Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility

Response to PSGR Open Letter to Government from the Office of the Hon Dr Nick Smith, MP for Nelson, Minister for the Environment

21 July 2011                                       

Ref  ENV 7103

Thank you for your email of 24 May 2011 to the government outlining the Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility’s views on genetic engineering.  I am responding on behalf of my colleagues as the points that you raise fall mainly within my responsibility as the Minister for the Environment.

I note your concerns about the potential environmental and human health effects of genetically modified organisms.  However, I can assure you that New Zealand’s regulation of genetically modified organisms recognises the potential for both positive and negative effects on people, communities, the environment and the economy from their use.  Therefore, any application to import, develop, test or release an organisms that is genetically modified (or a food or food component that has genetically modified traits) is considered on a case-by-case basis.

As you know, any decisions to import, develop, test or release an organism that is genetically modified are made by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA).  From 1 July 2011, these decisions will be made by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).  The Hazardous Substances and new Organisms Act 1996 (the HSNO Act) sets out how the EPA must make its decisions, including the matters that must be considered as part of the decision making process.  The EPA is compelled to consider all possible positive and adverse effects of any application to release a genetically modified organism.  The application must also meet the minimum standards required in the HSNO Act, and if there is scientific and technical uncertainty, the HSNO Act requires the EPA to take into account the need for caution in managing adverse effects.  These decision-making criteria and rigorous assessment requirements are identical to those ERMA followed.

Food safety matters fall within the portfolio of the Minister of Agriculture.  With respect to your concerns about the regulation of GM foods in New Zealand, I am advised that all food supplied in New Zealand, whether locally-produced or imported, must comply with the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code (the Code).  The Code is administered by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and requires all foods and food components – including those with BM traits – must have pre-market approval from FSANZ before they can be legally sold.  The FSANZ premarket safety assessment is done on a case-by-case basis.  The assessment of GM foods and food components is based on international scientific principles and guidelines for assessing GM foods, which was developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the pre-eminent food standards setting body of the United Nations), the World Health Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  This approach is internationally accepted and has been adopted by many other countries including Canada, Japan and the European Union.  A list of the GM foods approved for use in New Zealand is available from the FSANZ website at www.foodstandards.govt.nz.  Further information can also found on FSANZ safety assessments in the guidance document, Safety Assessment of Genetically Modified Foods.

I am advised that all foods, food ingredients and additives sold in New Zealand that have novel DNA and/or protein is present in the final food must be labelled as GM (Standard 1.5.2 of the Code).  The purpose of this mandatory labelling requirement does not extend to the provision of information about the safety of GM foods, as any legally sold GM food ingredients would have had to have already been through a pre-market safety assessment, carefully considered and then approved.

I encourage you to continue to engage with the EPA, through public submissions processes for publicly notified HSNO applications.  In 2009, the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council announced that it would undertake a Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy.  The Review was recently completed and I have attached a copy of the recommendations from the resulting report, which is titled ‘Labelling Logic’, for your information.  Ministers will be considering their response to the recommendations later this year.

Yours sincerely

Hon Dr Nick Smith

Minister for the Environment

Letter followed by Labelling Logic page 7 to and including Recommendation 61 available on www.foodlabellingreview.gov.au/internet/foodlabelling/publishing.nsf/Content/48C0548D80E715BCCA257825001E5DC0/$File/Labelling%20Logic_2011.pdf.

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility

PSGRNZ Charitable Trust

Why DU should be banned from New Zealand

1. Depleted uranium

Weapons and tank armour using depleted uranium (DU) have developed in part because of the unique qualities of DU and partly out of a need to dispose of extensive stockpiles of the waste product of uranium enrichment for fuel and weapons.  The waste accumulated over several decades has posed a huge storage and disposal problem, and will increase further with any nuclear resurgence.  In monetary terms, estimates of the disposal cost have been put at billions, not millions of dollars.

Only about 3 kg from every 1000 kg of processed uranium ore is suitable for use in reactors and traditional types of nuclear weapons.  And for every 1kg of low-enriched uranium produced for reactors, 7 kg of waste depleted uranium remains and is classified as intermediate level nuclear waste.  As a pure radioactive heavy metal, depleted uranium is far more concentrated, in a purely chemical sense, than naturally occurring uranium ores.

2. Military and other uses of depleted uranium and the effects

It is clear that DU was used on a large scale by the US and UK forces in the Gulf War in 1991, in Bosnia in 1994-1995, in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, and again in Iraq in 2003.  It is suspected that the US also used DU in Afghanistan in 2001.  The continued use of A10 ‘Warthog’ aircraft in support of NATO ground troops indicates that DU may be being used.  It is likely to have been used in the US intervention in Somalia in the mid-90s. It is also likely that Russia used DU in Afghanistan in the late 80s.  Its use has been alleged in Lebanon and most recently in Libya.[i]

Following 1991, American tankers described their 120mm DU rounds as the ‘Silver Bullet’ because of their efficacy against Iraq’s ageing Soviet tanks.  However, most NATO countries opted for tungsten kinetic energy weapons due to the environmental cost and political concerns over the use of DU.  These concerns have limited their proliferation, with only the five permanent UN Security Council members (plus Pakistan) producing DU munitions and 15 other states known to stockpile them.[ii] Most military DU use has been as ordinance.  In tank armour, it is sandwiched between sheets of steel armour plate.  It is used as a tamper in fission bombs and as a fissile isotope in some nuclear bombs, e.g., the “neutron bomb”.  In the mid-1990s, DU was also used in some types of area-denial mines.

The use of DU has not been confined to war zones.  DU rounds were test fired at Okinawa, Japan (later removed to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea) up to 400 times daily for 250 days each year.  DU weaponry was test-fired 3 km from Socorro in New Mexico and, between the mid-80s and 1994, at the Army Proving Ground in Indiana, leaving some 70 tons of DU shell fragments and contaminated buildings.  The Nuclear Regulation Commission allows 7900 DU rounds of 30 mm shells to be fired annually on the Las Vegas side of the Nelis Air Force Base by the Nevada Nuclear Testing Site.  As an indication of the quantities of DU weaponry used, the US Navy admitted to the accidental firing of 263 rounds of DU bullets in 1999 at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.  This is less than one normal burst of automatic fire.

