Talk:Depleted uranium/Archive 13

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Erroneous unreferenced sentence
@ In Intro: "It is only weakly radioactive because of its long radioactive half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235; or 1 part per million every 6446 and 1010 years, respectively)." The strength of radioactivity of a radioactive substance is in no way related to its radioactive half-life. I do not know what point the writer was shooting at here, but it's a clean miss. Marbux (talk) 05:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * half-life and decay energy are indeed related for alpha emitters; see the Geiger–Nuttall law. I agree a source should be added, though. VQuakr (talk) 07:52, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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Sanity check
There is loads of talk here about uranium causing radiation related effects. For a quick sanity check Uranium-238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years - this is so long that the radioactivity is minute, certainly being exposed to U238 dust is radiologically irrelevant [ref I will do the sums if anyone asks]. It is a heavy metal and that causes chemical issues but anyone claiming radiological issues with U238 is either ill informed or a scaremonger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtpaley (talk • contribs) 00:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

If you're talking about depleted uranium, you have yet to explain the fact that all kinds of birth defects and cancer swept through Falluja after depleted uranium bombs fell there. Coincidence? I think no — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.124.143.83 (talk • contribs) 21:14, 1 February 2015‎
 * Mtpaley, you say "certainly being exposed to U238 dust is radiologically irrelevant [ref I will do the sums if anyone asks]". Ok, you're on. Let's see the math. It would be a good addition to the article. GangofOne (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Let's try this analysis on for size. Herein I use e notation: 3e-2 is the scientific 3x10-2, or 0.03.


 * Typical fallout dust particles (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/particle-sizes-d_934.html) range a factor of ten on each side of a micron in size. Uranium metal density is about 20 gm/cm^3, so the average mass of a 100% uranium particle is 20 / (e-6)^3 = 2e-17 grams. 238 grams of U-238 contains 6.02e23 uranium atoms (Avogadro's law). So a typical fallout particle contains about 5 million uranium atoms, assuming the particle is 100% uranium, plus or minus a factor of 10. [Oops, make that a thousand, 10^3.]


 * Now, the half-life of U-238 is, as stated, about the age of the Earth, about 4.5e9 years. Roughly stated then, it takes about 4.5e9/5e6, or about a thousand years on average for a single uranium atom in that particle to decay, throwing off an alpha particle and an atom of Th-234. It is well known that thermal alpha particles (typical of decay alphas) pose little threat to humans externally; they are absorbed by dead exterior skin cells with zero detrimental effect. Internally, they may impinge on live cells, and in sufficient concentration, "burn" close cells. One alpha per 1000 years means that over an average human lifetime, uranium particles, unless present in truly huge numbers, are inert.


 * Why do people worry about fallout, then? Because it holds many substances which have much shorter half-lives than U-238.  Iodine-131, for example, with a half-life of 8 days. In DU penetrators, uranium-238 is the only radioactive material present. This is a totally new concept for many anti-nuke people, that the isotopes to worry over are those with the short half-lives, not those with the long ones.  Well water in Finland, for comparison, shows 220 becquerels of radioactivity per liter from dissolved radon, and is considered safe (a becquerel is one decay event per second; the hypothetical U-238 particle gives off 3e-11 Bq).


