HW 31: Depleted Uranium

As I read about depleted uranium in Baghdad Burning I was speechless as to what it was and what it did to people. I have never heard of depleted uranium but Riverbend says that it is a household term in most Iraqi homes. It has damaged the environment and lead to higher cancer rates in Iraq. Depleted uranium poisoning has awful side effects which Riverbend reminisces about. She remembers babies being born with one eye, three legs, or no face at all (Riverbend, 47). How incredibly awful. After reading a brief description by Riverbend and how it has affected her and her people I decided to look up more information on it. Depleted uranium, commonly known as DU is “uranium remaining after removal of the isotope uranium-235 (wikipedia.com). It is a waste product that is weakly radioactive. It is often used in the military for defensive armor plate and other applications. The use for it in ammunition is controversial because of its harmful affect on the environment (wikipedia.com). At the end of the wikipedia article it has a little blurb about its affect on humans. University of Massachusetts and Tufts University concluded that anyone exposed to DU would increase the risk of birth defects in their children (wikipedia.com), which is what Riverbend so disgustedly writes about in her blog. Here is a link to wikipedia for more information on depleted uranium: http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.


Works Cited
Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. New York: The Feminist Press, 2005.

Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 2007. Wikimedia Foundation. 7 Nov. 2007. .