From the left, we have some total bullshit about depleted uranium:
The US has been using depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq. The results, for people in Iraq and American soldiers, are truly terrifying. We’re dispersing this stuff into Iraq’s air, earth, water. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
So it’s not the nicest stuff in the world, but it’s hardly the horror the Left claims it is.
The Atrios blog entry links to a little video that manages to pack more lies in one short message than you’re likely to see anywhere else, including pictures of babies from Nagasaki and victims of Harlequin Syndrome. Per the claim above, note that the isotope of uranium with the long half-life, U238, isn’t significantly* radioactive; the bad one is U235, and its absence from the mix is what distinguishes depleted uranium from the other kind.
And just to prove that the left doesn’t have a lock on lying, check the response from SwiftVet Steve Gardner’s former employer Millenium (who allegedly fired him for his politics). It seems that Mr. Gardner hasn’t been entirely truthful about his termination.
Garbage like this pollutes the political system for all of us. If you can’t make your case without lying, perhaps you have no case to make.
*word added 12/1/04
UPDATE: Here’s what the World Health Organization (hardly a Right-Wing Christian Hate Group) has to say about the effects of DU:
Exposure to uranium and depleted uranium
* Under most circumstances, use of DU will make a negligible contribution to the overall natural background levels of uranium in the environment. Probably the greatest potential for DU exposure will follow conflict where DU munitions are used.
* A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low.
* A UN expert team reported in November 2002 that they found traces of DU in three locations among 14 sites investigated in Bosnia following NATO airstrikes in 1995. A full report is expected to be published by UNEP in March 2003.
* Levels of DU may exceed background levels of uranium close to DU contaminating events. Over the days and years following such an event, the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water.
* People near an aircraft crash may be exposed to DU dusts if counterweights are exposed to prolonged intense heat. Significant exposure would be rare, as large masses of DU counterweights are unlikely to ignite and would oxidize only slowly. Exposures of clean-up and emergency workers to DU following aircraft accidents are possible, but normal occupational protection measures would prevent any significant exposure.
Uh, Richard all isotopes of Uranium are radioactive.
That’s why they all eventually become lead.
Here you go: here’s a nice chart.
And, yeah, it looks like 4.5X 10^9 is 4 1/2 billion years.
And here is a nice reference on the Periodic Table…
I hadn’t forgotten my chemistry: all elements with more protons than bismuth all only have radioactive isotopes.
Cool, huh?
Anyway, that depleted uranium is bad stuff, even if they’re being hyperbolic.
U238 is only mildly radioactive, as is anything with a half-life in the billions of years, John.
Depleted uranium may be troublesome in some respects, but radioactivity isn’t one of them.
Anything radioactive isn’t good for you at all.
And, as it turns out, U-238’s radioactivity is quite harmful. But let’s talk about DU instead (which contains about .2-.3% U-235).
Here is a good reference on the subject.
It’s not as harmful as U-235, to be sure, but both it’s radioactivity is about 1/10 that of U-235, which is about right given its 1/2 life ratios.
Soooo… since that’s the stuff they’re aerosolling throughout Iraq, the point of the link Atrios pointed to is well taken.
We don’t live on a radiation-free planet, so we can obviously tolerate some level of radiation without harm. As the radioactivity of DU is less than that of uranium ore or naturally-occuring thorium, it’s clealy not the cause of massive birth defects as Atrios’ fill-in poster alleges (17,000 times the rate of normal birth defects.)
So once again, the left resorts to lying, fear-mongering, and ignorance to manufacture a case out of thin air.
Actually, if I were you, I’d cede the point that DU is hazardous (nice update on your blog), and blame Clinton.
Check out my blog for why…
But the fact is put enough stuff that emits alpha particles and gamma rays out there, and it’s bad for you.
And they’re putting boatloads of that stuff around Iraq.
Nobody is saying that DU is a vitamin, John, we’re saying that its long-term threat to human life and health is minimal. See the WHO link in my update.
Depleted Uranium is far, far more dangerous for its chemical properties (it is toxic, like many heavy metals) than for any imagined radiological hazard. In fact, it is less radioactive than natural Uranium (being depleted) and quite a bit less radioactive than many items found in ordinary households (especially the smoke detector). All this mess about radioactive depleted Uranium is nothing more than scare-mongering, it has absolutely zero basis in fact.