 * I disagree that this analysis should be in the article - for one, it is original research (I've not seen this calculation anywhere else), which in wikipedia is forbidden. Second, it is very rough and there are lots of simplifying assumptions - the +/- 10x multiplier, for one, "cubic" particles, and what happens with the left-over thorium, for others. So I will leave it right here. Anyone is welcome to use it elsewhere with my full permission. SkoreKeep (talk) 04:26, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The conclusions of mtpaley are consistent with what is stated (in Swedish) by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland. BP OMowe (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Oy, where to start. Good thing we don't do original research; this is a mess! First off, a 1e-6 m cube (1 micron cube) of U-238 would weigh 2e7 g/m^3 * (1e-6 m)^3 = 2e-11 g. You were off by six orders of magnitude due to your units error. Assuming the nonconservative activity in a 1 micron cube when dust likely to be retained in the lung (not, of course, fallout) tops out at 10 microns introduces another 3 orders of magnitude error. For a range of 1-10 micron cubes, we have 5e10 to 5e13 atoms, not 5e6 (you made a 2 order of magnitude calculation error in this step somehow, but it partially cancelled out your earlier errors). For the activity level you want to use mean lifetime; not half life. The mean lifetime of 238U is 2e17 seconds, so that is 4e6 to 4e3 seconds (1-1000 hours) per disintegration per particle. A person exposed to a uranium fire could inhale many thousands of the particles.


 * Subsequent decay of 234Th and 234Pa daughter and granddaughter products happens instantaneously relative to the 238U half life, so the activity of the Uranium is effectively tripled to by the beta emitters. Summing up, the resulting activity is on the order of 0.01-10 Bq (a third of which will be the more damaging alphas). Hardly Chernobyl, but not the "one disintegration per 1000 years" you came up with either. Our article is accurate in reporting that the radiological hazard is negligible compared with the heavy-metal toxicity. VQuakr (talk) 05:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)


 * And you can multiply all of those numbers by the number of particles inhaled, which is very unlikely to be one isn't it. It could in fact be an ungodly large number. 178.15.151.163 (talk) 15:52, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

High cancer rates, and dust from abandoned open-pit uranium mines
Uranium in dust in desert areas in the Middle East, and on Native American lands.


 * The Dirty, Deadly Front End of Nuclear Power -- 15,000 Abandoned Uranium Mines. 11 March 2016. By Josh Cunnings and Emerson Urry, EnviroNews. From the article: "To our understanding there are about 15,000 abandoned uranium mines that have been left in complete ruin with very little cleanup or remediation at all, just in the western United States. This has happened, by-and-large, because of an antiquated mining bill -- the 1872 Mining Bill -- still affecting these situations today -- that kind of allowed miners to just walk away from these situations -- but yet, they remain in the open leaching off tailings -- blowing around radioactive dust. I think there's about 4,500 of these exposed mining sites just in Navajo country -- another 2,500 or so in Wyoming. ... The Northern Great Plains' levels are higher than Fukushima -- and these are not from nuclear power plants or from an atomic weapon, or atomic bomb being exploded. These are from 2,885 abandoned open-pit uranium mines and prospects, and we are subject to that radioactive pollution constantly. We, the people of the Great Sioux Nation, we are the miner's canary. We are the miner's canary for the rest of the United States. We have the highest cancer rates now. We never gave permission for uranium mining to occur in our treaty territory. It's not just the nuclear power plants that people have to be afraid. All of these abandoned open-pit uranium mines in the Northern Great Plains are affecting everyone, but they are genocide for the Great Sioux Nation -- for my people. This is genocide." --Timeshifter (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Regulation of DU at 15 military sites in the USA

 * US Army’s depleted uranium licencing saga highlights post-conflict contradictions. 23 March 2016. ICBUW. From the article: "The contrast with the strict US domestic regulatory framework for DU contaminated sites and the US military’s response to DU following its use in conflict could not be starker." --Timeshifter (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Paid health claims concerning depleted uranium at Wah Chang facility in Oregon
--Timeshifter (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Depleted uranium at Wah Chang led to decades of health woes. By Bennett Hall. Corvallis Gazette-Times. June 22, 2016. Article quote (emphasis added):