There is growing international concern about the unacceptable levels of DU weaponry being used, leading to harm to military personnel and civilians, and to adverse effects on essential crop growing areas, ground and drinking water, fauna and flora, and environments exposed to the DU radiation and toxicity created by its use.

Decontamination poses many problems.  It “is impossible to fully remove all the contamination.  It is also very costly - the Cape Arza site in Montenegro cost DM 400,000 (almost $280,000 US) and took about 5,000 working person days to decontaminate 480 rounds, which in total took around 12 seconds to fire.  Given that even after extensive decontamination many penetrators can remain in the ground, sites may require ongoing testing of groundwater.  In some circumstances, estimates of how long this may need to be done run into centuries, and again the testing is very expensive.”[iii]

There is considerable evidence from animal and tissue studies that DU has the potential to damage human and environmental health through both its radioactivity and chemical toxicity.  Its uncontrolled release in conflict, a lack of transparency from DU users, and the technical difficulties inherent in decontamination, have all increased the risk of unnecessary civilian exposures.  Ongoing reports from Iraq and elsewhere continue to link exposure to DU to increases in certain cancers and birth defects, but the highly detailed epidemiological studies that are urgently required have not been undertaken.  Nevertheless, the potential risks from DU weapons are clear.

It has been proposed that DU may prove to be the ‘Agent Orange’ of the twenty first century.  Governments and the military have consistently misrepresented the radioactive and toxic effects of DU.  Admitting DU can harm would mean multi-billion dollar liabilities for health affected, damage to the environment, and for contamination leading to cleanup costs.  Results are already evident.

2.1. Depleted uranium use in areas of conflict and the effects on human health:

Allied forces used substantial quantities of DU weaponry in Iraq in 1991 and 2003; the US admitting using a total of around 400,000 kg during both conflicts.

While detailed environmental analysis has not yet confirmed the use of DU in Fallujah, Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Iraq's Minister of Women's Affairs, sent a report on 12 October 2009 to the United Nations General Assembly. [iv] It stated:  “In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.  This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.  Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003.”

Showing photos of birth defects - cleft palates, elongated heads, a baby born with one eye in the centre of its face, overgrown limbs, short limbs, and malformed ears, noses and spines - Dr Samira Alani told Al Jazeera, the Arabic language news network:  “We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine.”  Dr Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital since 1997, said she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009.  Eight days later that number had risen to 699.  “There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we’ve never seen them until now.” iv

A study by researchers at the University of Massachusetts and Tufts University concluded:  “... human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU.”[v]

In North Mitrovica, in Kosovo, population movement works against any study to analyse medical records of illness before and after the conflict.  Informally, hospital physicians have reported that the number of patients suffering from malignant diseases has increased dramatically since 1998.[vi]

A 2003 study of the impact points of DU weapons by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina found contaminated drinking water and DU particulates in air samples.[vii]

2.2. Military personnel, depleted uranium and health

In 2004, the UK Pensions Appeal Tribunal Service attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning.  One year after US veterans began returning from the 1991 conflict reports began of birth defects in offspring.[viii] The American Gulf War Veterans Association says half of the 697,000 US soldiers involved in the 1991 Gulf War have serious illnesses.[ix] Exposure to toxic chemicals is currently claimed as the cause, leading to acute and chronic symptoms.  Some 250,000 of the 697,000 who served are afflicted with enduring chronic multi-symptom illness.[x] Uranium has been found in the blood and urine of veterans in the US and Canada.

Uranium oxide is insoluble in water.  It forms aerosol particles that can travel tens of kilometres in air.  Once on the ground, these particles can be resuspended in air when sand or earth is disturbed by motion or wind.  Once breathed in, the very small particles of uranium oxide, those which are 2.5 microns or less in diameter (one micron is one millionth of a metre or a 1000 nanometres) can reside in the lungs for years, slowly passing through the lung tissue into the blood.

2.3. Non-conflict effects of uranium / depleted uranium on health

In November 2002, the US Government admitted that residents living in the US from 1958 to 1963 were exposed to fallout from 1200 nuclear weapon tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site resulting in cancer, gene mutation, heart disease, autism, diabetes, Parkinson’s, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also referred to as motor neuron disease and Lou Gehrig's disease), asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism in new-born infants, obesity and learning disabilities.

High breast cancer rates have been identified in the proximity of nuclear power plants, particularly on the US east coast.[xi] Adverse health effects have been documented in employees and residents living near Puducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington.  These areas are associated with DU activities.  Employees at uranium manufacturing or processing facilities in New York, Tennessee and southwest Colorado have reported adverse health effects similar to those reported by verified Gulf War DU casualties.[xii]

In a study of soil samples taken at Colonie, NY, USA, uranium oxide particles were found to have been dispersed into the environment from a local factory by prevailing winds during the 1960s and 1970s.  The contamination footprint has been mapped northward from site, and the uranium in a soil sample from the surface 5 cm, collected 5.1 km NNW of the site, is considerably depleted.  The study states that “the total mass of uranium contamination emitted from the factory is estimated to be c. 4.8 tonnes.”  Uranium has been found in workers 20 years after exposure and a health study is currently underway on local residents.[xiii]

2.4. Effects on the environment of depleted uranium

DU contaminated soil and dust remain long after conflicts end.

Plant and animal tissues, soil, and water samples were collected in six selected regions in the south of Iraq.  Analysis confirmed the presence of isotopes from the U-238 decay series in over a third of the collected plant samples.  Wild plant samples were found to have radioactive elements at concentrations up to three times the natural background. [xiv]

A report from The Royal Society, London (2002), looking at Uranium in soil in war zones concluded that herbivores ingesting soil whilst browsing may ingest particulate DU present in upper soil layers and vegetations.  Fodder crops would also be expected to absorb uranium and DU from soil.  The highest level of exposure to DU came from contaminated dust and, for livestock, drinking water derived from contaminated groundwater.^xiv

In 1991, the largest ever explosion of a DU munitions and tank storage area occurred at a 500-acre base at Doha, Kuwait.  Soil from Doha was shipped to the US for disposal at a radioactive waste management facility, as were army trucks hit by 'friendly' DU fire.[xv] Failure to complete the work proficiently caused health issues for occupiers and nearby residents; the camp being near Kuwait City and Kuwait City International Airport.  A final cleanup was ordered in 2006.

