ABSTRACT
Despite the wealth of knowledge available on uranium (U) metabolism, excretion, and toxicity in animals and humans exposed to natural and enriched U in 1991, there was minimal information available on depleted uranium (DU) toxicity when US Gulf War soldiers were exposed to DU for the first time under battlefield conditions. In multiple friendly-fire incidents involving munitions containing Depleted Uranium (DU) penetrators and DU armored tanks, US soldiers were exposed by inhalation, ingestion, and wound contamination to aerosolized DU oxides formed when DU penetrators struck US Bradley and Abrams tanks. DU exposure assessment was one of the most critical issues that needed to be addressed in the early surveillance visits for the Gulf War DU-exposed cohort. To address concerns among other Gulf War veterans about their exposures to DU, though they were not involved directly in friendly-fire incidents, a second VA activity emerged which offers any Gulf War veteran an opportunity to have a urine specimen analyzed for uranium.
