Urinary uranium analysis results on Gulf war or Balkans conflict veterans

• Published in: Pathologie biologie (Paris) 2008-03, Vol.56 (2), p.77
• Main Authors: Cazoulat, A, Lecompte, Y, Bohand, S, Castagnet, X, Laroche, P
• Format: Article
• Language: eng ; fre
• Subjects: Europe, Eastern; Gulf War; Humans; Uranium - urine; Veterans - statistics & numerical data
• ISSN: 0369-8114
• DOI: 10.1016/j.patbio.2007.09.030

During the 1991 Gulf War, the 1995 Bosnia conflict and the 1999 Kosovo conflict, munitions containing depleted uranium (DU) have been employed by the coalition forces. Altough the radioactivity of this metal is about 40-50% lower than that of natural uranium, and that health concerns are based primarily on the metal's kidney toxicity, DU has been quoted among the causes of the different pathologies developped by some soldiers a few time after they went back home. In order to evaluate the potential relation between a DU exposition and some of the pathologies described, more than 200 urine uranium analysises have been done between 1999 and 2003 by the laboratory of the french Army radioprotection service. The method used is the standard method for determining uranium in excretion of nuclear workers: a chemical uranium isotopes separation (including 234, 235+236 and 238) followed by an alpha ray spectrometry. All results were negative and quite all of the detection limits were lower than the ones recommanded by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (10mBq/L per isotope). The summary is that none of the available analysises for uranium excreted in urine suggests that any subjects examined had incorpored DU that could explain pathologies appeared after the conflicts.