The live DU weapons test range near Dundrennan, Scotland, has left debris from in excess of 6000 radioactive munitions on the seabed of the Solway Firth.  By 2002, this had amounted to more than 30 tonnes of nuclear waste.  The Journal of Environmental Monitoring (JEM) reported soil samples from the Range “had uranium concentrations and isotopic signatures indicative of contamination with DU.  Furthermore, plants and earthworms collected from above and within contaminated soils respectively also had uranium isotopic signatures strongly influenced by DU, indicating that DU was indeed assimilated into biological tissues.”

Earthworms are a crucial part of a healthy ecosystem, aerating the soil and aiding the nutrient uptake of plants, and affecting the food chain.  If they are contaminated, it suggests the wider environment is also polluted.[xvi]

3. How depleted uranium contaminates

DU is pyrophoric.  It ignites on impact and burns at 3000 °C to 5000 °C, creating radioactive dust particles as small as a nanoparticle; that is, one billionth of a metre.  Nanoparticles are so fine air filters are ineffective.

DU contaminates all living organisms, air, soil and water.  It can settle anywhere.  The Institute of Nuclear Technology-Radiation Protection of Attiki, Greece, states:  “the aerosol produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites or can be inhaled by civilians and military personnel.”

4. The effects of depleted uranium in storage and transport

In the US alone, 686,500 tonnes of DU had accumulated by 2008.[xvii] DU storage presents long term ecological, health and safety risks.

DU first appears as a byproduct of uranium enrichment processes in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF₆).  At ordinary temperatures and pressures it forms solid grey crystals.  It is highly toxic, reacts violently with water to produce uranyl fluoride (UO₂F₂) and hydrogen fluoride (HF) and is corrosive to most metals.  It is mostly stored in steel cylinders, which must regularly be inspected for signs of corrosion and leaks, in open air yards close to enrichment plants.  The US government is slowly converting its large inventory of depleted UF₆ to solid uranium oxides for disposal.[xviii]

4.1. Accidents with depleted uranium in storage and in transit

Accidents involving DU storage cylinders can result in an uncontrollable, irretrievable release into the environment, potentially affecting workers on site, civilians downwind and the ecology and environment.  The most immediate risk to a population is inhalation of hydrogen fluoride (HF); exposure potentially resulting in health effects, from eye and respiratory irritation to death, depending on the exposure level and duration.

Storage accidents involving DU can include:  dropped cylinders; sheered or weak valves, and stiff or hardened ring defects; all forms of transport, including forklift.  In a country prone to earthquakes, New Zealand should be cognisant of the additional potential for serious accidents.

DU handling accidents on public record include the Mont-Louis which sank in 14 metres off the Belgium coast with 30 drums of UF6 on board.  A UF6 cylinder ruptured at a commercial uranium conversion facility, Sequoyah Fuels Corp., Gore OK.  Thirty one workers were exposed to HF inhalation, one worker died.  At the Starmet Corporation, West Concord, Massachusetts, DU was buried in a waste pit and contaminated groundwater at up to 3000 times the official maximum ‘safe’ level.[xix]

4.2. Exposure to depleted uranium in storage or in transit

Workers at DU storage facilities are daily exposed to low-level external radiation.

In ‘The DU Threat’ (14 August 2008), author, Thomas D Williams said:  “The (US) Department of Defense (DoD), the nation's biggest polluter, is now cleaning up 29,500 currently or formerly contaminated sites in every state and territory.  California alone has 3,912 contaminated sites on 441 current and former DoD installations.  Many of DoD's facilities have already contaminated groundwater sources of drinking water. ... The cost to clean up toxic munitions contamination and unexploded ordnance at active and former military installations around the country may reach US$200 billion.” [xx]

Safety at storage facilities would have to be stringent.  Terrorist action would be a possibility.  For example, in 2008, Colombian authorities found a laptop owned by a FARC insurgent group.  On it was a reference to nine kilograms of DU, later retrieved.  In 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported the theft in Argentina of a canister of Caesium-137, a radioactive isotope which is a fission product of nuclear fission.[xxi]

5. Non-military and other uses of depleted uranium

PSGR is mindful of non-military uses required of DU in New Zealand.

5.1. Medical and scientific use:  Because of its high density of 19.1 g/cm³ (1.7 times as heavy as lead) DU is used in science and medicine; e.g. as radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy.  Industrial radiography cameras include a high flux gamma radiation source (typically Ir-192) that is surrounded by a DU shield.[xxii]

5.2. Aircraft usage:  Aircraft can contain trim weights of between 400 to 1500 kg of DU; e.g. the Boeing 747-100 of the Lockerbie disaster; El Al Flight 1862, which crashed in Amsterdam, containing 282 kilograms of DU; the Boeing 747 cargo jet that crashed during takeoff from Halifax International Airport in October 2004.

PSGR acknowledges that some of New Zealand’s military aircraft have DU trim weights and recommend that this be replaced with less toxic or harmless material as soon as practical.  Reports say DU is being phased out in commercial aircraft and replaced with tungsten.

The fact that the New Zealand Defence Forces, along with countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, have decided to use tungsten or remove DU from their arsenals, brings into question the claims of the US and UK that DU is indispensible as an anti-armour weapon.[xxiii] (See also

5.3. Non-military / domestic usage:  Medical facilities, industries and mining operations may use radioactive material and depleted uranium has been used in domestic products.  The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued draft NUREG-1717:  Systematic Radiological Assessment of Exemptions for Source and Byproduct Materials.

