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Recycled radioactive metal contaminates consumer products

Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 06/03/2009 -
13:38

By ISAAC WOLF, Scripps Howard News Service

national

ShareThis

Thousands of everyday products and materials containing radioactive metals
are surfacing across the United States and around the world.
Common kitchen
cheese graters, reclining chairs, women's handbags and tableware manufactured
with contaminated metals have been identified, some after having been in
circulation for as long as a decade. So have fencing wire and fence posts,
shovel blades, elevator buttons, airline parts and steel used in
construction.
A Scripps Howard News Service investigation has found that --
because of haphazard screening, an absence of oversight and substantial
disincentives for businesses to report contamination -- no one knows how many
tainted goods are in circulation in the United States.
But thousands of
consumer goods and millions of pounds of unfinished metal and its byproducts
have been found to contain low levels of radiation, and experts think the true
amount could be much higher, perhaps by a factor of 10.
Government records of
cases of contamination, obtained through state and federal Freedom of
Information Act requests, illustrate the problem.
In 2006 in Texas, for
example, a recycling facility inadvertently created 500,000 pounds of
radioactive steel byproducts after melting metal contaminated with Cesium-137,
according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records. In Florida in 2001,
another recycler unintentionally did the same, and wound up with 1.4 million
pounds of radioactive material. And in 1998, 430,000 pounds of steel laced with
Cobalt-60 made it to the U.S. heartland from Brazil.
But an accounting of the
magnitude of the problem is unknown because U.S. and state governments do not
require scrap yards, recyclers and other businesses -- a primary line of defense
against rogue radiation -- to screen metal goods and materials for radiation or
report it when found. And no federal agency is responsible for oversight.

