Radiation dose from depleted uranium can now be measured

doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7290.865/a

BMJ 2001;322:865 ( 7 April )

Letters

Radiation dose from depleted uranium can now be measured

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ In her editorial about depleted uranium McDiarmid agrees that there is no justification for any claims of radiationinduced lung cancer and leukaemia in veterans of the Gulf war.¹She makes no mention, however, of how individual radiation dosescan be measured in any screening of Gulf war and Balkanveterans.

This is important not only for veterans' peace of mind but also for medicolegal purposes. For due process of law in the courtsof the United States and the United Kingdom, where some veteransare currently taking legal action for possible radiation inducedillnesses, depleted uranium must first be ruled in before beingruled out if the doses are found to be too low. Global dose estimatesor results of mathematical modelling are too inaccurate to beused as dose values for an individual veteran. To date no practicalmethod has been proposed for measuring the expected . . . [Full text of this article]