|
|
|
Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK.
Chris Busby Saoirse Morgan
Occasional Paper 2006/1 January 2006 Abersytwyth: Green Audit Introduction Depleted Uranium weapons have been employed in battlefields at least since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Since then, and since their further use in the Balkans in the late 1990s and possibly Afghanistan in 2002, there have been arguments about the health effects of exposure to the uranium oxide aerosols which are produced when the uranium burns in air upon impact. On the one hand, conventional assessments based on the radiological arguments of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) have led to most official agencies and government departments to state that uranium exposure at the levels likely to occur after its use in battle is too low for any significant or measurable health effect. But further, it is argued that populations are not even exposed: contamination of the environment is localised to the positions where the strikes occurred. On the basis of these two arguments, the many reports of widespread ill health in areas where Depleted Uranium weapons have been used have been discounted by such authorities and thus the military have been absolved thereby of having used a weapon of indiscriminate effect. This is an important ethical, if not legal point since such use is similar to the use of chemical or biological weapons and is banned by the Geneva Convention. Regarding the radiological issue, the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) an independent radiation risk agency based in Brussels has published a risk model which draws attention to the inadequacy of the ICRP radiation risk models for dealing with the health consequences on internal radionuclides (ECRR2003). The concerns of ECRR have recently been echoed by the French IRSN agency who have agreed that the ECRR questions over the adequacy of the ICRP model for internal exposures to e.g. uranium are valid. (IRSN2005). The errors in the ICRP model, which is based on external irradiation following an acute large dose, are particularly important when considering internal radioactive particles and DNA seeking isotopes. The uranium weapons aerosols are in both these categories since the particles have mean diameters below 1 micrometer and are respirable and when translocated to the tissue from the lungs via the lymphatic circulation can cause high uranium ion concentrations in cells. Uranium as uranyl ion UO2++ has enormous affinity for DNA phosphate. The affinity constant is about 1010, (Nielsen 1992) and uranium stains have been used for DNA imaging in electron microscopy since the 1960s (Zobel et al 1961, Huxley and Zubay 1961). Recently, one of us has pointed out that the uranium may focus external natural background radiation on the DNA and enhance its radiological effect. (Busby 2005, Busby 2005b). There is considerable evidence that uranium is genotoxic and carcinogenic and is associated with a whole range of harmful health effects. However, this brings us to the second main point made about uranium weapons, that of the particle dispersion and possible exposure of those who are at some distance from the impact point, including non-combatants. The environmental dispersion of uranium particles after any battlefield use is a matter of considerable interest. However, little attempt has been made by any official agencies to determine this dispersion of uranium aerosols; rather it has merely been stated that the material remains near the site of impact and cannot contaminate those who are further than some tens of metres from this point. Since the 1990s, measurements of uranium in high volume air sampling filters have been routinely made by the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, UK. The requirement to measure uranium and also plutonium followed a public enquiry in the early 1990s into releases of these substances to the local environment and the concerns of local people following the discovery of significant excess childhood leukaemia in the area around the plant (for a discussion and the main papers see Beral et al 1990). AWE made environmental measurements of radioactive contamination both on and offsite at various intervals. By 2000 they were routinely (generally at two week intervals) measuring alpha and beta activity in cloths (passive airshades) and also uranium and plutonium in high volume air samplers. These measurements were made onsite and offsite at various locations shown on the map in Fig 1 and were intended to monitor the releases of uranium from the AWE site. The offsite control locations were some considerable distance from the plant. Thus comparison of levels of radiation at these various sites enables the detection of discharges from the AWE sites. The annual publication of the results of these measurements was discontinued in 1999 but the monitoring was continued, the results apparently being reported to the UK Environment Agency. It occurred to us to examine these data for any evidence of uranium from the Gulf War 2 which began in March 2003. The question we wish to address is whether uranium aerosols from the bombing of Iraq in March 2003 became sufficiently environmentally dispersed to reach Europe. In 2004 we applied to AWE for access to these data but the data were not released to us. In January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) became UK law. A formal application under the FOI to AWE for results from 2000 to 2004 resulted in the release of the data on paper but curiously the period covering Gulf War 2, that is, early 2003 was the only section missing. Reapplication resulted in a long wait, and then eventually we received these data from the Defence Procurement Agency in Bristol, and not from AWE. We report here the trend in uranium in high volume air samples on site and near the AWE Aldermaston as shown by these data.