"Nobody's going to know -- nobody -- how much has been melted into consumer
goods," said Ray Turner, an international expert on radiation with Fort
Mitchell, Ky.-based River Metals Recycling. He has helped decontaminate seven
metal-recycling facilities that unwittingly melted scrap containing radioactive
isotopes.
"It's your worst nightmare," Turner said.
It is also one that
has only barely begun to register as a potential threat to health and
safety.
What is known now is that -- despite the shared belief of officials
in six state and federal agencies that tainted metal is potentially dangerous,
should be prevented from coming in unnecessary contact with people and the
environment, and should be barred from entering the United States -- there is no
one in charge of making sure that happens.
In fact, the Scripps investigation
found:
-- Reports are mounting that manufacturers and dealers from China,
India, former Soviet bloc nations and some African countries are exporting
contaminated material and goods, taking advantage of the fact that the United
States has no regulations specifying what level of radioactive contamination is
too much in raw materials and finished goods.Compounding the problem is the
inability of U.S. agents to fully screen every one of the 24 million cargo
containers arriving in the United States each year.
-- U.S. metal recyclers
and scrap yards are not required by any state or federal law to check for
radiation in the castoff material they collect or report it when they find
some.
-- No federal agency is responsible for determining how much tainted
material exists in how many consumer and other goods. No one is in charge of
reporting, tracking or analyzing cases once they occur. In fact, the recent
discovery of a radioactive cheese grater triggered a bureaucratic game of hot
potato, with no agency taking responsibility.
-- It can be far cheaper and
easier for a facility stuck with "hot" items to sell them to an unwitting
manufacturer or dump them surreptitiously than to pay for proper disposal and
cleaning, which can cost a plant as much as $50 million.
-- For facilities in
36 states that want to do the right thing, there is nowhere they can legally
dump the contaminated stuff since the shutdown last year of a site in South
Carolina, the only U.S. facility available to them for the disposal.
-- A
U.S. government program to collect the worst of the castoff radioactive items
has a two-year waiting list and a 9,000-item backlog -- and is fielding requests
to collect an additional 2,000 newly detected items a year.
Experts say you
needn't empty your home of metal implements for fear of radiation. The peril
from most individual items is generally not considered great, although some
could be hazardous on their own.
In fact, everyone is exposed every day to
the "background" radiation found in nature. For instance, some ceramic pots
emanate low levels of radiation that occurs in clay. Granite countertops often
contain measurable, but individually insignificant, amounts of naturally
occurring uranium.
Other exposures come from small and contained amounts of
radiation used in smoke detectors and medical devices.
The potential danger
comes, however, from the cumulative effect of proximity to radiation,
particularly over time and in relation to other contaminants. The precise degree
of that danger has not yet been definitively determined for low-level radiation,
such as that contained in commonplace goods and materials.
One scientific
school of thought, which has been losing favor in recent years, holds that low
levels of radiation mean low-level threats. An opposite camp contends that
exposure to any level of radiation -- especially if it is chronic -- carries
health risks. The U.S. government has so far sidestepped the issue of how little
radiation is too much.
According to a 2006 report by a National Academy of
Sciences panel, there is a direct relationship between radiation and an
increased risk of cancer. Prolonged exposure can also lead to birth defects and
cataracts, studies have shown.
Because the amount of tainted metals in
circulation is unknown, the cumulative overall health effect -- now and over
time -- is impossible to calculate. Whatever it is, there is little debate that
unnecessary exposure to radiation is best avoided.
"There is no threshold of
exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be
harmless or beneficial," said Richard Monson, chairman of the Committee to
Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, at the
release of the National Academy report.
There are no reports of anyone dying
or being hurt in the United States after contact with the contaminated metal
goods and materials. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leaves no
doubt that tainted metal poses a particular threat.
"Radioactively
contaminated scrap threatens both human health and the environment," reads a
cautionary statement on the EPA's Web site.
The Scripps investigation used
the federal Freedom of Information Act to gain access to a previously un-mined
NRC database, the only official assemblage of reports of radiologically
contaminated items that have turned up in scrap yards, trash dumps and
manufactured goods since 1990.
But because such reporting is neither required
nor consistent, neither state nor federal environmental officials -- nor many in
the scrap-metal industry -- consider the NRC accounts an accurate reflection of
the problem's true dimensions. (The only mandatory rule is that anyone knowingly
transporting radioactive material must notify the U.S. Department of
Transportation.)
"Typically, these go unreported," said Carolyn Mac Kenzie
(cq), a U.S. Department of Energy physicist who is a world expert in radioactive
metals. "Whatever number you come up with would not reflect reality."
One of
the most conservative estimates comes from the U.S. Government Accountability
Office, which put the number of radioactively contaminated metal objects
unaccounted for in the United States in 2005 at 500,000. Others suggest the
amount is far higher. The most recent NRC estimate -- made a decade ago -- is 20
million pounds of contaminated waste.
What is known is that the NRC's
national Nuclear Material Events Database has documented 18,740 cases involving
radioactive material in consumer products, metal intended for their manufacture
and other inadvertent exposures to the public, the vast majority since 1990.
State environmental reports -- obtained under state freedom of information
requests -- also reveal dozens of others.
A recent example emerged last
summer, when a Flint, Mich., scrap plant discovered a beat-up kitchen cheese
grater that was radioactive. The China-made grater bearing the well-known EKCO
brand name was laced with the isotope Cobalt-60. Tests showed the gadget to be
giving off the equivalent of a chest X-ray over 36 hours of use, according to
NRC documents.
Estimated to have been in circulation for as long as a decade,
the grater likely was four to five times more radioactive when it was new.
EKCO's parent company, World Kitchen, of Rosemont, Ill., described the incident
as isolated and found no need to issue a recall, spokesman Bryan Glancy
said.
It was not the only cheese grater found. NRC documents show that
another Cobalt-60-tainted grater had turned up in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2006.
The reports do not indicate what brand of grater it was or if it was related to
the one that surfaced in Michigan.
Cobalt-60 also tainted a 430,000-pound
shipment of metal from Brazil in 1998. Part of that load found its way to
Michigan and then Indiana, where it was used to make brackets for 1,000 La-Z-Boy
recliners.
The contamination was detected by a radiation monitor when scrap
leftover from the brackets job was shipped to the Butler, Ind., steel recycler
Steel Dynamics, according to NRC documents.
The Cobalt-60 tainted
Reclina-Rocker chairs, which would have given off a chest X-ray's worth of
radiation every 1,000 hours, were still in warehouses when the contamination was
discovered, and never made it to stores or living rooms, according to Rex
Bowser, director of the Indoor Air and Radiological Health Emergency Response
Program of the Indiana State Department of Health.
The recliners' radiation
levels were "enough above background to be a concern for people sitting in
La-Z-Boy chairs," Bowser said.
In many instances where contamination is
identified -- generally by companies that have invested in costly detection
equipment -- the contamination comes from the inadvertent blending of
radioactive sources with piles of other scrap that metal recyclers reprocess and
later sell.
Often, when a factory shuts down or a plant relocates, industrial
smoke detectors, measuring gauges and other machines and parts that contain
small amounts of radioactive material are left behind. Because they commonly are
encased in a protective shell, the devices pose little risk when the plant is
operating.
But when a facility closes, the devices frequently are trashed as
scrap. If those radioactive parts are later heated during reprocessing, the
radiation can escape and blend with the finished recycled product.
Many large
scrap outfits invest in radiation detectors -- which can cost $50,000 each --
that provide a measure of protection. Steel company Gerdau Ameristeel, based in
Toronto and Tampa, Fla., installs as many as six levels of detection at its
scrap mills, at a cost of as much as $1 million for each facility, said Jim
Turner, corporate environmental director.
But even scrap and recycling
operations that are diligent in scanning incoming and outgoing loads can
unknowingly wind up with tainted material.
One reason is that monitoring
devices are not all strong enough to penetrate a full truckload of scrap and may
miss the radioactive sources. And even the weather can foul things up, as Gerdau
Ameristeel learned when a 2001 thunderstorm disturbed detectors at its
Jacksonville, Fla., recycling operation, permitting radioactive Cesium-137 to
slip through. The plant's cleanup cost was $10 million, according to an NRC
report.
Sometimes the devices containing radiation simply disappear. In
January, for instance, Wal-Mart admitted that it could not account for about
15,000 illuminated exit signs, which each contain tritium, a radioactive
isotope, according to the NRC.
And other times, they are purposely masked in
an attempt to dump the hot items on someone else, often to avoid the cost of
proper disposal. Those fees have mushroomed in the past three decades from $1
per cubic foot to more than $400, with forecasts for them to more than double in
coming years, according to a 2004 estimate by Robin Nazzaro, the audit agency
GAO's natural-resources and environment director.
Recycler Doug Kramer, owner
of Los Angeles-based Kramer Metals, recounted how workers once found a
radioactive object wrapped in lead and hidden in a beer keg -- presumably to
keep the radiation from being detected.
The global dimension of the recycling
of radiation problem is large, and growing, experts say.
Between 2006 and
2007, for instance, authorities in the Netherlands found about 900 women's
handbags that had originated in India and were decorated with metal rings laced
with Cobalt-60 on each bag's shoulder strap. Once discovered, they were sent to
a radioactive waste site in the Netherlands.
Last fall, radioactive metal
also from India was used by a Connecticut company to make 500 sets of buttons
for Otis elevators in France and Sweden. No one realized the elevator buttons --
which had been installed -- were radioactive until a similar shipment tripped
radiation alarms at the U.S. border with Mexico, according to Otis Elevator
spokesman Dilip Rangnekar.
Otis scrambled to remove the tainted buttons from
the elevator cabs, Rangnekar said. But an international authority on rogue
radiation said it is likely even more of the buttons remain in circulation.