Its report covered items containing DU, including “dental ceramics, ophthalmic lenses, glazed ceramic tableware, piezoelectric ceramic, glassware, glass enamel and glass enamel frit, photographic film, negatives and prints, counterweights, shielding in shipping containers, fire detection units, among others.”  Other uses have been high-temperature superconducting materials, lawn mower parts, and catalysts in furnace tubes at a hydrogen manufacturing plant.  PSGR recommends transitioning to procedures and technologies that do not rely on byproducts of uranium enrichment processes.[xxiv]

Extensive, stringent, effective, monitored upgrading of national and placement of international regulations for all usage are urgently needed.

6. Military regulations for uranium / depleted uranium

To suppress opposition, claims that depleted uranium is safe have frequently been based on false premises and misinformation, and do not equate with published and established facts.  For example, Pentagon spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel David Lapan, speaking about studies into the health risks of DU, told BBC News Online (14 April 2003):  “One thing we’ve found in these various studies is that there are no long-term effects from DU.”  This despite the fact that a US Army video, produced in 1995, outlined the dangers.[xxv]

The risks associated with DU were identified very early in its development.  In September 2002, US Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, signed Army Regulation 700-48.  It specifies rules for handling DU weaponry and contamination, including destroyed or disabled enemy targets that have been hit and contaminated by DU.  It states that local commanders must:  “identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE (radiologically contaminated equipment).  Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.”

Regulations had already required damaged vehicles to be moved to a collection point or maintenance facility, and “covered and wrapped with canvas or plastic tarp to prevent spread of contaminants.”  Loose items were to be placed in double plastic bags.  The personnel carrying out these tasks must wear protective equipment.

Regulation 700-48 also states:  “Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment without approval from overall commander.”  Radioactive equipment must be cleaned up and disposed of as soon as practicable.  Other military regulations require DU tank drivers to be medically examined if they are exposed to dust or other radioactive debris.  It is reported that US Army and DoD regulations prohibit the use of DU munitions during training.  Troops are instructed to avoid sites where DU weapons have been used such as destroyed tanks and exploded bunkers, and to wear masks if they do have to approach.  Reports show that the US military’s ‘green think tank’ has been suggesting for some time that alternatives to DU should be sought.

As with the Japanese authorities following the Fukushima earthquake, the US is now allowing its troops who are caught in Level I or Level II DU incidents – for example, in a vehicle struck by DU or cleaning contaminated vehicles – to waive US occupational radiation exposure regulations.[xxvi]

(See www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/281.html;

Statement from Britain’s current Defence Minister on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/382.html;

The Dutch Minister of Defence referring to DU as “heavy polluting stuff” on www.ikvpaxchristi.nl/news/?v=2&cid=1&id=1273&lid=3.)

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/225.html; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/57.pdf; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/58.pdf; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/73.pdf.)

After the Kosovo intervention, Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, admitted that DU intended for armour-piercing weapons had also been contaminated by small amounts of plutonium.[xxvii] Plutonium is a radioactive poison that accumulates in bone marrow.

7. The science

Official statements claim that only “safe” low level alpha radiation emanates from depleted uranium.  Alpha particles are completely absorbed by human skin, depositing all their energy close to the surface.  Beta particles can penetrate up to about 2 cm, depending on their energy.  Gamma radiation can penetrate deeply and can generate beta radiation along its track through the body.

Depleted uranium comprises 99.3% ²³⁸U.  It gives off three forms of radiation:  alpha, beta and gamma.  The nature of radioactive decay is such that alpha or beta emissions from an atom result in that atom changing into a different element.  When an atom of ²³⁸U emits an alpha particle it decays into an atom of thorium, ²³⁴Th.  Thorium is a beta emitter with a half life of 24 days.  The thorium beta emitter decays, emitting beta particles and transforming into an atom of protactinium, ²³⁴Pa.  This is a beta emitter, with a half life of seven hours. Thus, depleted uranium is emitting alpha, beta and gamma radiation.  After a few months, the concentrations of thorium and protactinium – known as daughter products - will have built up so that the amount of beta and gamma radiation will each be twice the amount of alpha radiation.

The decay rates of uranium isotopes are expressed as half-lives, the time required for a given amount of the isotope to be reduced by half.  A shorter half-life means more intense radiation and, in general, greater potential to damage or destroy cells.  The half-life of ²³⁸U is 4.5 billion years; equivalent to the life-span of Earth.  The half-life of plutonium, which can be part of or contaminate DU weapons, and which is lethal in even microscopic amounts, is 24,000 years.[xxviii]

See http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/environmental_risks/docs/scher_o_123.pdf for details of ²³⁸Uranium decay series, p. 38; and natural uranium activity (²³⁸Uranium series), page 40.

Decontamination is expensive and technically challenging and the UN Environment Programme has concluded that it is “very difficult to achieve comprehensive detection and complete decontamination of DU at a given site.  Even after thorough decontamination efforts have been conducted, some contamination points may remain.”

The use of DU weaponry raises serious questions about potential long-term health effects for many generations to come.[xxix] Dispersing DU into the environment in a form that is so readily

Internalized is profoundly irresponsible and unconscionable.  It may kill the perceived enemy, but as has been shown it can also slowly kill one’s own personnel and civilian populations.  At all stages of handling, DU is dangerous.

Dust particles derived from DU weapons contain high proportions of uranium, typically more than 50%.  Uranium is a known carcinogen and induces birth defects.  Its chemical toxicity is about a million times greater in vivo than its radiological hazard.  DU can be absorbed through skin, lungs and eyes, or ingested in food, and can accumulate in the brain, central nervous system and other body organs.  The effects on human health are determined by such factors as the extent of exposure and whether it was internal or external.  Normal function of kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure.  Multiple studies suggest leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.  Uranium has a strong chemical affinity for DNA phosphate structures.  Uranyl ions can bind in the minor groove of DNA and to "zinc finger" structures of some DNA-binding proteins, leading to significant changes in the regulation of genetic expression in selected tissues.[xxx]

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is the principal US federal public health agency concerned with hazardous substances.  In its latest draft guide to uranium’s toxicity, the section on genotoxicity is updated[xxxi] (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp150-c5.pdf ) and a study by Alexandra C Miller of the US Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute examines DU as a carcinogen (http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/outreach/pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf).

