Radiation Hazards Study concludes....

Being the anal, skeptical, contentious bastard that I am. I have long believed all this rambeling about the radiation hazards of cell phones and microwave ovens and CRT's was a bunch of BS but didn't have any thing to prove or disprove the popular news stories. So I was quite interested when I heard the following.

From the Dr. Dean Edell Radio Talk Show on WMAL in Washington DC.

THe doc reported that a study that just wrapped up, that was conducted on the survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bomb attacks.

The study was to track these survivors to see what kinds of health effects the radiation that these people received from the bombs had ontheir long term health. The amount of radiation these people received is reported to be 10,000 times that received from a normal medical X-ray which in turn is much higher than the radiation received from cell phones, crt's and microwave ovens.

The test concluded that those people who were exposed to the bombs radiation did indeed exhibit a higher instance of tumors than people who did not suffer the radiation dose. While this is not surpriseing, what I did find surprising is that the total number of tumors encountered was 468. That is 468 out of 80,000 people tracked. Of the 468 the vast majority of the tumors were benign types of tumors and easily removed with no ill effects (they did not say what percentage).

So what Im taking away from this is that, 80,000 people who got zapped with 10,000 times the radiation deemed safe for a single exposure 468 of them had problems with tumors. I think our cell phones and microwaves may be safer than the news papers want us to believe. Of course they didnt bother mentioning the other 80,000 people who got flash fried and died instantly nor what their odds of tumors would have been had they lived.

[Scholarcs]

Just on the same line of thought with another recent study:

Since 300tonnes of depleted uranium missiles were used against Iraq, there has been a 600% increase in the number of children being admitted to hospital with cancer. The rate of cancer in children has increase to 131/1000 in the past 10 years.

Maybe microwaves and radiowaves cannot harm you much, but when people use radioactive material to kill people, it kills.

[Lord of Alcohol]

Gee Scholarcs, it couldnt be because of all the oil fires Iraqi forces started at the end of the gulf war could it?And the fact that its Iraq putting out the statistics?
Depleted uranium rounds have been around a long time. They are practiced with all the time. If it was as harmful as you say our entire military would be one big cancer ward. Along with all the civilian areas surrounding the bases.

[Sir Krustin]

Originally posted by Scholarcs: Maybe microwaves and radiowaves cannot harm you much, but when people use radioactive material to kill people, it kills.

APFSDS-DU rounds are at worst, mildly radioactive. The big problem is the fact that uranium is chemically poisonous, as well as being flammable. So it disperses quite widely when involved in a kinetic kill.

Originally posted by Lord of Alcohol: Gee Scholarcs, it couldnt be because of all the oil fires Iraqi forces started at the end of the gulf war could it?And the fact that its Iraq putting out the statistics? Depleted uranium rounds have been around a long time. They are practiced with all the time. If it was as harmful as you say our entire military would be one big cancer ward. Along with all the civilian areas surrounding the bases.

The only reason the Militry uses DU is because of it’s extremely dense (I.e better at penetrating armour since it has more mass), pyrophoric qualities and because it was cheap and available in huge quantities. They should not really be using it since It can cause chemical poisoning to the body in the same way as any other heavy metal. And It’s also radiologically hazardous, as it spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolised glass particles which are small enough to be inhaled. These uranium oxide particles emit all types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma, and can be carried in the air over long distances.
AND!!!! the presence of depleted uranium ceramic aerosols can pose a long term threat to human health and the environment.

[ 10-20-2002, 12:46 PM: Message edited by: Eisenschwarz ]

Originally posted by Scholarcs: Just on the same line of thought with another recent study: quote: Since 300tonnes of depleted uranium missiles were used against Iraq, there has been a 600% increase in the number of children being admitted to hospital with cancer. The rate of cancer in children has increase to 131/1000 in the past 10 years.

Maybe microwaves and radiowaves cannot harm you much, but when people use radioactive material to kill people, it kills.[/QUOTE]Pretty cool how 300 tonnes of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds used mostly in the remote deserts where the fighting occured caused cancer in kids hundreds of miles away....not even down wind. OOps I noticed you didn't mention which coutnry this might be taking place in. So for all we know it could be in vladivostok.

Edit: Just for the sake of accuracy here. Missiles are not made of depleted uranium. From what I learned in my "Principles of Guided Missiles and Nuclear weapons" course from the US Navy, the only rounds to use depleted uranium are anti-tank rounds fired by tanks and I believe the A10 Thunderbolt II. The anti-tank missiles use shaped charges known as HEAT rounds and some times tungsten penetrator rods, but as far ans the public inventory goes there are no depleted uranium missiles.

