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Christopher Busby. Uranium weapons being employed in Ukraine have significantly increased Uranium levels in the air in the UK, 14 March 2023, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square [https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2681787/v1]
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License
Abstract
Data covering the period November 2017 to November 2022 was obtained from the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston to find if there was an increase in Uranium associated with the Ukraine war. Results from 9 High Volume Air Samplers deployed onsite and offsite by AWE showed that there were significantly increased levels of Uranium in all 9 HVAS samplers beginning in February 2022 when the war began. The result has significant public health implications for the UK and Europe.
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Results
Mean general levels of Uranium in all the filters both offsite and onsite increased immediately following the start of the Ukraine war. They increased by a factor of around than 2 over this period in all the 9 filters, details in Table 1. This points to a global increase in Uranium following the start of the Ukraine war. A time series plot of the individual data points is given in Fig. 1. A small number of outliers have been omitted mainly for Silchester only which showed an unusual increase in Uranium for a short period in the Summer of 2021, and for which there was no explanation. Outliers were removed if there was no supporting increase in other filters at the time, thus pointing to some local phenomenon e.g. dust from an excavation.
The increased levels of Uranium in the air began soon as the Ukraine war began (at data point 55) and are clear from the plot of the Uranium levels in the offsite air filters for Silchester, Reading, Aldermaston, Tadley and Burghfield shown in Fig. 1.
A number of measurements exceeded the Environment Agency Reporting threshold of 1000nBq/m3 during the war period.
| Silchester (65) | 941(544) | 231 (159) | 4.07 |
| Reading (65) | 552 (409) | 289 (163) | 1.9 |
| Tadley (65) | 400 (203) | 197 (121) | 2.0 |
| Aldermaston (65) | 395 (365) | 294 (187) | 1.34 |
| Burghfield (65) | 837 (938) | 359 (225) | 2.33 |
| 006H (130) | 290 (162) | 226 (161) | 1.28 |
| 009H | 393 (216) | 246 (166) | 1.6 |
| 011H | 468 (200) | 343 (200) | 1.36 |
| 020H | 527 (273) | 330 (213) | 1.6 |
| Mean offsite sites | 625 | 274 | 2.3 |
| Mean difference | 351 |
Discussion
The results show clearly that Uranium from the Ukraine war arrived in the air in England (and therefore also in Europe) as soon as the war began.
On the basis of a mean increase in uranium in air of about 500nBq/m3 a model employing respiration data on standard man may be used to calculate that each person in the area inhaled some 23 million uranium particles of diameter 0.25 microns. In 2006 we suggested that health data, particularly birth data be examined for possible effects from the Iraq War exposures. Studies in Iraq after the 2nd Gulf War identified significant and serious health effects ranging from birth defects to cancer associated with exposure to Uranium [5, 6, 7, 8].
There are major scientific questions over the risk models used to assess the health effects of uranium particle exposure from weapons use [9, 10].
There is evidence of ill health in many of those exposed to uranium particles from Gulf veterans to the population of Iraq. A legal case in the UK in made history in 2010 when a coroner’s jury found that the death from colon cancer of a Gulf War veteran had been caused by exposure to DU particles [11]. The issue of the validity of the current radiation risk model for internal exposures has been undermined recently [9, 10].
It is of interest that the general levels of Uranium in the AWE filters have increased since the period studied in 2006 to examine the effects of the 2nd Gulf War. The reason for this is unknown. Figure 2 is taken from Busby and Morgan 2006. It is clear by comparing Figs. 1 and Fig. 2 that the increase in Uranium in air seen in the present study is greater than that seen in the 2006 study of the Iraq particles. Of course, the Ukraine is closer to Europe than Iraq. Nevertheless, it is arguable that a great deal of Uranium dust is being generated in Ukraine, comparable to the quantity used in Iraq in 2003, and which caused significant health harm.
Further than to refer to the issue of such possible health effects of exposure to weapons-derived Uranium nanoparticles the arguments relating to the issue will not be further rehearsed here. Neither will the issue of the weather and airflows over the period of the Ukraine war be examined, as they were in the 2006 report on the Gulf War Uranium. It is clear to all who saw the appearance in the UK and Europe of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl, essentially that part of Ukraine where the initial invasion began, that aerosols generated in Ukraine can appear quite quickly in the UK. This short report is intended only to answer the question it asked: which is, has Uranium from the Ukraine War contaminated Europe?
Conclusion
Uranium levels in all the onsite and offsite High Volume Air Samplers deployed by the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston, UK increased significantly in the period beginning with the start of the Ukraine War. This supports the belief that Uranium weapons are being deployed in the theatre and that the fallout of Uranium nanoparticles, has contaminated Europe and the United Kingdom. Given the epidemiological and theoretical scientific evidence emerging in the last twenty years that Uranium particle exposure health effects cannot be safely predicted or explained using the current radiation risk models, this finding has serious public health implications. The finding may contribute to an urgency for discussions to end the war....
uranium
depleted uranium
particles
Ukraine War
Aldermaston
cancer
birth defect
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