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US confirms DU use in Syria
Last month US CENTCOM confirmed that two incidents where it had previously been reported that DU was used in Syria in November 2015 were A10 strikes on Islamic State fuel convoys. Foreign Policy/Airwars investigation here: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/the-united-states-used-depleted-uranium-in-syria/ News that the US had used DU in Syria first appeared on IRIN in October 2016, following an investigation by journalist Samuel Oakford and ICBUW, coverage here: https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2016/10/06/exclusive-iraq-war-records-reignite-debate-over-us-use-depleted-uranium However at the time CENTCOM did not confirm the targets that it had been used against. The situation was of particular interest as fuel tankers are not armoured targets. In 2016 an analysis of A10 strikes in Iraq 2003 by PAX and ICBUW revealed that fewer than half of all targets struck were armoured vehicles, see: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/targets-of-opportunity  ICBUW (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * the third source fails WP:RS and doesn't mention Syria, but the other two seem adequate. Due coverage for Syria would be to add to the sentence in the history section: "The US and NATO militaries used DU penetrator rounds in the 1991 Gulf War, the Bosnia war, bombing of Serbia, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and 2015 airstrikes on ISIS in Syria." Sound good? VQuakr (talk) 17:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

works for me, thanks ICBUW (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit on the contamination of uranium with other isotopes
Here are the edits I want to integrate in the page re. contamination of uranium with other isotopes :

Natural uranium contains about 0.72% U-235, while the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contains 0.3% U-235 or less, according to the US Mod, but this is debated. In urine tests of civilian populations in Afghanistan, for which the mean concentration of uranium was found to be considerably greater than what is regarded as a reference range, the U234/U238 ratios were consistant with natural uranium (not depleted)

Asaf Durakovic found several occurences of uranium 236 contamination in veterans.

DU used in US munitions has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium, according to the US army. The radioactivity near tanks destroyed by these weapons, however, can reach at least up to 1000 times the average background radiation. Trace transuranics (another indicator of the use of reprocessed material) have been reported to be present in some US tank armor as well as in weapons.

One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted uranium and 0.75% by mass of titanium, but there is a debate regarding the isotopic composition or the uranium that is used because of the findings of non depleted uranium in battlefields

Please tell me where does that violate ANY Wikipedia policy. I have been undoed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:VQuakr. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit on the biological effects of uranium weapons
Since the Ammunition section of the article mentions the dangerousness of alternatives to uranium, I found it meaningful to integrate as well information on the dangerousness of uranium itself. Here is what I propose to add :

The carcinogenic effect of uranium weapons comes from the alpha particles that induce tumors when inhalated or ingested in the body, because of the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha particles (up to 20 times the RBE of gamma rays : for the same amount of energy, alpha particles will create up to 20 times more damage than gamma rays) - a 2,5 microns pellet in the body, with a RBE of 10, will deliver 1,7 Sievert per year to the body, that is a level of severe radiation poisoning, sometimes fatal.



WHO statistics available for 2004 (downloadable here) show that Iraq has the highest levels of leukemias and lymphomas in the world. Afghanistan is almost second. Both countries were heavily bombed before (Iraq was bombed in 1991 and 2003-2004, Afghanistan in 2001-2002). Leukemias and lymphomas are both blood cancers which are suspected to be related with uranium contamination. Uranium is sprayed as a fine powder by these weapons at impact or explosion. The clouds of oxidised dust are able to travel and represent a danger when ingested or inhalated. Uranium is able to travel in the body - for instance from the nose to the brain of the rat, in a study published by Toxicology Letters.

The chart comes from XKCD but this XKCD carefully provided all of its sources on the chart !

