Editing Depleted uranium (section)

===Gulf War syndrome and soldier complaints===
[[File:GWI DU map.svg|right|thumb|upright=1.6|The approximate area and major clashes in which DU bullets and rounds were used in the [[Gulf War]]]]
[[File:Basrah birth defects.svg|thumb|right|Birth defect statistics in [[Basra]], Iraq.<ref name=Hindin/><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Al-Sabbak | first1=M. | last2=Sadik Ali | first2=S. | last3=Savabi | first3=O. | last4=Savabi | first4=G. | last5=Dastgiri | first5=S. | last6=Savabieasfahani | first6=M. | title=Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities | journal=Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology| volume=89 | issue=5 | date=2012| doi=10.1007/s00128-012-0817-2 | pages=937–944| pmid=22983726 | pmc=3464374 | bibcode=2012BuECT..89..937A | s2cid=10774986 }}</ref>]]
{{Main|Gulf War syndrome}}

Since 1991, the year the [[Gulf War]] ended, veterans and their families voiced concern about subsequent health problems.<ref name=Murphy1999/><ref name="Dr. Doug Rokke">{{cite journal |title=Dr. Doug Rokke Address on Depleted Uranium|journal=True Democracy|date= 2002|volume= 2|issue =2|url=https://ratical.org/radiation/DU/DRonDU2000.html |author=Rokke, Doug }}</ref> In 1999, an assessment of the first 1,000 veterans involved in the [[Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Defence]]'s Gulf War medical assessment programme found "no evidence" of a single illness, physical or mental, that would explain the pattern of symptoms observed in the group.<ref name=Coker/><ref name=Murphy1999/> In 1999, [[MEDACT]] petitioned for the [[World Health Organization|WHO]] to conduct an investigation into illnesses in veterans and Iraqi civilians.<ref name=Stott/> A major 2006 review of peer-reviewed literature by a US [[Institute of Medicine]] (IOM) committee concluded that, "[b]ecause the symptoms vary greatly among individuals", they do not point to a syndrome unique to Gulf War veterans, though their report conceded that the lack of objective pre-deployment health data meant definitive conclusions were effectively impossible.<ref group=notes name = "Charatan 2006 a">{{Harvnb|Charatan|2006}}. The quote is of [[Lynn Goldman]], who chaired the IOM committee that carried out the review.</ref><ref name=Iversen/>

[[Simon Wessely]] praised the IOM's review, and noted that, despite its central conclusion that no novel syndrome existed, its other findings made it "equally clear that service in the Gulf war<!--not a typo; the article uses a lower case 'w'--> did aversely affect health in some personnel".<ref group=notes name = "Charatan 2006 b">{{Harvnb|Charatan|2006}}. The quote is of Wessely himself.</ref> Aside from the lack of baseline data to guide analysis of the veterans' postwar health, because no detailed health screening was carried out when the veterans entered service, another major stumbling block with some studies, like the thousand-veteran one, is that the subjects are self-selected, rather than a random sample, making general conclusions impossible.<ref name=Coker/><ref name=Murphy1999/>

Increased rates of [[immune system]] disorders and other wide-ranging symptoms, including chronic pain, fatigue and memory loss, have been reported in over one quarter of combat veterans of the 1991 [[Gulf War]].<ref>U.S. Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses (2004) [http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/ReportandRecommendations_2004.pdf "Scientific Progress in Understanding Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses: Report and Recommendations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231090902/http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/ReportandRecommendations_2004.pdf|date=31 December 2006}}.</ref> Combustion products<ref name=Murphy2009/> from depleted uranium munitions are being considered{{needs update|date=August 2015}} as one of the potential causes by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, as DU was used in 30&nbsp;mm and 25&nbsp;mm cannon rounds on a large scale for the first time in the Gulf War. Veterans of the conflicts in the [[Persian Gulf]], Bosnia and Kosovo have been found to have up to 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes.<ref name=Arfsten/><ref>{{Cite news |author1=Fleming, N. |author2=Townsend, M. |date=11 August 2002 |title=Gulf veteran babies 'risk deformities' |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/aug/11/uk.politicalnews |access-date=29 August 2013}}</ref> Serum-soluble genotoxic teratogens produce [[congenital disorder]]s, and in white blood cells causes immune system damage.<ref name=Schroder/>

A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: "In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."<ref name=Hindin/> A 2001 study of 15,000 February 1991 U.S. Gulf War combat veterans and 15,000 control veterans found that the Gulf War veterans were 1.8 (fathers) to 2.8 (mothers) times as likely to have children with birth defects.<ref name=Kang/> After examination of children's medical records two years later, the birth defect rate increased by more than 20%:

{{Quote| Dr. Kang found that male Gulf War veterans reported having infants with likely birth defects at twice the rate of non-veterans. Furthermore, female Gulf War veterans were almost three times more likely to report children with birth defects than their non-Gulf counterparts. The numbers changed somewhat with medical records verification. However, Dr. Kang and his colleagues concluded that the risk of birth defects in children of deployed male veterans still was about 2.2 times that of non-deployed veterans.<ref>{{cite journal|author= Department of Veterans Affairs |year = 2003|title = Q's & A's – New Information Regarding Birth Defects|url = http://www1.va.gov/gulfwar/docs/GulfWarNov03.pdf|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060929095251/http://www1.va.gov/gulfwar/docs/GulfWarNov03.pdf|archive-date = 2006-09-29|journal = Gulf War Review|volume = 12|issue = 1| page = 10}}</ref> }}

