TAB H – UK Royal Society Report: "The Health Hazards of Depleted Uranium Munitions, Part 1" ^[86]

Summary. On May 22, 2001, the United Kingdom's Royal Society released the most recent research report on depleted uranium (DU). Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences. The report estimates the typical DU exposure levels on the battlefield over a wide range of scenarios, as well as the worst-case exposure scenarios. This report considers potential health risks from radiation. A later report will consider toxicological risks and environmental impacts.

• Except in extreme circumstances, any extra risks of developing fatal cancers as a result of radiation from internal exposure to DU arising from battlefield conditions are likely to be so small that they would not be detectable above the general risk of dying from cancer over a normal lifetime.
• The greatest exposures will apply only to a very small fraction of the soldiers in a theater of war—for example, those who survive in a vehicle struck by a DU penetrator. Assuming the most unfavorable conditions in such a circumstance, the lifetime risk of death by lung cancer is unlikely to exceed twice that in the general population.
• Any extra risks of death from leukemia or other cancers from DU exposure are estimated to be substantially lower than the risks of death from lung cancer. In all likely exposure scenarios, the extra lifetime risks of fatal leukemia are too small to be observable.
• Even if the estimates of risk are one hundred times too low, it is unlikely that any excess of fatal cancer would be detected within a group of 10,000 soldiers followed over 50 years.
• Further research and experimentation are needed to resolve uncertainties associated with internal DU exposure.

Recommendations. The report identified a number of areas where further research is necessary, and a number of other actions that would help in assessing the hazards that may result from the use of DU. Most of these arise as a consequence of the scarcity of good experimental data on the amounts of DU that may be inhaled within and close to tanks struck by a DU penetrator, and the size distribution and properties of the DU particles within aerosols, and the almost complete lack of any measurements of DU in urine samples taken soon after exposure to a DU aerosol.

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