Depleted uranium’s harm concentrates in children and accumulates through breast milk
Evidence
In the language of the Geneva Conventions, DU has been condemned as a “weapon of indiscriminate effect,” yet its effects are not entirely indiscriminate. Its increasing military popularity threatens children most directly: children are ten to twenty times more sensitive than adults to radiation’s cancerous risks. Once DU passes into the water system, it travels from there into mother’s milk, gathering concentration as it goes, contributing to the cancer clusters among children that were recorded in the Gulf War’s aftermath, particularly in the heavily bombarded Basra region. In 2002, eleven years after that war’s official end, Basra hospitals reported a tenfold increase in birth defects and miscarriages. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 660
Categorization
- XREF: Biomagnification through mother’s milk links to the environmental-justice theme of harm channeled through poor bodies (ch2) and slow violence’s cellular drama. — connects to: Mothers transmit concentrated industrial toxins to infants through breast milk — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 119; The euphemism ‘depleted’ masks uranium’s radioactive and chemical threat in munitions — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 603; Depleted uranium can transmit harm sexually into partners and future generations — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 661 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Depleted uranium can transmit harm sexually into partners and future generations
#expands(0.85) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 661 - A child can unknowingly absorb depleted-uranium particles through routine play
#expands(0.82) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 659 - Lead accumulates in the body and damages the brain, kidneys, and fertility
#complicates(0.75)