See also:  A Review of Depleted Uranium Biological Effects:  In vivo studies, Alexandra C. Miller, PhD, Uniformed Services University, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/184.pdf

See also:  A Review of Depleted Uranium Biological Effects:  In vitro studies, Alexandra C. Miller, PhD, Uniformed Services University, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/183.pdf

8. Depleted uranium and New Zealand’s image

In 2009, the Belgian Senate restricted investments by Belgian banks in the manufacturers of DU weapons, land mines and cluster munitions.

On 24 October 2009, the Board of Trustees at the University of Vermont adopted a resolution to withdraw the University's investment funds from companies involved in the production of DU weapons.  It cited “indiscriminate use” and “broad adverse effects to human health and the environment” of their use.[xxxii] While the University did not identify the manufacturers or their investors, the largest US producers of DU weapons are General Dynamics, ATK Alliant Systems, and Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee.  Their US financiers include the Bank of America, the US Bank, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs.

A report released on 5 March 2012 by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) - Don't Bank on the Bomb:  The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers – identifies the significant investors in the 20 major nuclear weapons producers. (See full report http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DivestmentReport.pdf .)

Several investment funds have been established that exclude investments in DU manufacturers in anticipation that DU will be banned.  One announcement, made in June 2011, can be read on www.globalpensions.com/global-pensions/news/2082156/msci-launches-range-esg-indices:  “Indices have been developed for use by institutional investors who wish to avoid investments in cluster bombs, landmines, chemical, biological, and depleted uranium weapons.   A growing number of regulatory and legislative initiatives in Europe and Australia are also considering banning investments in such weapons...”

PSGR suggests such actions against the presence and/or usage of DU could have significant repercussions on the New Zealand economy and exports if sufficient bodies took similar action.  Having uranium / depleted uranium in this country in any form, other than controlled, lawful medical and scientific uses, is inconsistent with our Clean Green image.

9. Depleted uranium and international laws

The United Nations Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution that calls for prohibition on the use of DU.  There is currently no definitive international treaty to regulate, limit or prohibit the use of weapons containing depleted uranium.  However, there is strong scientific debate and concern regarding the impact of the use of such weaponry which suggests there will be a consensus view at an international legal level in the foreseeable future that the use of DU weaponry violates the general principles of the law/s applicable to the use of weapons in armed conflict.

The use of weapons containing DU is already viewed by many as illegal under International Humanitarian, Human Rights and Environmental Laws.  Annex II to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material 1980 (operative from 8 February 1997) classifies DU as a category II nuclear material.  The storage and transport rules set down for that category indicate that DU is considered sufficiently “hot” and dangerous to warrant these protections.  The International Atomic Energy Agency classifies DU as a source material and it is covered in the Safeguards system.  The use of DU in weapons can breach one or more of the following treaties:  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions including Protocol I, the Convention on Conventional Weapons of 1980, and the Chemical Weapons Convention.  In 1996, in a ruling from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, DU weapons were classed as “weapons of indiscriminate effect”.[xxxiii]

There is a consensus view in international legal circles that the use of projectiles, such as those using DU, nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction, violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict.  Such weapons are universally acknowledged to have the most deleterious consequences to populations and environments.[xxxiv]

Three UN General Assembly resolutions on DU accept that it is a potential hazard.  All three resolutions have been supported by New Zealand.[xxxv]

It is also significant that four European Parliament resolutions have called for a moratorium on the use of DU, with the most recent in 2008 being supported by 94% of members calling for a ban.[xxxvi]

PSGR proposes that the illegality of DU weapons must be tested by recourse to the general rules governing the use of weapons under humanitarian and human rights law.  Parties to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 have an obligation to ascertain that new weapons do not violate the laws and customs of war or any other international law. These include whether the effects of DU can be limited only to legitimate military targets; whether their use is proportionate, and whether

Their use breaches the expectation that all efforts be made to avoid unnecessary damage to humans and the environment.  The International Court of Justice considers this rule as binding as customary humanitarian law.

A review of the legal status of DU can be found on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/74.pdf;  a summary on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/63.html.

10. New Zealand’s position and laws

A New Zealand Herald article (26 June 2010) read:  “uranium ore concentrate has been coming through our ports for 30 years, but only at the rate of one shipment per annum ... “until last year the shipments didn't require a permit.” [xxxvii]

It adds:  “The National Radiation Laboratory administers importations of radioactive material, but because these shipments are transiting they don't require its consent.”  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) began vetting “shipments only last year (2009) under the Customs and Excise Act which requires MFAT consent to transit strategic goods.”

The Herald reported that the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA), now replaced by the Environmental Protection Authority (www.epa.govt.nz) was only made aware in 2009 (by chance) that the shipments fall under the HSNO Act 1996 which it administered, and ERMA approved applications for the trans-shipments of uranium ore concentrate in steel drums, the drums in sealed containers shipped under deck.  The details of the applications suggest the uranium containers form only part of the ships’ cargoes; therefore, are port personnel handling any or all of the remaining cargo and is the remaining cargo tested for contamination?  There have been no reports of any radiation problems associated with these shipments, but one port Harbour Master has produced photographic evidence of serious damage in storms to containers stored in the bow area of such ships as the uranium ore concentrate is, and proposes that they should be stored in the mid section of the hold of ships.

The National Radiation Laboratory official review document of 1976-1980 indicates ships loaded with uranium began stopping over at the Ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Napier and Nelson at least three decades ago.  This coincides with the build-up to the passing of New Zealand’s Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.

(See National Radiation Laboratory Information Sheet No. 28,     http://www.nrl.moh.govt.nz/publications/is28.asp.)

Three uranium ore companies are reportedly involved:  Energy Resources of Australia, a subsidiary of British-Australian Rio Tinto group, owner of the Ranger Mine; BHP Billiton Olympic Mine; Heathgate Resources Beverley Mine.  Vessels have an allowed 20-day turnaround period under transhipment regulations and the cargo must remain on board.  Nuclear physicist, Robert White, co-founder of the Centre for Peace Studies at the University of Auckland and Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, maintains that the shipments breach the Resource Management Act under which it is an offence to store radioactive waste or other radioactive matter in our coastal marine area which includes our harbours.  This is still under investigation.