"Thousands and thousands were produced," said Abel Gonzalez, a former director
of the International Atomic Energy Agency's division of radiation and waste
safety. "I doubt they have found all of them."
U.S. officials and metal
experts say evidence is mounting that radioactive metal from abroad is
increasingly --- and intentionally -- being sent to the United States, sometimes
decades after the contaminated material was first detected and returned to its
source.
In 1991, an Indian supplier sent to the United States more than 50
shipments of chain-link fencing, some of which was tainted. Investigators found
the fencing scattered around the country, including in Florida, Tennessee, New
York and Washington state.
"The NRC told them not to ship more material to
the U.S., but it allowed them to keep what was here, here," said Paul Frame, a
radiation expert at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Oak
Ridge, Tenn.
But a decade later, another shipment of tainted Indian fencing
reached the United States, Frame said.
"My guess was that it was the same
stuff," he said. "You suspect that in some cases they know the material is
radioactive but they're going to ship it out anyway because it's money."
John
Williamson, administrator of Florida's radiation control bureau, agrees and
predicts that tainted steel from China and products from India will continue to
surface, at the borders and on the plant floors.
One reason is that, after
U.S. customs rejects a load of contaminated material, no one knows what happens
once it is sent back to its overseas producer because no tracking system exists,
he and other front-line experts said.
"In China and India, who knows what
happens?" Williamson said. "My belief is it goes back into the hopper."
NRC
reports give weight to his belief. Construction reinforcement materials from
Mexico laced with Cobalt-60 that were detected at the border in 2006 were traced
back to metal from a contaminated batch produced and exported more than 20 years
before by two Juarez, Mexico, foundries.
Some experts say the United States
bears some blame for the infiltration of tainted metal and products. Even though
there is little debate that radiation-laced material is unwelcome, neither
Congress nor federal agencies have established a "safe" level of contamination,
despite two decades of wrestling with the issue.
That has created a loophole
that overseas metal dealers and product manufacturers can exploit, critics say.
But forbidding all radioactive material in metal would throw a damaging and
costly wrench into the recycling industry, according to John Gilstrap, safety
director for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries trade group.
"If we
set the thresholds unrealistically low, we're inflicting pain on businesses for
no necessary reason," Gilstrap said.
But Gerdau Ameristeel's Turner
disagrees. Asked what the allowable level of radiation in metal should be,
Turner replied via e-mail: "ZERO."
To officials in several states, it is the
absence of federal oversight and indistinct rules about materials and goods
tainted with low-level radiation that is causing undue pain. After the South
Carolina waste site closed last summer, six states called on Congress to act. So
far, it has not.
"There is no one federal agency responsible for regulating
all ionizing radiation, and therefore regulations are fragmented or non-existent
in some areas," said Michael Mobley, head of a commission formed last summer by
officials from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and
Virginia.
"If we address all radioactive materials across the board and the
waste that is generated from them, we will protect public health and the
environment to a greater extent than we do now," he said.
E-mail Isaac Wolf
at wolfi(at)shns.com.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)

