快猫短视频

SOLDIERS in a tank hit by a depleted uranium (DU) shell could inhale enough
radioactive dust to double their risk of dying from lung cancer, concludes a new
report by the Royal Society in London. But the risks from DU for others on the
battlefield are so small as to be undetectable.

Shells containing about 270 tonnes of DU have been fired in the Gulf War and
the Balkans over the past 10 years, the majority by US forces in the Gulf.
Controversy over the potential risks to human health and the environment has
raged ever since
(快猫短视频, 20 January, p 4).

Now a major investigation by Britain鈥檚 leading scientific society estimates
that soldiers could receive a radiation dose up to 55 times the international
safety limit鈥�20 millisieverts a year for workers in the nuclear industry.
But this is the very worst that could be imagined, and assumes that individuals
breathe in five grams of DU dust. For most, the doses would be within the safety
limit.

In a report published this week, the society also highlights the
uncertainties surrounding the large radiation doses that such soldiers could
take in the lymph glands in their chests. Researchers disagree over how
susceptible these glands are to cancer, and the society calls for further
research.

The move is welcomed by Britain鈥檚 Low Level Radiation Campaign, although it
dismisses the rest of the Royal Society鈥檚 report as 鈥済rossly inadequate鈥�. Real
evidence of illness in soldiers and their children has been displaced by
鈥渋nappropriate mathematical modelling鈥�, says the campaign鈥檚 Richard Bramhall.
鈥淓nough is already known to make DU weapons illegal.鈥�

Nor does the Royal Society report cover the risks to civilian families and
their children in areas where the weapons were used, or DU鈥檚 chemical toxicity
as opposed to its radioactivity. The society鈥檚 panel of 11 experts will tackle
these issues in a second report due to be published later this year.