The soldiers who served in the Balkan War did show, and still do, an alarming tendency to fall ill with various forms of lymphoma, cancers and other pathologies not so easy to classify. The fact is undeniable.And it is another objective fact that a higher-than-usual number of civilians living in the areas where the war took place are showing very similar, or, in most cases, identical, problems, and that the same tendency is observed in people who had been engaged in those territories as staffers of humanitarian missions. Professor Edo Hasanbegovic of the Paediatric Clinic of Sarajevo denounced a marked increase of leukaemia cases in children from all over the Yugoslavian Federation, but principally from Velika, Kladusa and Buzim, towns close to the Croatian borderline. In March 2000, the NATO revealed that depleted uranium (DU) weapons had been used in war actions in the Balkans, and the next year the UNEP, the United Nations Environment Protection agency, found traces of radioactivity close to Sarajevo, in a barracks at Han Pijesak and in two places inside a factory at Hadzici. In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki taught a painful lesson, so it is not surprising that radioactivity could be suspected to be responsible for the increasing incidence of cancers, lymphomas, etc., all diseases sharing an up-to-now unknown aetiology, but of which some predisposing factors have been listed; and radioactivity was one. DU is used to make a component of munitions not because of its radioactive properties but because of its considerable density, hardness and pyrophoricity, qualities that make the projectiles particularly penetrating. Pathologies very similar or identical (in particular Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas) to those showed by subjects involved in the Balkan War were diagnosed in a higher-then-expected quantity among Italian soldiers who had never been to former Yugoslavia and had never come near to weapons containing uranium, but most of them had served in firing grounds. Direct and indirect evidence of the presence of uranium was looked for both in Yugoslavia and in the Italian areas where the pathologies arose, but nothing certain was found, apart from the three sites near Sarajevo mentioned above. While uranium was detected in the United States in the urine of some ill soldiers (uranium forms a metallo-protein that deposits in the kidneys and its toxicity has been known for at least two centuries), no piece of evidence was found to propose any scientifically based theory blaming radioactivity.

Other answers were then looked for. All soldiers deployed in the Balkan War were inoculated with multiple vaccinations, and someone suggested that the practice could have been somehow responsible for the diseases, but, again, no scientific demonstration was ever given to support the thesis.Thus, the question remained unanswered: why do soldiers and people living in a theatre of war or close to a firing ground contract those diseases with such an alarming frequency? A proven fact is that all bioptic and autoptic samples of pathologic tissues, including, in one case, the sperm, coming from people in any way involved in the Balkan War or in the firing ground cases contain inorganic micro- and nano-particles. It may be interesting to observe that actually we could not find any trace of uranium except in one case. But uranium was also found in patients who had nothing to do with warfare or firing grounds. Bone-marrow, colon and lymph-node biopsies revealed micro- and nano-debris, sometimes agglomerated, composed of simple or combined metals: Fe-Si, Cu-Cl-Zn, Hg, Si-Ti-Fe-Al, Si-Bi, Si-Pb, Fe-Cu-Zn, Cr-Fe-Ni, Fe-Mn, and, once, Zr.

Nanoparticles of mercury-selenium found in the biopsy of kidney
of a soldier affected by Gulf War syndrome

Section of a lymph node in a civilian of Sarajevo
affected by Hodgkin disease

The spherical shape of so many particles bears witness to a particularly high formation temperature, a condition compatible with that of the explosion of a DU shell.When a DU projectile hits its mark, whatever the mark is, the temperature in the neighbourhood exceeds 3,000 °C. At such a condition, the solid matter sublimes and is scattered in a rather large volume of atmosphere. During that short time, new alloys are formed and the new compounds, suspended in the air, acquire a spherical form (hollow inside for the larger sizes) the way water does when it becomes fog. After a relatively short time, the temperature gets lower enough to have the sublimed matter solidify again. The solid particles are so small (down to 10-8 m) as to be air-born as far as the wind or the rain or gravity allow before they fall slowly to the ground. All those phenomena were studied in 1977-78 at the US Air Force base of Leglin (Fla). While they are suspended in the air, the same way as it happens with any air pollutant, the particles are breathed in by whoever happens to be in the territory involved. Once they have ended their trajectory, they may settle on fruits, vegetables and grass or fall in a lake or a river and then be ingested along with food and drink by men and animals alike, thus taking a further step, like an unwelcome guest, in the food chain. From the practical point of view, it must be said that even a very accurate wash cannot eliminate completely that unwanted presence from vegetables. Cauliflowers, for example, due to their rough surface, are absolutely impossible to clean thoroughly. And it is also impossible to get rid of particles imprisoned in the tissues of animals used as food. From this point on, what happens is easy to guess in the light of the nanopathology theory. As a further confirmation of the applicability of the theory, micro- and nano-particles compatible with those detected in the diseased tissues were found in the ground of the territories where the patients contracted their pathologies. In those same territories, traces of uranium were scanty indeed. The reason why we never found uranium in the pathologic specimens we checked does not necessarily mean there is none. The fact is likely to be due to the very small quantity of that element if compared with the huge quantity of the materials that make up the targets of the shells and get sublimed.

