The Columbian military recently raided FARC camps just across their borders. The Columbians confiscated lap top computers containing emails between the FARC and dealers offering to sell them explosives, which the emails suggested included uranium that the dealer was willing to sell for about one million dollars a pound. The press has several times bit on these types stories, sensationalizing them and getting the science all wrong.
There seems to be a widespread idea that uranium can be used for nuclear weapons. Well, it can. That is, one isotope of uranium can be, but natural uranium is less than 1% of that isotope and enriching it is a daunting technical challenge. (Many chemical elements have more than one isotope, atoms that have identical chemical properties but slightly different weights.) Since uranium can power nuclear weapons and nuclear bombs, it must be highly radioactive and could at least be used as a dirty bomb, right? Wrong, but you would never know by reading most such stories in the newspapers. So it is refreshing to read a story that gets it right and is properly skeptical. Kelly Hearn of The Washington Times has written that piece.
Since uranium is available on the spot market for about $70 per pound, the asking price of a million a pound should raise suspicions. This price might be justified if the uranium were enriched, that is, mostly uranium-235. If the uranium were enriched, it would be a huge story. I find it very difficult to imagine how a non-state terrorist organization could enrich natural uranium; the technology and manufacturing are simply too much. If a terrorist group could, however, get hold of sufficient quantities of uranium-235, then I can easily imagine how they could construct the simplest possible nuclear bomb that would have an explosive force equal to a few thousand tons of TNT. Exploding such a bomb in a major city would make every past terrorist attack pale. Given the consequences, any possibly, even a remote possibility, that terrorists might have got hold of enriched uranium should be taken seriously and investigated.
But many related past newspaper articles have been weak on several points: they are vague on the important differences between uranium and enriched uranium; they incorrectly assert or imply that, even if not useful for a nuclear bomb, then uranium could be used to make a dirty bomb; and they are insufficiently skeptical of these reports, failing to put them into context by explaining how common uranium and dirty bomb scams are. Most recently, there was a flurry of articles about the supposed highly enriched uranium that was found in Slovakia. The story did not make sense from the beginning and most of the science in the press coverage was, at best, muddled if not flatly wrong. Notice that that story has totally disappeared. I asked a couple of the reporters who wrote about it what had happened and they tell me that the Slovak police simply stopped talking about it. Perhaps because they had some big case but my guess is because they realized they had misspoken early on. So I welcome Hearn's article. The story really is not so much about this one case in Columbia but about the need to be cautious in all such cases. Certainly, loose enriched uranium is something to worry about, but we need to keep our heads, not sensationalize, and get the science straight if we are to have any hope of making good decisions.
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* Arfsten, D.P., et al. (2001) "A review of the effects of uranium and depleted uranium exposure on reproduction and fetal development," Toxicology and Industrial Health, vol. 17, pp. 180-91. Summary contains: "A number of studies have shown that natural uranium is a reproductive toxicant...." http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0748233701th111oa (U.S. Navy Toxicology Detachment work)
* Durakovic A. (1999) "Medical effects of internal contamination with uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, vol. 40, pp. 49-66. Abstract: "well documented evidence of reproductive and developmental toxicity...." http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Medical-Effects-Mar99.htm (former U.S. Veterans Administration M.D. work)
* Domingo, J.L. (2001) "Reproductive and developmental toxicity of natural and depleted uranium: a review," Reproductive Toxicology, vol. 15, pp. 603-9. Abstract: "Decreased fertility, embryo/fetal toxicity including teratogenicity, and reduced growth of the offspring have been observed following uranium exposure at different gestation periods." http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0890-6238(01)00181-2
* Miller, A.C., et al. (2003) "Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle decay," Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, vol. 91, pp. 246-252. Abstract: chemical generation of hydroxyl radicals by depleted uranium in vitro exceeds radiolytic generation by one million-fold (U.S. Army work)
* Horan, P., et al. (2002) "The quantitative analysis of depleted uranium isotopes in British, Canadian, and U.S. Gulf War veterans." Military Medicine 167(8) pp. 620-7. Summary: depleted uranium was in the urine of 14 of 27 veterans complaining of Gulf War illness. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12188230
* Schröder, H., et al. (2003) "Chromosome aberration analysis in peripheral lymphocytes of Gulf war and Balkans war veterans," Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol. 103, pp. 211-220. Abstract: "there was a statistically significant increase in the frequency of dicentric and centric ring chromosomes in the veterans. group" http://www.cerrie.org/committee_papers/INFO_9-H.pdf (see also this report by the "Conspiracy Test" series -- http://vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfAUG07/nf082207-1.htm -- showing the same results.)
* Kang H., et al. (2001) "Pregnancy outcomes among U.S. Gulf War veterans: a population-based survey of 30,000 veterans." Annals of Epidemiology, vol. 11, pp. 504-11. Abstract: "Both men and women deployed to the Gulf theater reported significant excesses of birth defects among their liveborn infants. These excess rates also extended to the subset of 'moderate to severe' birth defects" http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/PIIS1047279701002459/abstract See also page 10 of http://www1.va.gov/gulfwar/docs/GulfWarNov03.pdf (U.S. Veterans Administration work)
* Doyle, P., et al. (2004) "Miscarriage, stillbirth and congenital malformation in the offspring of UK veterans of the first Gulf war" International Journal of Epidemiology 33(1) pp. 74-86. Abstract: "Male Gulf war veterans reported a higher proportion of offspring with any type of malformation than the comparison cohort (OR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.3, 1.7)." http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/33/1/74
* Al-Sadoon, et al. (1999) "Depleted uranium and health of people in Basrah: epidemilogical evidence." Medical Journal of Basrah University 17(1-2) http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/Depleted%20Uranium_bestanden/DEPLETED%20URANIUM-2-%20INCIDENCE.htm Summary: birth defects in Basrans took off about the same time that they did in U.S. and U.K. troops.
* Fathallah, Z.F. (2007) "Effects of socioeconomic factors on the incidence and pattern of oro-facial cleft." Basrah Journal of Surgery, March, 13, 2007 Excerpt: "in Basrah the ncrease in incidence within a short time can not be explained by just increase of world wide incidence, but rather increase infiltration of harmful environmental factors, especially DU" http://www.basmedcol.com/effects%20of%20socioeconomic.pdf
* Miller, A.C., et al. (2007) "A review of depleted uranium biological effects: in vitro and in vivo studies." Review of Environmental Health 22(1) pp. 75-89. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17508699 Abstract: "studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects" (U.S. Army work)
The UN General Assembly agendized another look at DU because of this problem with a WHO report saying it was harmless: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/international/uranium_20061101.shtml
I have a great deal more peer-reviewed sources on this topic, and I greatly enjoy discussing it. I am not affiliated with any anti-DU group but I have filed three petitions on the subject with the NRC in 2005-2007, one of which is still in process.
James Salsman