So please tell me again where do I violate any Wikipedia policy. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The UMRI source is incorrect by about 9 orders of magnitude, unsurprising since it fails WP:RS. XKCD is a great webcomic, but is unusuable as a source for anything except itself. Claiming a causal relationship between DU weapons use and cancer mortality rates based on generic WHO disease rates violates WP:SYNTH. VQuakr (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I have another source of calculation which provides very similar results (60 milliSieverts per year for a 1 micron particle, 7,5 Sieverts per year for a 5 microns particle : http://bienprofond.free.fr/hiroshi/2005/IrradiationUA.htm (in French)). These calculations (in the article in French) were made by Maurice Eugène André, who was NBCR protection instructing officer for NATO. The XKCD chart, as I said, mentions its sources but if you want here is a page by the insurer Allianz which says exactly the same https://www.allianz.com/en/about_us/open-knowledge/topics/environment/articles/110407-radiation-how-much-is-harmful.html/#!m07960b8c-086f-4934-829d-1ed6bff167ab
 * To me the causal relationship between use of uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high rate of leukemias / lymphomas is simply common sense. It confirms everything that has been noted - the actual article says "Epidemiological studies and toxicological tests on laboratory animals point to it as being immunotoxic,[95] teratogenic,[96][97] neurotoxic,[98] with carcinogenic and leukemogenic potential.[99] A 2005 report by epidemiologists concluded: "the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."[10]" FlorentPirot (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, at least that site shows their work. When a dose/fatality chart talks about exposure, they are talking about whole body instantaneous dose not exposure of a 50 μm sphere around a particle over the course of a year. The French-language source still fails WP:RS, anyways. VQuakr (talk) 03:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yet 7,5 Sieverts over the course of a year for a 5 microns particle is well above all accepted yearly levels of exposure, even for nuclear industry workers. The actual work of Maurice Eugène André, who made the calculations in the French language link, was to command NATO missiles while based in the Black Forest, so he also had to calculate where the fallout of a nuclear attack would come, in order to protect civilians and soldiers. (as you know fallout contains high levels of plutonium which works like uranium in the body since it also emits alpha particles, a lot more than uranium 238 - btw here is an example taken with the body of a monkey http://nonuclear.se/images/deltredici.d5.particl.of.pu650px.jpg "Hot" or radioactive particle in lung tissue", photo by Del Tredici, Burdens of Proof by Tim Connor, Energy Research Foundation, 1997) FlorentPirot (talk) 20:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit on missiles and bombs and uranium
Hello, I would like also to suggest an edit including the following elements : - It has been demonstrated that the Baghdad Al Amariyah bunker destroyed in 1991 by two GBU 27s (killing more than 400 civilians that had taken shelter there, in a fire) was still radioactive in 2002 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsX41A8JiBw&feature=youtu.be&t=8m47s video] from movie Irak, d'une guerre à l'autre, on IMDB). - There are reports that uranium is being used as a counter-ballast in missiles - for instance, this UNEP report on the Balkans, in the annex. The "Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness" training video for the US military that Doug Rokke had to make also included the mention of the use of uranium in missile ballasts (see here). - The BBC also reported that GBU bunker buster are believed to contain depleted uranium (see article).

To me the detection of peaks of uranium in Aldermaston air filters (see https://pyrophor.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/aldermaston.png?w=768), that rise when battles are waged in Afghanistan / Iraq, also is a good demonstration of the use of uranium in missiles and bombs : take the Anaconda Op in Afghanistan, tanks weren't involved so no possibility that the uranium detected in the filters comes from APFSDS shells, and it is very unlikely that dust from 30 mm straffing rounds would be able to rise at several kilometers of altitude and travel across the world. Compare with clouds of dust from missiles / GBU bombs.