The above situation is a poor reflection on official regulatory oversight, and this trafficking is inconsistent with the spirit of New Zealand's nuclear-free policy.  While Australia may claim that it exports uranium ore for use for peaceful purposes only, an end product of processing the ore is depleted uranium, and the main end use for DU is weapons of war.

Relevant New Zealand Acts: 

• Resource Management Act (Section 15), http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0069/latest/DLM230265.html;
• HSNO (Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act) 1996, (reprint as at 18 August 2011),  http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0030/latest/DLM381222.html;
• Customs and Excise Act, (reprint as at 2 January 2012) http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0027/91.0/DLM377337.html;
• Maritime Transport Act, (reprint as at 1 October 2008)  http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1994/0104/latest/DLM334660.html;
• Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, (reprint as at 20 August 1998), http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0086/latest/DLM115116.html.
• Marine Pollution Act 1974 (Sections 21A and 21B), http://www.elaw.org/node/3501.

11. Depleted uranium and New Zealand

The New Zealand government has a duty of care to all New Zealanders and the New Zealand environment to prevent injury and damage derived from depleted uranium.  No level of DU can be claimed to be safe.

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility

March 2012

www.psgr.org.nz

PSGR acknowledges the contribution made to this statement by Doug Weir, BSc, MA,

International Coordinator for the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/index.html.

[i] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/314.html.

[ii] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/21.html.

[iii] ‘A Question of Responsibility - the legacy of depleted uranium use in the Balkans’, a report examining user transparency, the capacity of states to manage depleted uranium contamination and the development of health studies, seen through the experiences of Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, 11 October 2010 – ICBUW, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/342.html.

UNEP – Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro, www.postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf.

[iv] Letter to the United Nations www.iraqirabita.org/english/index.php?do=article&id=1237.  ‘US claims no depleted uranium used in second Fallujah siege’ www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/406.html.  ‘Fallujah babies: Under a new kind of siege’ www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html. ‘Uranium and other contaminants in hair from the parents of children with congenital anomalies in Fallujah, Iraq’, Alaani et al, Conflict and Health 2011, 5:15 doi:10.1186/1752-1505-5-15, www.conflictandhealth.com/content/5/1/15

[v] www.ehjournal.net/content/4/1/17/abstract.

[vi] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/134.pdf.

[vii] http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?ArticleID=3926&DocumentID=298.

Further information on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/134.pdf.

[viii] www.birthdefects.org/research/veterans.php.

[ix] www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/veteran-statistics.php; (www.census.gov/compendia/statab/)

[x] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome.

[xi] The breast cancer map from The Enemy Within:  the high cost of living near nuclear reactors by Jay M Gould, with members of the Radiation and Public Health Project, Ernest J Sternglass, Joseph J Mangano, William McDonnell.

[xii] http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DUuse+hazard.html#n12.

[xiii] ‘The distribution of depleted uranium contamination in Colonie, NY, USA’, Lloyd NS, Chenery SR, Parrish RR, Sci Total Environ, 20 December 2009;408(2):397-407, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19853279.  www.rsc.org/images/NLloyd_tcm18-128519.pdf.

[xiv] ‘Impact of Depleted Uranium on Man and Environment in Iraq’, from an international scientific symposium on the use of Depleted Uranium and its impact on man and environment in Iraq held in Baghdad 2-3 December 1998, http://stgvisie.home.xs4all.nl/VISIE/DUREPORT/du-symposium.html.  The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions Part II, The Royal Society, London, 2002, ISBN 0 85403 5745, http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2002/9954.pdf.

xv ‘DU, The Emerging Radiation Crisis in Iraq and US Students: Vermont Takes Lead with Divestment’OpEdNews Don Lieber, 24 November 2009; http://lisa4everwonders.blogspot.com/2009/11/depleted-uranium-emerging-radiation.html.

[xvi] See ‘2002 Marine Environmental Depleted Uranium Survey Report Kirkcudbright Training Area’, C Toque.  ‘Assessing depleted uranium (DU) contamination of soil, plants and earthworms at UK weapons testing sites’, Ian W Oliver, Margaret C Graham, Angus B MacKenzie, Robert M Ellam and John G. Farmer, J. Environ. Monit., 2007, 9, 740-748, DOI: 10.1039/B700719A, http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2007/em/b700719a.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/depleted-uranium-turns-earthworms-into-glowworms-1.828561.

[xvii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

[xviii] See also www2.fluoridealert.org/Pollution/Nuclear-Industry/US-Babcock-Wilcox-awarded-428-million-contract-to-deconvert-depleted-uranium-hexafluoride.  www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/404.html.

[xix] D. Fahey: Case Narrative - DU Exposures; Swords to Plowshares, National Gulf War Resource Center, Military Toxics Project, (September 1998) www.join-snafu.org/PDFs/du.pdf.

[xx] http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0808/S00179.htm.

[xxi] www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11902, 28 October 2010.

[xxii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

[xxiii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZLAV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster#Ammunition.

[xxiv] See European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements, Karlsruhe, Germany, Civil use of depleted uranium, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Volume 67, Issue 3, 2003, Page 265, M. Betti, www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB2-460WGT9-2&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_cdi=5914&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=1&_refLink=Y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=824e44ffbfa8f346fa470bd89875ccf7&searchtype=a.).

[xxv] Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the US Army, US Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI), June 1995) www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/techreport.html.

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/225.html.

[xxvi] http://www.pdhealth.mil/downloads/OTSG_MEDCOM_Policy_11-047_Med_M.pdf.

[xxvii] www.internettrash.com/users/socialjustice/du.html.

[xxviii] http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/dupost.htm, IPPNW, IEER.  Plutonium:  Deadly gold of the nuclear age. Cambridge, MA: International Physicians Press. 1992.

[xxix] UNEP – Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro, www.postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf.

[xxx] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/58.pdf.  Wendy J Hartsock et al, ‘Uranyl Acetate as a Direct Inhibitor of DNA-Binding Proteins’, Chem. Res. Toxicol. 20(5), 2007, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx600347k.

Kim J et al, ‘Binding of uranyl ion by a DNA aptamer attached to a solid support’, Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2011 1:21(13). Epub May 6 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21612923.