Recycled Radiation

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throwing
out my recliner

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/03/2009
- 15:44.

This is a very intriguing and thought provoking article. I appreciate how in
depth the article is, and how this writer obviously spent a long time trying to
find good sources. News articles are usually very vague, so I apprecite the
amount of detail in this article. I look forward to learning more and I hope
that the US government steps it up. In the meantime though, I think I'm going to
get rid of my recliner and maybe my cheese grater too...

»

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great
job! i like it ,thanks

Submitted by wholesaleshoes (not verified) on Tue, 06/16/2009 -
23:48.

great job! i like it ,thanks for sharing!

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Bosch
markalı tüm beyaz

Submitted by gereksiz (not verified) on Wed, 12/16/2009 -
03:41.

Bosch markalı tüm beyaz eşyalarınızın uzun ömürlü ve performanslı

çalışmasını sağlamak ve enerji tasarrufu vb. etkenler için yılda bir
defa
olmak üzere tamir, bakım ve onarımı Bosch teknik servisi mutlaka
yapılmalıdır.Herhangi
bir arıza durumunda müşterilermiz istediği servisin
hızlı olmasını
bekler ve biz 12 gezici aracımız sayesinde bu hizmeti gayret
ve
profesyonelliğimiz ile yerine getirmekteyiz.Tüm Bosch kullanıcılarına

profesyonel teknik ekibimiz ile hizmet vermekteyiz.

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Great
post

Submitted by showerman (not verified) on Mon, 01/04/2010
- 20:48.

Shower Stall Walk in Bathtub
Residential Tanning Beds Commercial Tanning
Beds
e cigarette

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you're
right, nice article. I

Submitted by calories burned (not verified) on Mon, 11/15/2010 -
09:56.

you're right, nice article. I settle on this object. Where is your RSS feed?
I would be honored to subscribe.

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Equivalent
of an x-ray every 36hrs?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/03/2009
- 16:56.