Method Sampling at AWE was reported for various control sites, shown on the map in Fig 1 and listed in Table 1. Not all sites were continuously operating over the whole period we are interested in and so we decided to examine the trends in Hannington, Thatcham, Silchester and Reading, four sites for which the monitoring results were most continuous. The distance in kilometers from AWE for each of these sites is given in Table 1. We reduced the HVAS Uranium in air data to nBq/m3 and examined the trends by plotting the data obtained every two weeks from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2003 for each of the four sampling sites and also for the onsite HVAS detectors. We also made statistical tests on the main excursions from the mean levels, particularly the excursion associated with the period at the start of the Gulf War 2.
Table 1 Approximate distance and direction of the offsite high volume air samplers (HVAS) from the AWE site
Fig 1 Sampling sites for High Volume Air Samplers in the vicinity of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston in the 1997 report.
Results The Trend in uranium in air over the whole period is shown in Fig 2 where all the samplers are separately plotted. In Fig 3 we show the period immediately before and after the Gulf War 2 ‘Shock and Awe’ US bombing of Iraq which began on 19th March 2003. The excursion shown in uranium in the air samplers was statistically significantly different from the mean value and in the case of Reading exceeded the 1000ng/m3 statutory limit above which the Environment Agency has to be informed In Table 2 is given the offsite and onsite levels over a short window either side of the Shock and Awe bombing. Table 3 gives the timeline for the Gulf War 2 bombing. Table 4 shows some statistical data for the results.
Fig 2 Uranium in air (nBq/m3) as shown by HVAS data points (*mostly) at two week intervals from 1998 near the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston at four offsite and four onsite positions, R001, R002, R007 and R009. The two major excursions are labelled Gulf War 2 and Afghan Tora Bora. (* before 2000 measurements were taken at longer intervals).
Fig 3 Uranium in air (nBq/m3) over the period of the US ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign of bombing as shown by HVAS data points near the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston at four offsite and four onsite positions, R001, R002, R007 and R009. Legend colours as for the positions in Fig 2.
Table 2. Mean uranium in air in offsite and separately onsite high volume air samplers near AWE Aldermaston UK over period of the Gulf War 2, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’. The first major bombing was on 19th March. War period is right justified in column 1.
Table 3 Gulf War 2 Timeline
Table 4 Statistical data for the four offsite AWE high volume air sampler results (nBq/m3). Period 29/06/00 to 04/12/ 03 representing 89 two-week periods of which three, 13/13/13 to 24/04/03 are those designated ‘war’ and 86 were designated ‘not war’ for ANOVA and logistical regression. Means and standard deviations shown.
One way ANOVA gave p<0.000; F>50 for significance tests of differences between all offsite sites individually except Hannington for which p= 0.004. For all offsite sites combined and also for all onsite sites combined p< 0.000 for test of ‘war’ against ‘not war’.
Discussion The increase in uranium in the filters which occurred in the period 13 March to 24th April 2003 was not a chance phenomenon. Inspection of the trend shown in Figs 2 and 3 and of the statistical data also, show that the mean levels over the two years prior to the excession were around 100ng/m3, compared with the 600ng/m3 excession levels. Where could the uranium have come from? Was the increase in uranium due to oxide particles from Gulf War 2? The increases in uranium in the filters occurs in all the filters, and levels are greater offsite than onsite. Thus the event can be assumed to be distinct from any releases from the Atomic Weapons Establishment itself; the increases point to an increase in the whole area of uranium in the air over the period represented by the filters. These increases were in material from the period from 13th March to the 24th April. This is also roughly the period of Gulf War 2, and since it is now universally conceded that a significant amount of uranium weapons were used in the bombing and anti tank warfare, it seems reasonable to connect the uranium increases in the filters with the production of uranium oxide aerosols in Iraq. The first increase was seen in the filter which was removed and measured on 27th March, 9 days after the initiation of the bombing on 19th March. This would firstly require that there was an airflow from Iraq to England in the period 19th to 27th. In addition to this, we should have to agree that the particles could be carried by this airflow, although in a sense, the evidence from the present analysis is implicit in the results; i.e. the increases found clearly demonstrate that the uranium particles are capable of long distance travel. As we stated in the introduction, there is considerable disagreement about the dispersion of uranium weapons aerosols following their production on the battlefield. On the one hand, the military and official agencies claim that the particles do not travel far from the site of impact, and that contamination is localised to within a few tens of metres of the impact site. The UK Royal Society Report on Depleted Uranium stated that atmospheric transport of DU occurs over relatively short distances (tens of metres) following the impact of armour piercing projectiles. Although increases in Uranium levels were reported in Hungary during the use of DU in Kosovo, the Royal Society argue that the uranium was from increases in the atmospheric dust loading of natural uranium due to bombing, and not DU from the weapons (Royal Society, 2002). The United Nations Environment teams who visited the Balkans (UNEP) also maintain that DU remains near the site of its use, and made many environmental measurements in Kosovo (UNEP2001). However Busby made measurements of DU in Kosovo and was able to show that DU dust existed in rainwater puddles having been rained out some 9 months after the attacks which produced it, and measurements subsequently made by UNEP in Bosnia and Montenegro showed the existence of DU particles in air (see Busby 2003). Priest visited Kosovo and Bosnia for the BBC and made urine measurements of members of the public in the areas where DU was used. Using mass spectrometry, he found significant DU in all those who were tested, including his own BBC cameraman (Priest 2003). Dietz reported in 1991 that he had been able to show in the 1980s that DU from the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, NY with diameters of about 4 microns were able to travel some 26 miles from the plant. The mean aerodynamic diameter of battlefield DU was assumed by the Royal Society to be between 1 and 5 microns. However, measurements made by the US Military in the late 1980s using sophisticated filter systems showed that the main particle diameters were much smaller than this. Table 5 gives the diameters of DU particles found in an analysis by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory in a study in 1984, (Glissmeyer et al 1985). The variation in the reported measurements of DU particle diameters may be due to the difficulty of measuring the diameters of ultrafine particles.