[xxxi] http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=440&tid=77.

[xxxii] ‘Depleted Uranium, The Emerging Radiation Crisis in Iraq and US Students: Vermont Takes Lead with Divestment’OpEdNews Don Lieber, 24 November 2009; http://lisa4everwonders.blogspot.com/2009/11/depleted-uranium-emerging-radiation.html.

[xxxiii] See http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/95.pdf for the actual wording.

[xxxiv] Legality of Nuclear Weapons, ICJ Rep. (1996), 242.

[xxxv] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/245.html.

[xxxvi] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/244.html.

[xxxvii] ‘Nuclear-free status under scrutiny’ by Phil Taylor, 26 June 2010, NZ Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10654417.

Ends

One of the initial concerns lay with genetic engineering of crops. Members were concerned about the possible effects these crops could have on the environment and, through the introduction of new foods into the food chain, the impact on human health. Members believe that the release of genetically engineered organisms into the food chain and the environment is highly premature, as safety testing has not been adequately carried out.

With the increasing incidence of cancer and related diseases, we feel that the reliance on toxic chemical based agriculture should be phased out.

23 May 2011  

OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNMENT

From the Trustees, Members, Associate Members and Supporters of

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand Charitable Trust

Genetic Engineering and New Zealand

We write in support of the majority of New Zealanders concerned about genetic engineering and its applications in New Zealand.  It is a technology we have closely monitored since the late 1990s.

We are cognisant of the important advances made in biotechnology adding to the value to our scientific heritage, including those made by New Zealand scientists.  However, the application of genetic engineering biotechnology, in particular the release overseas into the environment of genetically engineered organisms, has proven at best uncertain and at worst seriously damaging.  We maintain that it is imperative to keep genetic engineering biotechnology in strict containment in the laboratory.

For the reasons detailed in this letter we call for government to instigate a moratorium on any further release into the environment and food chain of genetically engineered organisms given:

-          Proven negative outcomes identified in the use of GE organisms overseas, which New Zealand can and must avoid

-          Potential for catastrophic disruption of complex natural systems in the longer term

-          Evidence in animal tests of harm from consumption of GE foods, including impacts on reproduction, internal organs and tissue damage, in some cases involving GE products that are already entering the human food chain

-          The absence of credible independent testing of GE foods prior to their entry into the human food chain

-          The absence of research and monitoring of the impact of GE foods on public health

-          The potential for harm from consuming GE foods, particularly amongst infants, pregnant women, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems

-          The unique importance to New Zealand of sustaining the integrity of the environment and  ‘clean green’ reputation of the food production system, which underpin the economic value of our tourism and exports

Background

Recent government decisions raise concerns in respect of how far down the GE road New Zealand will go, and the subsequent cost to human and environmental health, to the public purse, and to other advances in science when funding is focussed on genetic engineering biotechnology.  Because policy decisions have been dictated by vested interests, New Zealand has already lost its world-renowned DSIRs and the Bioethics Council.  It now seems that the flawed and inadequate oversight currently provided by the Environmental Risk Management Authority, is at risk of being further undermined in the operation of the new EPA.

It has become obvious that a blinkered approach to genetic engineering biotechnology, and the commercial imperatives driving it, mean that the generally acknowledged risks are not being properly addressed and that this is only the tip of an iceberg.  The downstream effects of releasing genetically engineered organisms into the environment or the food chain, as revealed to date, have raised concerns with many of the world’s most eminent scientists, including Nobel Laureates.  Beyond the problems already identified but being ignored by authorities under commercial pressure, are undiscovered effects which may take decades to become apparent. 

New Zealand does not have, but urgently needs, a truly independent and transparent regulatory authority, with access to independent scientific advice.  It must give credence to unquantified risk and take into account the economic realities related to the release of genetically engineered organisms.

The incentives that have driven genetic engineering are focussed on vested commercial interests and short term gain, without sufficient regard to societal or long-term impacts.  Most pro-GE companies are among the biggest and most powerful in the world.  Their economies rival, even exceed, those of some nation states, like New Zealand.  This power enables them to extend their influence over research, regulatory, media and political institutions, and New Zealand has not been immune to this as evidenced by the liberal approach taken by FSANZ in approving scores of imported GE food products for sale in Australia and New Zealand.   

Transnationals hold intellectual property rights over much of the world’s industrial and technological production, including property rights in biology and thereby the world’s food supply.  Fortunately, on 29 October 2010, the US federal government reversed a longstanding policy when it announced that “the chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and it is no less a product of nature when that structure is 'isolated' from its natural environment than are cotton fibres that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth.  We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA." 

The fact that agencies with vested interests have been able to patent genomic DNA has seriously restricted research.  An example is the US patents for the breast and ovarian cancer-predisposing gene BRCA1.  Valuable research projects have been abandoned because of the costs involved in accessing patented DNA.

Agriculture

The commercial production of transgenic crops occurs in uncontrolled conditions - the open environment.  They pose bio-security and health risks with the potential for unpredictable downstream effects.  The risks are judged so uncertain that developers/producers and insurance companies refuse to cover them.

In the past, the approach taken in national legislation has been to ‘socialise’ those risks, i.e. to pass the risks and costs they represent onto the people of New Zealand.  We can draw a parallel with mining, rabbits and possums where accountability has fallen on the public purse.

The socialising of risk is the approach currently embodied in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act.  This effectively enforces on the public, regional and local government and their ratepayers the responsibility to cover the costs of damage from GE organisms. This effectively creates a public subsidy for risky ventures by private-interest commercial organisations, in a way that offends most New Zealanders.  It is an approach they consider unreasonable (based on the independent research by Colmar Brunton commissioned by Councils in Auckland and Northland, and provided to central government as support for legislative change to HSNO).

New Zealand’s economy is uniquely vulnerable to the loss of agricultural export and tourism markets.  Any release of genetically engineered organisms would put those same markets directly at risk.  Our economy is very reliant on agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fisheries.  It is, therefore, significant that the adoption of genetic engineering biotechnology in agriculture has over the last decade lead to some of the largest reductions in agricultural export markets internationally; e.g. Canadian canola and honey, US maize and Argentinean soy.  Brazil increased its soy exports because it has remained GE free; likewise, Australia earning export orders for GE free canola. 