The general lack of awareness about radiation could easily be attributed to
the fact that this seems to impact the population either over an extended period
(as you noted) or minimally- and because nobody really cares either way.
Indeed, travelers who fly more than 75k miles on commercial airlines per year
(450,000 in the US do so) are exposed to more than the maximum legal annual
radiation dose for people working in industrial or medical facilities. Though
your insightful article is a start, there is still little here that would shock
the conscience of the average consumer enough to motivate the political action
needed to end this latent threat.

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Recycled
radioactive metal contaminates consumer products

Submitted by Robert Cherry (not verified) on Sat,
06/06/2009 - 20:04.

My employer was the prime contractor for the Texas emergency response in 2006
mentioned in your article. I was the radiation safety officer for the response.

The weight of the Cs-137 contaminated steel was not quite 500,000 pounds as
you wrote. Actually, it was very close zero pound (or 0 kilogram, if you
prefer). Cesium-137 does not bond very well in steel. Instead, it is volatilized
and goes into the emission control dust (ECD) that is virtually 100%-captured in
the baghouse. Indeed, the contamination was discovered first at a site that
recycles ECD for zinc, cadmium and other useful and valuable metals when the ECD
shipment from the steel mill triggered portal alarms. The recycling site then
notified the steel mill.

Nevertheless, outgoing steel was monitored for radioactivity after the ECD
contamination was discovered. No radioactivity was detected above normal
background concentrations in this steel. The entire event is described public
records, which you may obtain (and should have obtained before you published
your article) from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Or did you mistake the contaminated ECD for steel? The contaminated ECD was
properly disposed at a licensed disposal site and never entered commerce for
recycling or for anything else.

Interestingly, the chemistry tests of the steel that are normally performed
detected a noticeable increase of lead (Pb) in the steel shortly before the
Cs-137 contamination in the ECD was discovered. This may have been due to lead
from the shielded container that contained the cesium-137.

Since we studied the Florida incident and coordinated with Florida regulators
as we worked through our own incident in Texas, we learned that the Florida
company also had no problem with cesium-137 contaminated steel.

It is the steel mill that becomes contaminated by cesium-137, not the steel
product. And more than 99% of the contamination remains in the ECD. The ECD is
already an EPA-controlled hazardous waste and none escapes from well-designed
plants, such as the Texas and Florida steel mills

Cobalt-60, as you should know and as the rest of your article shows, presents
a quite different problem because cobalt is chemically similar to iron. It
thoroughly contaminates steel products if it is introduced into the steel-making
process. It is cobalt-60 that produces contaminated steel, not cesium-137.

It is irresponsible of you to publish the information about the Texas
incident without properly determining facts that are readily available. Such
wrong information can have strong adverse economic impacts on the steelmaker and
its employees. The steelmaker was victimized once by whoever improperly disposed
of the cesium-137 source in scrap metal scheduled for recycling. Your articles
victimized them a second time.

Robert Cherry, PhD, CHP

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Bad
Author, No Cookie

Submitted by RandomTroll (not verified) on Mon,
06/08/2009 - 14:47.

It doesn't take much googling to figure out your facts are skewed and there
are already complaints about how this is being reported. There is another
article on this site that contradicts some portions of this story. I can't
possibly attest to the validity of the statements by Dr. Cherry, but thanks for
providing more insight into the issue Sir.

http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/06/05/06052009_letourneau_nuke.html

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:Jm0ZW0-dNmMJ:www.scrippsnews.com/node/43586+recycling+facility+texas+radioactive+cesium&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

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Radioactive
waste in steel.

Submitted by Len Smith (not verified) on Sat, 06/13/2009
- 19:41.

Thanks to Dr.Cherry . We need to keep a clear head about this and be assured
that what we think or are told is radioactive / dangerous , is what it claims to
be. Listen to the chemists and physicists and then make a decision.

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You
are right Len. Agree with

Submitted by buy
levitra (not verified) on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 13:35.

You are right Len. Agree with you.

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Thanks

Submitted by Kate (not verified) on Sun, 06/14/2009 -
02:09.

Great comment. Thank you for the follow-up from someone who knows what
they're talking about.