Best regards,--FlorentPirot (talk) 19:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's the film with Tariq Aziz as a talking head, right? Seems about par for your usual credulous standards on sourcing. Your clip begins by someone using a hand-held counter / dosimeter to measure alpha radiation. If you ever meet a real health physicist, ask them to explain why that's nonsense.
 * Also you seem confused over the first interim GBU-27s used in the Gulf (a seeker head on a recycled 8" steel gun tube), compared to the production versions with the DU penetrator. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) Please I need the source regarding GBU with DU penetrator, could you provide it if you have ? Thanks Andy !
 * 2) Geiger counters have been very frequently used to monitor uranium contamination because of the 49 KeV gamma rays of 238U. The CRIIRAD for instance recommends their use for that purpose even though there are differences whether you select HP0.07 or HP10. FlorentPirot (talk) 14:52, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Gamma from DU? Please, if you're trying to find "the hot spot in the room" from a small piece of hot material, then you might use a gamma counter based on a windowless or shielded G-M tube. But for a site survey of a site that's not heavily contaminated (and this is far from a heavily contaminated site, whoever you ask), then waving such a counter around at waist height isn't the way to go about it. It's a Kim & Aggie job, vacuuming up dust and bagging it. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:03, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Well of course alpha spectrometry is better but much costlier. CRIIRAD, though, recommends some Geigers for DU detection (there is also the beta minus of daughter products 234Th and 234Pa that can be detected by these Geigers), at least for a general survey of the contamination landscape. Would you please send me the source regarding DU penetrators in production versions of GBU 27 ? Thanks !!! FlorentPirot (talk) 16:38, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It would also make a lot of sense to include the 2007 list by Andreas Parsch, for WDU clearly is an acronym for Warhead Depleted Uranium (Parsch reports it is "explosive", not "dummy" as mistated elsewhere). FlorentPirot (talk) 16:44, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Please provide a reliable source that explicitly states that all warheads with a WDU designator contain depleted uranium. That is an exceptional claim. VQuakr (talk) 19:28, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

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Edit on shaped charge warheads and uranium
Here are the changes I want to bring on the "Ammunition" section re. shaped charges and uranium :

It is known since the years 70s that uranium can be used as a liner in shaped charge warheads. Many shaped charge warheads patents include uranium as a liner. The "K-charge" patent EP 1164348 A2 notes that "other metals that have been disclosed as useful for shaped charge liners include [...] depleted uranium [...] and their alloys ". Another patent seems to acknowledge that it is better, for incendiary (reactive) purposes, to use non-depleted uranium as it differenciates "depleted uranium" used for kinetic purposes and "uranium" used for incendiary purposes.

Please tell me where does that violate any Wikipedia policy. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Claiming that a specific warhead must contain uranium because a patent application says uranium could be used violates common sense, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:SYNTH. Claiming natural uranium is more flammable/pyrophoric than DU based on a patent application indicates a pretty remarkable lack of knowledge of chemistry, and of course also violates the same content policies. VQuakr (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * It does not says that uranium IS used in liners, it only says it COULD. It was thoroughly studied ( see for instance here http://www.arl.army.mil/arlreports/2007/ARL-SR-150.pdf on page 86). Jane's also reported once that uranium is used in "some guided weapons" which could include shaped charge warheads. https://web.archive.org/web/20011108102307/http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw010108_1_n.shtml
 * Regarding the effects of radioactivity on inflammability (the latent heat of the radioactivity acting as the activation energy), two chemists (one in a metallurgy lab, and one "agrégé" (French high exam for professors)) have told me that I am right, so I thought that simply making mention of the patent without explaining could be meaningful, but I acknowledge this contradicts WP:SYNTH.FlorentPirot (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * "which could"
 * Andy Dingley (talk) 23:23, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * If you read the uranium liner shaped charge patent for drilling wells https://www.google.ch/patents/US4441428, you'll see that "tests show that the penetration of such a Uranium jet is about 87 centimeters, a factor of 3.5 greater than expected and a factor of 5 times that measured for the copper jet and for an iron jet 5.4 times greater." In this regard claims that the main metal used in shaped charges is copper is highly dubious. FlorentPirot (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Re these weapons I actually claim, based on personal work and on a testimony, they use nano levels of nuclear fission. U236 all around Iraq and Afghanistan (UMRC work), the micro flashs you see when these weapons explode (bunker busters, anti tank missiles, cruise missiles etc), tritium I have found in high volumes near Canjuers military camp in southern France and beryllium consistently used in uranium weapons (see Observatoire des Armements report, October 2001 "La production des armes à uranium appauvri") do confirm that. A former tank driver from the French army confirmed all that. Won't insert it in the encyclopedia because personal research.--FlorentPirot (talk) 19:30, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


