Depleted uranium and public health

Depleted uranium and radiation-induced lung cancer and leukaemia

“…Approximately 15 veterans still have DU fragments in their soft tissues and are excreting raised concentrations of uranium in their urine. None has lung cancer or leukaemia [29,30].…”

Depleted Uranium

“…Animal studies demonstrated that uranium crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and readily accumulates in the brain (Gilman et al, 1998a-c;Pellmar et al, 1999a,b;Leggett and Pellmar, 2003;Lemercier et al, 2003;Houpert et al, 2004Houpert et al, , 2005Houpert et al, , 2007Lestaevel et al, 2005;Monleau et al, 2005;Fitsanakis et al, 2006). Furthermore, studies using rats and some follow-up studies using Gulf War veterans suggested that DU may cause subtle changes in CNS function without any corresponding nephrotoxicity (McDiarmid et al, 1999(McDiarmid et al, , 2000(McDiarmid et al, , 2001a(McDiarmid et al, ,b, 2002(McDiarmid et al, , 2004a(McDiarmid et al, ,b, 2006(McDiarmid et al, , 2007(McDiarmid et al, , 2009(McDiarmid et al, , 2011a(McDiarmid et al, ,b, 2013Pellmar et al, 1999a,b;McDiarmid, 2001). The public concern regarding the potential neurotoxic effects of DU has spurred recent novel scientific research to extensively evaluate if there are reasons to be concerned about DU exposure and neurotoxicity.…”

Incidence and Time Trend of Cancer in Basrah

“…It was suggested that Depleted uranium can increase the incidence of cancer due to its toxic and carcinogenic effects. [5] One of the possible explanations is that, we are still in the latent periods after the possible exposure to the carcinogens. The diagnosis of cancer cases in excess usually starts after about 7 years for leukemia and more than 10 years for solid tumors.…”