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Michigan
source info published 11/2008

Submitted by Michelle K. Gross (not verified) on Sun,
06/07/2009 - 05:49.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2126970/posts

This is a link to a transcript of a local Michigan news station reporting on
the cheese grater in Nov 2008. Note that the hosting site declares itself to be
a conservative web=site

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Not
a bad article in

Submitted by Charles Grant (not verified) on Mon,
06/08/2009 - 14:02.

Not a bad article in comparision with some of the other reporting on the
subject I have seen. You are correct that the U.S. has failed time and again to
promulgate a regulation that declares what level is the regulatory threshold.
Each time, the effort was beaten back by "public interest groups" that
erroneously state that "no level is safe." If that is the case, then don't fly
anywhere, don't have a dental x-ray, don't have a smoke detector in your house,
etc. etc. In fact, Am-241 is licensed by the USNRC for use in these devices and
it is allowable to place them in the municipal trash when they are spent. The
answer is for the USNRC to specify a regulatory limit for radioactivity, such as
in their Regulatory Guide 1.86. Radioactive materials play a vital and
productive role in our daily lives. Its time the USNRC stepped up and either
adopted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards or promulgated
their own. It's time we "moved on" with it and ignore reactionist agendas of
special interests.

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Radioactive
returns:

Submitted by Aldred (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2009 -
16:10.

Hmmmmmm remember the World Trade steel that they shipped to China as fast as
they could hack it up and shove it on a ship?

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BINGO

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 06/13/2009
- 16:52.

BINGO

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WTC
Steel

Submitted by Radman (not verified) on Tue, 06/16/2009 -
13:32.

A lot of this steel has been "recycled" into construction of the USS New
York. Check it out.

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There
are many features to

Submitted by Alex (not verified) on Fri, 01/29/2010 -
03:53.

There are many features to look for when buying a coin metal detector. Good
coin metal detectors will have notch discrimination and pinpointing of types of
metal.coin metal detector

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Geiger
counters

Submitted by odyssey (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2009 -
20:13.

Should the average homeowner at least buy a cheap geiger counter to test
their household?

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Geiger
Counter

Submitted by Radman (not verified) on Tue, 06/16/2009 -
13:37.

Purchasing a survey instrument would be an unnecessary (and significant)
expense. If you are unduly concerned about radiation contamination in your
home, you could contact either a radiation physicist or the agency that
regulates materials use in your state.

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Radioactive
goods

Submitted by Craig (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2009 -
20:43.

The best solution is simply to manufacture and recycle all consumer goods and
raw materials including scrap right here within our own economy. Goods
manufactured in this country could be more easily monitored through all stages
of procurement and every stage of the productive cycle and all manufacturers and
suppliers would be subject to uniform domestic legal sanctions, which is a lot
less expensive than litigating these matters through international trade or
legal agencies.

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From
China

Submitted by Fed Up (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2009 -
21:26.

I am always very suspicious of anything made in China, most importantly food
or personal cosmetics, inclusive of soaps, shampoos, deodorants, toothpaste,
mouthwash and body wash. I read every ingredient and where the product on food
boxes was made and don't eat Chinese food anymore. I just do NOT trust them
with anything that goes in my body or on it. They have a new game. Instead of
Made in China labels we now see Made in PRC, which is the People's Republic of
China. Now I'm on the lookout for appliance and am eyeballing a few things that
will be trashed tonight. I don't mind paying more for products, especially if
they're made in the good ol' USA!

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Radioactive
materials & detection

Submitted by Paul Magill Smith (not verified) on Mon,
06/08/2009 - 23:00.

I'm surprised there was no mention of DU (Depleted Uranium)in this article,
potentially much more dangerous to populations around the world. It comes from
spent fuel rods used in nuclear reactors, but still retains 40% of it's
radioactive content, so the term 'depleted' is very deceptive. It is then given,
or sold very cheaply, to the military who convert it into shells used in tanks,
artillary shells, bunker buster bombs, and smaller ordinance.

