranium weapons

Since the Ammunition section of the article mentions the dangerousness of alternatives to uranium, I found it meaningful to integrate as well information on the dangerousness of uranium itself. Here is what I propose to add :

The carcinogenic effect of uranium weapons comes from the alpha particles that induce tumors when inhalated or ingested in the body, because of the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha particles (up to 20 times the RBE of gamma rays : for the same amount of energy, alpha particles will create up to 20 times more damage than gamma rays) - a 2,5 microns pellet in the body, with a RBE of 10, will deliver 1,7 Sievert per year to the body, that is a level of severe radiation poisoning, sometimes fatal.

Radiation dose chart


WHO statistics available for 2004 (downloadable here) show that Iraq has the highest levels of leukemias and lymphomas in the world. Afghanistan is almost second. Both countries were heavily bombed before (Iraq was bombed in 1991 and 2003-2004, Afghanistan in 2001-2002). Leukemias and lymphomas are both blood cancers which are suspected to be related with uranium contamination. Uranium is sprayed as a fine powder by these weapons at impact or explosion. The clouds of oxidised dust are able to travel and represent a danger when ingested or inhalated. Uranium is able to travel in the body - for instance from the nose to the brain of the rat, in a study published by Toxicology Letters.

The chart comes from XKCD but this XKCD carefully provided all of its sources on the chart !

So please tell me again where do I violate any Misplaced Pages policy. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

The UMRI source is incorrect by about 9 orders of magnitude, unsurprising since it fails WP:RS. XKCD is a great webcomic, but is unusuable as a source for anything except itself. Claiming a causal relationship between DU weapons use and cancer mortality rates based on generic WHO disease rates violates WP:SYNTH. VQuakr (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
I have another source of calculation which provides very similar results (60 milliSieverts per year for a 1 micron particle, 7,5 Sieverts per year for a 5 microns particle : http://bienprofond.free.fr/hiroshi/2005/IrradiationUA.htm (in French)). These calculations (in the article in French) were made by Maurice Eugène André, who was NBCR protection instructing officer for NATO. The XKCD chart, as I said, mentions its sources but if you want here is a page by the insurer Allianz which says exactly the same https://www.allianz.com/en/about_us/open-knowledge/topics/environment/articles/110407-radiation-how-much-is-harmful.html/#!m07960b8c-086f-4934-829d-1ed6bff167ab
To me the causal relationship between use of uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high rate of leukemias / lymphomas is simply common sense. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. Facts and Figures. Uranium Medical Research Institute http://www.umri.link/research/scientific-facts-figures/. Retrieved 21 March 2017. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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