The Department of Energy has admitted that the DU stockpiles contain radioactive waste from nuclear reactor cores and that plutonium, americium and neptunium are present in DU. This is also evidenced by the presence of U-236 which could only have come from reactor cores. The presence of these transuranic elements complicates the picture somewhat, but the same analysis can be used to determine the effects that these elements have on the total radioactivity of DU. All that needs to be known are the percentage amounts of these elements in a 1 gram sample of DU.

S. F. Boulyga of the Research Center Juelich in Juelich Germany reported [Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy Vol. 16(11), 2001 (pp. 1283-1289) ] finding Pu-239, Pu-240 and Am-241 in a sample taken from a DU penetrator shell. He reported 1.7x10-9 gram (1.7 nanograms) of Am-241 and 3.1x10-5 gram (31 micrograms) of U-236 in a 1 gram DU sample. This is 10 times the amount of U-236 reported by DoD and used in the above calculations (Table 1b).

http://www.idust.net/Tutorial/DURadiation01.htm

Every trooper(Iraq/Afghanistan) should be tested for Onset Diabetes and
Sores that will not heal-first signs of Radiation Poisoning.
Also, Uranium as a simple heavy metal will bind to DNA
causing cell mutations.

James

The radiation is really a non-issue for DU.   The natural activity of potassium-40 in the body is around 100,000 picoCuries. The natural activity of uranium in the body is around 50 picoCuries, 2,000 times less.  You would need to increase the typical load of uranium in the body (about 100 micrograms) to about 200,000 micrograms, or 0.2 grams, just to equal the radioactivity that you already get from potassium.

Heavy metals of any stamp are bad news, but data from people like uranium miners, who have had exposure to alot of uranium compounds as dust, shows that radon is more significant than uranium for their work-related health problems.