It is still so 'hot' that when the shell flies through the air it burns, and
upon hitting something solid emits a vaporized aerosol of fine particles
throughout the area. If even one small particle is inhaled the liklihood of lung
cancer, and other internal cancers, is a very high probability. The jagged edges
of these ceramic like particles assure they are difficult for the body to
eliminate. Although low level radioactivity the particle contaminates cells
surrounding it...and can also pass through semen to the unwitting wives &
girlfriends of returning GI's, causing birth defects in embryos &
fetuses.

Of course the military denies it is harmful, but the hundreds of thousands
returning from the Gulf Wars, afflicted with the multi-symptom ailment known as
Gulf War Syndrome, by their sheer numbers tell a different tale. Oddly, DU &
Agent Orange sprang from the same weapons program. It must also be noted with a
4.5 billion year lifetime it never goes away, and the Navy stopped allowing DU
weaponry on their ships 2 or three years ago...why?

Google DU, or depleted uranium for thousands of articles about this deadly
substance.

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Scrap
metal covered with DU

Submitted by Paul Magill Smith (not verified) on Mon,
06/08/2009 - 23:36.

I forgot to mention the most important question relating to metal
contaminated with radioactive material...Where do the thousands (or millions) of
tons of scrap metal we have created by shooting DU all over the middle east
go...China, India, elsewhere?

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The
Navy stopped using DU 2

Submitted by bilderberger (not verified) on Tue,
06/09/2009 - 00:05.

The Navy stopped using DU 2 years ago because they ran out after dropping it
in Iraq & Afghanistan!

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You're
absolutely incorrect, my friend

Submitted by Paul Magill Smith (not verified) on Tue,
06/09/2009 - 02:59.

There's plenty of nuclear waste material that could be converted to DU. After
a couple decades & tens of billions of dollars spent Yucca Mountain has yet
to open, and if it does it will already be at full capacity.

A couple things I didn't mention before are:

1) Incidents of cancer among the mid-east population have risen dramatically,
as well as serious birth defects,

2) DU can be picked up in the frequent huge dust storms in the middle east,
and distributed as far away as the east coast of the US,

3) And worst of all, it has the potential to kill EVERY living thing on earth
down to the microbial level.

Yet our military is still in complete denial about the danger it poses, and
has roadblocked testing of our returning soldiers...WTF!

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I
also heard about it

Submitted by cialis brand (not verified) on Wed, 08/12/2009 - 07:01.

I also heard about it somethere...

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Depleted
Uranium - the real story

Submitted by Mark H (not verified) on Tue, 06/09/2009 -
17:43.

The radioactivity of uranium has nothing to do with how it explodes - uranium
is pyrophoric, which means that a fine enough dust of the metal will
spontaneously oxidize at ambient temperatures. Totally depleted uranium does the
same thing, as does titanium. Furthermore DU isn't used in penetrator shells
because it's radioactive - it's used because it's dense and also very malleable.
It tranfers all its kinetic energy to the target very effeciently when it
splats.

Where are all these journals from established medical journals that show that
cancer is a "high probability" from breathing in one little particle? Oh right.
There aren't any. Lord knows nobody misses a chance to demonize the US Armed
Forces these days, so if data existed, it would be front page news.

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And
you don't believe

Submitted by Paul Magill Smith (not verified) on Wed,
06/10/2009 - 02:34.

a complicit MSM would do anything to suppress information that they were
complicit in leading us into an unnecessary war of 'choice'? La La land must be
a nice place to live, but there isn't room enough for sane rational informed
logical people, I guess.

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Depleted
Uranium

Submitted by ELEANOR (not verified) on Sat,
06/13/2009 - 22:26.

I find it interesting that Health Canada,(a department of the Government of
Canada), on its web site, talks about the dangers of depleted uranium and that
the Canadian Military has replaced the DU munitions. We give lip service to
honoring soldiers and then poison them. Hmm...Bravo for the concern for human
health.

»

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DU

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 06/15/2009
- 23:23.

It would be nice if you could do a little research before publicly showing
off your ignorance. Please see how many members of the defense departments own
team tasked to evaluate the danger of DU from radioactivity are still alive. For
your information.....there are none.....they all died from cancer. Plus they
came out positively against DU and called it the most toxic substance known to
man. Of course the study was then dumped.....we can't have facts getting in the
way of our making money!

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