Reply #3: A presentation to the European Parliament

[JohnyCanuck]

PRESENTATION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (23 June 2005)

Keith Baverstock PhD; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kuopio, KUOPIO, Finland

I have, during a career of some 30 years, developed expertise in evaluating risks regarding the environmental and occupational exposure to ionising radiation and radioactive materials in many different situations. I have done this in the context of employment by the UK Medical Research Council (1971 to 1991) and the European Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (1991 to 2003), both ostensibly "independent" organisations.

Between 2000 and 2002 I examined the evidence relating to risks from the mildly radioactive depleted uranium. My concern was especially raised by the specific exposure context of inhalation of the dust particles produced when a depleted uranium munition impacts a hardened target and burns, producing fine particles of DU oxide (DUO). This material has no natural analogue and does not arise in the normal refining and processing of uranium for nuclear fuel. There is, therefore, no prior experience of exposure to this material than its use in Iraq in 1991.

According to the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP), inhaled DUO would pose a hazard to the lung from radiation if it were insoluble and a chemical toxicity risk to the kidney (physiological toxicity of kidney malfunction) if it were soluble.

DUO is in fact part insoluble and part sparingly soluble. Since 1998 evidence has accrued that human cells exposed in the laboratory to low concentrations of DU exhibit changes characteristic of malignant cells and indeed, when implanted into host animals, will lead to malignancy. In these experiments it seems unlikely, given the low concentrations and the experimental conditions, that this effect is mediated by radiation, but is rather a chemically mediated genotoxicity. (See for example 1-6 The non-radioactive element, nickel, produces similar effects and is an established carcinogen.

In 2001 this evidence led me to believe that inhaled DUO particles, which are capable of penetrating the deep lung (where they would be retained for long periods) posed, for a period of weeks to months, not only a radiotoxicity risk but also a chemical genotoxicity risk and potentially a synergy between the two. Thus any risk evaluated on the basis of the ICRP recommendations would be likely to underestimate the true risk.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/keith_baverstock_23june05.htm