Table 5. Approximate aerodynamic equivalent particle size distribution for DU particles obtained from outdoor test firings ( Glissmeyer, Mishima and Bamberger, 1985)
Thus it is clear that just under half the total mass of the uranium oxide consists of particles smaller than the wavelength of visible light, particles whose behaviour may be taken to approximate to that of a gas. Therefore the dispersion of such material may be expected to be similar to the dispersion of radioactive gases from nuclear accidents like the Chernobyl accident. It is merely a question of examining airflow patterns to see if air from Iraq could have reached the UK and Europe.
The airflow from Iraq to Europe at the time. The meteorological conditions at the time of the initial bombing were anomalous, and such that there was probably airflow from Iraq to Europe. Indeed in February 2003 and later in April this airflow carried Saharan desert sand all the way to the UK (Burt 2003, Simons 2003) Over most of the period, including that of the Gulf War, there was a southerly flow of air generated from complex Atlantic lows, with a persistent highs over Europe. Figs 4, 5 and 6 show the synoptic conditions from Europe, north Africa and the Atlantic on the 19-22nd March and Fig 7 shows the atmospheric pressure and geopotential situation on the 19th March when the first attacks occurred. It is clear from these that there is a significant potential airflow from Africa to Europe. Thus at minimum, the atmospheric conditions do not oppose the conclusion that the uranium at Aldermaston was from the Iraq bombing. A calculation of the origin of air arriving at Reading on 27th March kindly made by Martin Doyle of the University of East Anglia (2006) show the potential source regions of air as being northwest European with North African sources for the 1K and 5K arrival heights. From the lengths of these trajectories Doyle concedes that it is possible that material sourced in places like Iraq could arrive in the UK within 7 days, although he points out that trajectories between the Middle East and the UK are uncommon. Nevertheless, since the uranium is clearly there, the empirical evidence is that sufficient air from Iraq arrived in Europe to cause increased levels in the filters.