[ 10-20-2002, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by MagiK: Pretty cool how 300 tonnes of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds used mostly in the remote deserts where the fighting occurred caused cancer in kids hundreds of miles away....not even down wind. O

“as it spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolised glass particles which are small enough to be inhaled. These uranium oxide particles emit all types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma, and can be carried in the air over long distances."

Originally posted by MagiK: Ops I noticed you didn't mention which country this might be taking place in. So for all we know it could be in vladivostok.[/QB]

It happened In Iraq.

Originally posted by MagiK: Edit: Just for the sake of accuracy here. Missiles are not made of depleted uranium. From what I learned in my "Principles of Guided Missiles and Nuclear weapons" course from the US Navy, the only rounds to use depleted uranium are anti-tank rounds fired by tanks and I believe the A10 Thunderbolt II. The anti-tank missiles use shaped charges known as HEAT rounds and some times tungsten penetrator rods, but as far ans the public inventory goes there are no depleted uranium missiles.

DU is also used in the armour of the M1A2 abrams in k4wl new honeycomb style, (although not in the ones exported to Saudi Arabia IIRC, Those just had the "export Armour" package)
The LOSAT uses KEM missiles IIRC, But I dunno what the penetrator is.

Originally posted by Eisenschwarz: quote: Originally posted by MagiK: Pretty cool how 300 tonnes of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds used mostly in the remote deserts where the fighting occurred caused cancer in kids hundreds of miles away....not even down wind. O

“as it spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolised glass particles which are small enough to be inhaled. These uranium oxide particles emit all types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma, and can be carried in the air over long distances."


I understand that but: A. Depleted Uranium isn't causing tank crews to drop dead from the radiation,(because it is not that radioactive) B. Almost all of the DU rounds were fired in unoccupied desert and most importantly of all. C. The Iraqi population centers are NORTH of where these aerosols were supposedly generated..the prevailing winds are west to east. SOOOOOO the people who should be dropping in droves would have to be in Khuzestan Iran and maybe in Basra and northern Kuwait, and not in Baghdad or any other Iraqi population center.

Originally posted by MagiK: Ops I noticed you didn't mention which country this might be taking place in. So for all we know it could be in vladivostok.

It happened In Iraq.


What part of Iraq? Look at the maps and check the prevailing winds, only Bassra could have been affected. There are no other "Population" centers down there. Kuwait and Iran would have been the ones that should be reporting problems not Iraqi's

Originally posted by MagiK: Edit: Just for the sake of accuracy here. Missiles are not made of depleted uranium. From what I learned in my "Principles of Guided Missiles and Nuclear weapons" course from the US Navy, the only rounds to use depleted uranium are anti-tank rounds fired by tanks and I believe the A10 Thunderbolt II. The anti-tank missiles use shaped charges known as HEAT rounds and some times tungsten penetrator rods, but as far ans the public inventory goes there are no depleted uranium missiles.

DU is also used in the armour of the M1A2 abrams in k4wl new honeycomb style, (although not in the ones exported to Saudi Arabia IIRC, Those just had the "export Armour" package)
The LOSAT uses KEM missiles IIRC, But I dunno what the penetrator is.


Well yes the some armor has some DU in it, but I don't think we were tossing tank hulls around to bombard troops or cities. Nearly all penetrators that aren't of a ceramic nature are tungsten. I have never read about any other material.
LOSAT specs show that the penetrator is a "High Density Rod Armour Penetrator" which previously has been used to describe a long tapered tungsten rod.[/QB][/QUOTE]

[True_Moose]

We actually had a problem with spent depleted uranium shells in the ocean. We cleaned them up, but there were still problems with the wildlife. The thing was, they'd been down there for like 10 years. So in other words, constant close exposure probably does create problems, but other than that, the effects are fairly minimal.

Originally posted by True_Moose: We actually had a problem with spent depleted uranium shells in the ocean. We cleaned them up, but there were still problems with the wildlife. The thing was, they'd been down there for like 10 years. So in other words, constant close exposure probably does create problems, but other than that, the effects are fairly minimal.

And would be expected to crop up down wind, in Kuwait, and Iran not in northern Iraq. I'm wondering how much of an impact the checmical and biological agents SH released on the Kurds in the middle and north of the country has had on the health of Iraqi citizens. Think those might have some negative effects? But again, you would expect the problems to crop up down wind which is Iran...one of the reasons Im betting, that SH didn't hesitate using chemical weapons against the Iranians in that war.

[ 10-20-2002, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]