The Arizona Sun has a
story about an important study that makes the point that the heavy metal aspect of uranium is as hazardous as its radioactivity. </long link>
Depleted uranium might be more dangerous than thought, a Northern Arizona University professor and her student researchers have discovered.
It is well-documented that uranium's radioactivity can damage DNA.
But Diane Stearns, associate professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry, said she and her students have learned uranium can also damage mammalian DNA as a heavy metal, independent of its radioactive properties.
Read more....
For years, people have been shouting out the radioactive dangers of depleted uranium, as well as of the decades-old unstabilized mine tailings that still exist in the uranium mining areas of the Western US and other places in the world. Although the
Department of Defense(DOD) and
other governmental Departments have trotted out their own experts who have tried to mute these claims, the evidence presented by the Northern Arizona University scientists makes the radioactivity-health danger debate moot for now.
It is the heavy metal (sorry fellow rockers-gotta use the term) effect that erases any claim of harmlessness of exposed uranium mine tailings or the use of depleted uranium in weaponry:
Stearns and her team are the first to show that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations. When uranium attaches to DNA, the genetic code in the cells of living organisms, it can change that code. As a result, the DNA can make the wrong protein or wrong amounts of protein, which affects how the cells grow. Some of these cells can grow to become cancer.
The Daily Sun article sources its story via direct communication with NAU scientists and primary publications:
Other heavy metals are known to bind to DNA, but Stearns and her colleagues are the first to identify this trait with uranium. Their results were published in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis and presented at the Society of Toxicology Conference.
The people facing the reality of uranium and its hazards have had a hard time making their voices heard in the nuclear debates. Emotional pleas seems to carry little weight these days in the big policy discussions. Now, though, there is another fundamental point in the non-nuke argument.
Their findings have far-reaching implications for people living near abandoned mine tailings in the Four Corners area of the Southwest and for war-torn countries and the military, which uses depleted uranium for anti-tank weapons, tank armor and ammunition rounds.
Slam dunk. Clearly, I am a non-nuker. And today, I'm even more confident in being right about it. Please support renewable technologies and conservation. Let's force policies that bring competent people onboard to confront the energy problem, and compel capital to go that way. That would also mean supporting the Kos Energize America Movement. As individuals and as communities, let's do what so many of today's leaders cannot seem to do: Let's think outside of the nightmare.