Fig 4 Synoptic Chart for Atlantic/Europe 19th March 2003. (Source: Meterological Office, Bracknell; www.wetter-zentrale.de)
Fig 5 Synoptic Chart for Atlantic/Europe 20th March 2003 (Source: Meterological Office, Bracknell; www.wetter-zentrale.de)
Fig 6 Synoptic Chart for Atlantic/Europe 22nd March 2003 (Source: Meterological Office, Bracknell; www.wetter-zentrale.de)
Fig 7 Geopotential and atmospheric pressure chart for Atlantic and Europe showing warm air from Africa penetrating Western Europe (Source www.wetter-zentrale.de)
Exposure of the public to uranium aerosols from the Gulf War 2. Over the period of the excession, the mean offsite level of uranium in air over the six weeks was 650nBq/m3 with peak levels in Reading that exceeded the Environment Agency statutory reporting level of 1000ng/m3 twice. Since the background level could be considered to be 155nBq/m3 we can say that there was an excess of uranium in air of some 500nBq/m3. If this material consisted of uranium oxide particles from the Gulf War bombing the we can first calculate the number of particles of 0.25 mm diameter in a cubic metre of air. The activity of uranium is taken to be 12.5MBq/kg. Thus the mass of 500nBq is about 4 x 10-11g. Taking the density of uranium oxide as 9.8, there are about 48,000 particles of 0.25mm diameter in one cubic metre. Using inhalation volumes from ICRP standard man (23 m3 per day; ICRP 1974) and assuming a 50% outdoor inhalation of the uranium per day, in the six weeks of elevated uranium each person would have inhaled about 23 million particles. These particles would have rapidly transferred through the lungs and into the lymphatic system where they would have access to all tissues. It is not the intention of this paper to spend much time addressing the health effects of uranium particles and other internal exposures. One of us has dealt with this in various places elsewhere (see e.g. Busby 2002, 2003, CERRIE 2004) and there is a considerable literature drawing attention to anomalous mutagenicity associated with exposure to the uranium particles from weapons use (Craft et al. 2004, Kuepker and Kraft 2004) The arguments about the health effects pivot upon the scientific validity of using radiation risk models obtained from studies of external acute high dose irradiation (mainly the Japanese A-Bomb studies) for chronic internal exposures to radioactive substances which produce anisotropic i.e. local doses. In addition, one of us has pointed out elsewhere that uranium will amplify natural background gamma radiation owing to its high atomic number and its ability to convert the gamma radiation into local photoelectrons (Busby 2005, 2005b). Uranium has a very high affinity for DNA (Nielsen et al 1992, Zobel et al 1961, Huxley and Zubay 1961, Constantinescu 1974) and in cells which have internalized a submicron uranium particle, the equilibrium concentration of uranium will be high enough to have saturated the DNA in the cell by binding to phosphate. This focusing of the radiation on the DNA may be the cause of many anomalous mutagenic effects which show themselves in cell cultures (e.g. Miller et al 2002, 2004) in laboratory animals (e.g. Paquet 2005, IRSN 2005) and in the many reports of ill health associated with exposure to uranium (e.g. Craft et al 2005, Zaire et al 1997)
Conclusions The use of battlefield uranium weapons has been classed by some as weapons of indiscriminate effect; as such they would be implicity illegal under various conventions of war. Those who defend or justify their use do so by arguing that the uranium is localized at the point of impact or nearby and that exposure of large populations does not occur. The history of the disclosures of the data in this case supports the idea that AWE were aware that their filters provided evidence of the long range movement of uranium. They were at first reluctant to release any data; it required a Freedom of Information Act request to force them to release the results of the monitoring. But significantly they did not send initially the block of data relating to the Gulf War period, and a second request was necessary. The long wait between this second request, and the appearance of the data, and the fact that the missing data came from a different organization, the Defence Procurement Agency in Bristol, suggests that there was significant attention being paid to the interpretation of the results, and decisions had to be made about what the data would show and its political implications for the military. Despite many pieces of evidence that the uranium aerosols are long lived in the environment and are able to travel considerable distances, this is the first evidence as far as we know, that they are able to travel thousands of miles. The distance traveled from Baghdad to Reading following the wind patterns implicit in the pressure systems at the time is about 2500 miles. Although this transport may be hard to believe at first, the regular desert sand events which occur in the UK should teach us that the planet is not such a large affair, and that with regard to certain long lived atmospheric pollutants, no man is an island. This was a lesson first shown graphically and alarmingly by the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 1960s and the subsequent Strontium-90 in milk, and more recently by the Chernobyl accident. However, like the atmospheric tests, the use of battlefield uranium weapons, especially the new bunker busting bombs which are alleged to have more than 1 ton of uranium in the warhead, are events which are controlled by man: they are not accidents. The results from the AWE filters should teach us that the consequences are not restricted to the areas where they are used. Indeed, on the basis of the results reported here, there would have been a significant exposure to the public in many countries. Uranium is a powerful genotoxic stressor. In view of the many reports of heritable genetic effects in areas where uranium has been used, and in the Gulf veterans, time series analysis of infant mortality and congenital malformation rates in European databases assuming exposures to the foetus or the pre conception parents in mid March 2003 might be worth carrying out. We have applied to ONS in the UK for monthly data but apparently it is not ready yet.