The possibility cannot be ruled out that uranium is captured by organs that are not primarily involved in the disease and that, therefore, we had no chance to examine. A very similar scenery to that described is offered by Afghanistan and Iraq (now and during the Gulf War of 1990-91), where soldiers and civilians fell ill with pathologies similar to those observed in former Yugoslavia. It has been reported that some veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War showed very unusual symptoms: fatigue, shortness of breath, headache, sleep disturbance, forgetfulness and impaired concentration, all conditions that could be attributed to stress; but neoplasms, diseases of the genitourinary system, and disorders involving the blood and the haemopoietic organs are more likely to be due to other causes. A further, puzzling, problem is an increased number of birth defects in children of the veterans. A nanopathologic origin could easily explain the presence of those otherwise inexplicable and outwardly mutually unrelated symptoms. As to uranium, our conclusion is that that element is not a healthy companion but there is no scientific evidence that it can be blamed as the triggering agent, beyond its function of inducing a high temperature in the target, of what is called the Balkan (or other wars) Syndrome, which is more reasonably classifiable as a nanopathology.

DEPLETED URANIUM

Uranium is the ninety-second element of the periodic system and has 15 isotopes. The one used to produce nuclear energy through a fission process (the division of the nucleus), U235, represents only 0.72% of the natural blend, whose main component is U238 (99,27%). The nucleus of uranium undergoes fission by interacting with protons, deuterons, photons, neutrons, electrons or mesons, or may reach a state of excitation that has it cross the fission barrier. One of the consequences of this process is the emission of neutrons or, less commonly, alpha particles. In some cases, when the nuclei split into three or more fragments, the emission is of neutrons, beta particles and gamma or x-rays, and the radioactivity remains for a very long time. Natural uranium is an alpha emitter with a half-life of 4.5x109 years. It is mostly found as U3O8 in sedimentary rocks, but it is present in the environment, in all parts of the world, in low concentrations. Metallic uranium is a microporous substance with a high pyrophoricity when reduced to powder, liable to ignite spontaneously at room temperature. Its oxidation may produce an explosion. A blend of uranium, aluminium and zirconium powders is both pyrophoric and explosive.

From the chemical point of view, uranium can form compounds with many elements, and stable complexes with some organic ligands. To be used for nuclear purposes, natural uranium needs to be enriched by adding the isotope U235, and Depleted Uranium (DU) is a by-product of this industrial operation. Its composition is U238 = 99.75%, U235 = 0.25% and U234 = 0.005%. As to chemical and metallic properties, those of DU are practically the same as those of natural uranium. Its high density (19 g/cm3) along with its pyrophoricity finds a military application as an excellent armour-penetrating material. The US Air Force used it alloyed with titanium, the US Navy with molybdenum and the US Army with titanium, molybdenum, zirconium and niobium. For that purpose, the component U235 is useless, but would be expensive to reduce in quantity.

A shielding of an aluminium coating is wanted to prevent oxidation. DU radioactivity is lower than natural uranium’s (40%). Once the DU bomb hits the target, it induces a temperature exceeding 3,000 °C, which is sufficient to have the material the target is made of sublime. In a short time, the gaseous material reverts to solid again under the form of micro- and nano-spheres, which are light enough to be scattered in the surrounding atmosphere by the wind and may take a relatively long time to fall to the ground. While they are still suspended in the air, men and animals may breathe them in, while when they touch ground they may deposit on grass, fruit and vegetables, hence entering the food chain as unwelcome guests. They may also be blown away by the wind, thus restarting the cycle. But DU has also applications that have little or nothing to do with warfare: Thanks to its high density and low cost, DU is currently used as ballast in ships, boats and aircrafts and as counterweight in lead-shielded elevators. Irrespective of radioactivity, for more than two centuries uranium has been recognized to be toxic at least for the lungs, the bones and the kidneys, once it is contained in those tissues.