 * This is conspiracy theory garbage. Take it somewhere other than Wikipedia. VQuakr (talk) 22:13, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Studies indicating negligible effects
It is somewhat concerning that most of the quoted studies appear to be from sources that - to put this politely - have a direct interest in the outcome of their work. That is, the quoted entities are:


 * 1) A literature review by Rand Corporation
 * 2) An editorial paper (i.e. not a study) in the Archive of Oncology (this in turn states that " a considerable part of the research work presented here has been sponsored by local government authorities.") It also appears from the editorial that the entire edition of that publication was to discuss this concern - but unfortunatley the rest of the edition is not available at that link.
 * 3) A study "from the Australian defense ministry".
 * 4) The International Atomic Energy Agency (no study, just a statement).
 * 5) A study by Sandia National Laboratories, which in turn is "a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International" and "is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories".

Rand Corporation, the Australian Defence Ministry, and Sandia are all reliant on the largesse of governments that support the use of depleted uranium and thus non-neutral parties. The Archive of Oncology seems to be a more promising source, but the provided link is not to anything evidentiary. Similarly, the IAEA makes a statement rather than a study (and in some eyes may be considered less than entirely neutral).

To summarise, I suggest that either better sources are found or that appropriate caveats are added to this section of the article. The title does not reflect the current usefulness of the content, but I am sure that subject matter experts will be able to find some more reliable sources. Perhaps those used in the final sentence of the article's introduction might be a useful start - especially as they contradict the tone of this section. A brief survey also finds a Scientific American article (again, not a study), though I am sure experts will have much more useful information to add. I realise that care must be taken in this area, as there are clearly many extremely interesting opinions 'out there'.

In relation to other parts of this article, experts may wish to refer to this US Department of Energy site, advertising/advocating for uses of DUF6.

Finally, in writing this comment I stumbled upon something about depleted uranium having been used in the past in dentistry. This paper touches on its use, while this web page provides some additional information on its history and this 1976 US Government publication advises against its use. Could someone who has some expertise in this area possibly add some dentistry to the history? (It is briefly mentioned in section 3.2 of the article, but if it has been discontinued then perhaps this should be moved - and I suggest expanded.)

Thank you from someone who has no clue. Ambiguosity (talk) 07:09, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

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World depleted uranium inventory, this list seems almost worthless.
The list doesn't seem useful. Almost all the major players in depleted uranium inventory haven't stated their inventories in 17 years in many cases. It really needs to be updated — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cornersss (talk • contribs) 22:55, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Depleted Uranium Hand Grenades
This line: "DU was used during the mid-1990s in the U.S. to make hand grenades, and land mines, but those applications have been discontinued, according to Alliant Techsystems."

Has no citation, and I can find little evidence for it online. The only references that I can find are a wikileaks reference:

https://wardiaries.wikileaks.org/id/F5D58A9C-6290-4F77-A390-763EFB496391/

and another reference here:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_about_a_grenade_cont

Should these references by cited in the article, or should that line be removed?

JackStonePGD (talk) 00:33, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Both sources go back to Wikileaks, which is a single sentence without context let alone editorial review. I'd say remove it. VQuakr (talk) 06:27, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Intercept story and journal article
"Some of the negative health effects of the American war in Iraq can be put down to U.S. forces’ frequent use of munitions containing depleted uranium." That cites "Our study has established the presence of uranium and of thorium, a direct depleted-uranium decay-product, in Nasiriyah children. We also report on an association between residential proximity to a US army base,Tallil Air Base, and the risk of congenital anomaly. We show that such proximity is associated with higher levels of uranium and thorium in the biological samples of the study participants. At the same time, we found an increased risk of congenital anomalies associated with higher hair levels of these metals." 107.242.121.6 (talk) 02:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)