References Beral V, Bobrow M and Roman E (1990) Childhood cancer and nuclear installations. London: British Medical Association Burt Stephen (2003) Dust Fall Events in February 2003. Bulletin No 394, Climatological Observer’s Link Simons Paul (20030 Weather Eye. The Times London, Sat 5th April 2003. Busby C (2002) High Risks at Low Doses. Proceedings of the British Nuclear Energy Society International Conference: Health Effects of Low Level Radiation. Oxford 22-24 September (London:BNES) Busby C (2003) 'Depleted Science: Health Consequences and Mechanisms of exposure to fallout from Depleted Uranium weapons. In 'The Trojan Horses of Nuclear War; Proceedings of International Conference, Hamburg Oct 16th 2003 eds- Marion Kuepker and Dave Kraft Hamburg: GAAA; Evanston Ill: NEIS Busby C (2005) 'Depleted Uranium weapons, metal particles and radiation dose. Considerations of radiation exposure in tissue containing small dense particles of chemical elements of high atomic number as a consequence of secondary radiation fields resulting from scattering and photoelectron excitation.' European J. Biol and Bioelectr. 1(1) 82-93 Busby C (2005b) ‘Does Uranium Contamination amplify natural background radiation dose to DNA? European J. Biol and Bioelectr.' 1(2) 120-131 CERRIE Minority Report (2004) Minority Report of the Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters. (Aberystwyth: Sosiumi Press) CERRIE Report (2004) Report of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters.' (Chilton :NRPB) Craft ES, Abu-Quare AW, Flaherty MM, Garofolo MC, Rincavage H and Abou-Donia MB (2004) Depleted and Natural Uranium: Chemistry and Toxicological Effects' Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health B 7 297-317. Constantinescu DG (1974) Metachromasia through uranyl ions: a procedure for identifying the nucleic acids and nucleotides. Anal. Biochem. 62 584-587 Deitz. Leonard A (1991) Uranium Health Hazard. Letter Chem Eng News Deitz. Leonard A (1980) CHEM-4-LAD Investigation of excess alpha activity in recent air filter collections and other environmental samples, Jan 24 1980 Technical Report , Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Schenectady, NY 12301. Doyle Martin (2006) personal communication. ECRR2003 (2003) 2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk. The health effects of exposure to low doses of ionising radiation for radiation protection purposes. (Aberystwyth: Green Audit) Glissmeyer JA and Mishima J (1979) Characterisation of airborne uranium from test firing of XM774 ammunition. Pacific Nortwest Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352; US Army Document PNL-2944 Glissmeyer JA, Mishima J, Bamberger JA (1985) Prototype Firing Range Air Cleaning System Proceedings of the 18th DOE Nuclear Airborne Waste Management and Air Cleaning Conference, Baltimore Maryland12-16 Aug 1984. Ed- First, Melvin CONF 840806 IRSN (2005) Les consequences sanitaires des contaminations internes chroniques par les radionucleides. Avis sur le rapport CERI ‘Etudes des effets sanitaires de l’exposition aux faibles doses de radiations ionisantes a des fins de radioprotection’.DRPH 22005/20 Institut de Radioprotection at de Surete Nucliare. Fontenay aux Roses: IRSN Kuepker M and Kraft D-eds. (2004) The Trojan Horses of Nuclear War; Proceedings of World Uranium Weapons Conference 2003 Hamburg Oct 16-19. Huxley HE and Zubay G (1961) Preferential staining of nucleic acid containing structures for electron microscopy.' Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology 11(2) 273 ICRP 23 (1975) ICRP Reference Man. Pergamon Press: Oxford Royal Society (2001) The Health Hazards of Depleted Uranium Munitions Part 1. Policy Document 6/01 London: Royal Society. Royal Society (2001) The Health Hazards of Depleted Uranium Munitions Part 2. Policy Document 5/02 London: Royal Society. Nielsen PE, Hiort C, Soennischsen SO,, Buchardt O, Dahl O and Norden B (1992) DNA binding and photocleavage by Uranyl VI salts. J.Am.Chem. Soc 114 4967-4975 Miller AC Brooks K, Smith J and Page N(2004) Effect of military relevant heavy metal, depleted uranium and heavy m,etal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells. Molecular and cellular biochemistry 255 (12) 247-5 Miller AC, Xu J, Stewart M, Brooks K, Hodge S, Shi L, Page N, McLain D (2002 Observation of radiation specific damage in human cells exposed to depleted uranium: dicentric frequency and neoplastic transformation as endpoints. Radiation Protection Dosimetry 99 (14) 275-8 Miller AC, Stewart M, Brooks K, Shi L, Page N (2002) Depleted uranium catalysed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle decay. Journal of inorganic biochemistry 91 (1) 246-52 Zaire R, Notter M and Thiel E (1997) Unexpected rates of chromosome instabilities and alteration of hormone levels in Namibian Uranium Miners. Radiation Research 147 (5) 579-584 Zobel CR and Beer M (1961) Electron Stains: Chemical studies on the interaction of DNA with Uranyl Salts J. Biophys. Biochem. Cytol. 10 336-346
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