In early 2004, the UK Pensions Appeal Tribunal Service attributed birth defect claims from a February 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to depleted uranium poisoning.<ref name=scot1>{{cite news |title = Gulf soldier wins pension fight |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3456433.stm |date = 2 February 2004 |work= BBC News }}</ref><ref name="scot2">{{cite news |last1=Sample |first1=Ian |last2=Fleming |first2=Nic |date=17 April 2003 |title=When the dust settles |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/apr/17/science.highereducation1 |access-date=29 August 2013 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Looking at the risk of children of UK Gulf War veterans suffering genetic diseases such as [[congenital malformations]], commonly called "birth defects", one study found that the overall risk of any malformation was 50% higher in Gulf War veterans as compared to other veterans.<ref name=Doyle/>
[[File:DoD Environmental Uranium Gulf.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Excerpt from a 1998 evaluation of environmental exposure to depleted uranium in the Persian Gulf by the US Department of Defense]]
The U.S. Army has commissioned ongoing research into potential risks of depleted uranium and other projectile weapon materials like tungsten, which the U.S. Navy has used in place of DU since 1993. Studies by the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute conclude that moderate exposures to either depleted uranium or uranium present a significant [[toxicology|toxicological]] threat.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=McClain, D. E. |author2=Miller, A. C. |author3=Kalinich, J. F. |url=http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/pdf/mcclain_NATO_2005.pdf |title=Status of Health Concerns about Military Use of Depleted Uranium and Surrogate Metals in Armor-Penetrating Munitions |publisher=Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute |date=June 2005 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207021921/http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/pdf/mcclain_NATO_2005.pdf |archive-date=7 February 2012 }}</ref>

In 2003, Professor Brian Spratt FRS, chairman of the [[Royal Society]]'s working group on depleted uranium, said: "The question of who carries out the initial monitoring and clean-up is a political rather than scientific question," and "[[Multinational force in Iraq|the coalition]] needs to acknowledge that depleted uranium is a potential hazard and make in-roads into tackling it by being open about where and how much depleted uranium has been deployed."<ref name="gaurdian2003" />

A 2008 review of all relevant articles appearing in the peer-reviewed journals on [[MEDLINE]] through to the end of 2007, including multiple cohort studies of veterans, found no consistent evidence of excess risks of [[neoplasms]] that could have some link to DU, and that "[t]he overall incidence of cancers is not increased in the cohort studies of Gulf war and Balkans veterans".<ref name=Lagorio/>

One particular subgroup of veterans that may be at higher risk comprises those who have internally retained fragments of DU from shrapnel wounds. A laboratory study on rats produced by the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute showed that, after a study period of 6 months, rats treated with depleted uranium coming from implanted pellets, comparable to the average levels in the urine of [[Desert Storm]] veterans with retained DU fragments, had developed a significant tendency to lose weight with respect to the control group.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pellmar |first1=T. C. |url=http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/pdf/pellmar.pdf |title=Toxicological Evaluation of Depleted Uranium in Rats: Six Month Evaluation Point |last2=Hogan |first2=J. B. |last3=Benson |first3=K. A. |last4=Landauer |first4=M. R. |date=February 1998 |publisher=Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute |id=AFRRI Special Publication 98-1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207021927/http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/pdf/pellmar.pdf |archive-date=7 February 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Substantial amounts of uranium were accumulating in their [[Human brain|brains]] and [[central nervous system]]s, and showed a significant reduction of [[neurone|neuronal]] activity in the [[hippocampus]] in response to external stimuli. The conclusions of the study show that brain damage from chronic uranium intoxication is possible at lower doses than previously thought. Results from computer-based neurocognitive tests performed in 1997 showed an association between uranium in the urine and "problematic performance on automated tests assessing performance efficiency and accuracy."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bordujenko|first= A.|date=September 2002|url= http://www.defence.gov.au/health/infocentre/journals/ADFHJ_sep02/ADFHealth_3_2_50-57.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.defence.gov.au/health/infocentre/journals/ADFHJ_sep02/ADFHealth_3_2_50-57.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live | title=Military medical aspects of depleted uranium munitions|journal=ADF Health|volume = 3}}</ref>

A 2021 report concluded that uranium from exploding munitions did not lead to Gulf War illness (GWI) in veterans deployed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The study found no differences in secretion of uranium isotopic ratios from those meeting the standard-case definitions of GWI and control veterans without GWI. The researchers say that the most likely remaining causes for GWI are widespread low-level exposure to sarin nerve gas released by the destruction of Iraqi chemical weapons storage facilities in January 1991. This was possibly compounded by the use of anti-nerve agent medications and the use of pesticides to prevent insect-borne diseases in coalition forces.<ref name="SciTechDaily 2021">{{cite web | title=New Research Shows Gulf War Illness Not Caused by Depleted Uranium From Munitions | website=SciTechDaily | date=18 February 2021 | url=https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-shows-gulf-war-illness-not-caused-by-depleted-uranium-from-munitions/ | access-date=19 February 2021}}</ref>