Adverse impacts from genetic engineering on agriculture and agricultural markets - even without mishaps - could be compared to the effects of a bio-security disaster such as Foot and Mouth disease experienced by the UK or bird flu on fowl species throughout Asia and Europe. 

Commercial plantings in the US and elsewhere have contaminated weed species with herbicide-resistant genes and the weeds can no longer be eradicated easily.  Transgenes have also contaminated conventional and organic crops.

In the context of patented DNA, licence fees and enforcement of ‘ownership’ (as evidenced by the case of Monsanto against Percy Schmeiser in Canada), the growing of transgenic crops means farmers must pay a royalty fee, making seed more expensive; and the traditional practice of saving seed for the following season is prohibited.

Overseas, the impact has caused hardship to farmers, many losing their livelihood.  In India, farmers have gone into debt and even mortgaged their farms to purchase transgenic seeds, pesticides, and fertilizer from largely US companies on the promise of increased yields.  When the yields do not arise, they are left so in debt that many have committed suicide.  According to the Indian National Crime Records Bureau, over 182,900 farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007, an estimated average of 46 every day, which equates roughly to one every 30 minutes.  In an effort to raise awareness to this tragedy, a film has been made featuring Bollywood star, Aamir Khan.

The Threat to New Zealand

Of particular concern in New Zealand are:

GE Trees:

*The experiments of the New Zealand Forest Research Institute Limited, trading as Scion, planting pinus radiata with a number of engineered traits, including herbicide-resistance and using terminator-type technology

(Applications GMF000032; GMF000033; GMF000034; GMF000035; GMF000036; GMF000037; GMF000038; GMF000039 are all approved with controls.  www.ermanz.govt.nz/

In respect of herbicide-resistant genes being engineered into trees, herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops in the US have increased the use of herbicides, rather than reduce usage.  This has caused a substantial number of weed species to become herbicide-resistant, sometimes to multiple herbicides, causing major difficulties for farmers and other growers.

This is of particular concern for New Zealand given we already suffer the effects of conventional wilding pines, and it indicates that future use of herbicide-resistant GE pines will cause even greater problems.

Scion proposes trees be engineered using ‘terminator-type’ technology, making the trees sterile, not able to flower or replicate.  Transgenic traits tend to be unstable and the variants of terminator technology offer no absolute guarantee of sterility.  The traits can break down and the trees revert to flowering.  Even if totally sterile, terminator trees can spread genes by asexual means.  Genes can spread horizontally in soil bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the extensive root system of forest trees.  In the long term there could be impacts on the soil biota and fertility.  Sterile monocultures are known to yield more readily to disease. 

Trees that do not flower or fruit cannot provide food for the organisms that feed on pollen, nectar, seed and fruit; thus, essential pollinating insects may not be available especially for beekeepers and horticulturalists in the vicinity of GE pine plantations.  Any exacerbation of the problem of declining bee populations which is of particular note overseas would harm food production and food security.

The trees are scheduled to be trialled over two decades in the open environment in the Rotorua area in what is claimed to be “containment”.  Many studies have proven the ability of pollen to travel and we particularly refer to Singh el al (1993) who found pine tree pollen had travelled over 600 kms.    Pollen grains are of size 100 to 10 microns or smaller.  Once in the atmosphere, these grains can travel vast distances.  It would need a failure rate of only a small part of a percent for transgenes in pollen to contaminate other trees, potentially at great distances, in ways that could not easily be monitored.

Singh, G et al., ‘Pollen-Rain from Vegetation of Northwest India,’ New Physiologist, 72, 1993, pp. 191-206.

The risks are environmental and economic.

Risks are reflected in the announcement this month by the New Zealand Company, Rubicon Limited, that the developer, ArborGen LLC – a partner with Rubicon and the International Paper Company of MeadWestvaco Corporation - postponed plans to sell shares on the NASDAQ exchange.  One reason given was that it had not received regulatory approval to market transgenic trees.  ArborGen had hoped for a price on carbon to increase timber demand and this has not arrived.  Another potential market, biofuels derived from transgenic trees, has not eventuated because the manufacturing processes have proven slow and difficult to develop; a past associate of ArborGen, Range Fuels, closed its cellulosic fuel refinery this year.  It was also reported that, to date, ArborGen has failed to make a profit.

New Zealand has a profitable forestry industry that has developed over 150 years using selective breeding.  It is substantially dependent on pinus radiata.  Forestry is a major export earner and a significant employer.  Terminator technology has attracted a voluntary moratorium from most countries because of the implications of its use.  The effect on this country’s reputation overseas and exports could be very damaging.  These experiments are not in New Zealand’s best interests.

www.psgr.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80:submission-on-application-erma200479-to-field-test-in-containment-pinus-radiata&catid=24:environmental-risk-management&Itemid=39.

ERMA decision:  www.ermanz.govt.nz/find/WebResults.aspx?search=GMF99001+&submit.x=30&submit.y=16

“Pharming”- Animals as Bio-reactors:

There is significant cause for worry about AgResearch’s poorly reasoned experiments on a range of organisms, especially in the light of the CRI’s established history of inadequate management and poor results. 

Producing pharmaceuticals using animals and crops has not proven lucrative despite more than a decade of experimentation.  Now AgResearch proposes research involving many different animals and organisms, and a range of undeclared or unknown genetic constructs, for the general purpose of research, breeding and production of commercial products such as antigens, enzymes, biopharmaceuticals and hormones for commercial release. 

AgResearch contends that its current containment facilities are insufficient and it has proposed using centres for larger animals sited in either the North or South Islands and remaining operational over indefinite periods of time.  “Containment” may simply mean fencing.

PSGR still contends that AgResearch has failed adequately to meet relevant sections of HSNO legislation and therefore the basis of ERMA’s statutory obligations under the HSNO Act, and that deliberate exclusion of information has prevented ERMA from making an adequately informed evaluation of risks to public health from transgenic livestock maintained or produced as a consequence of AgResearch’s experiments.

Also of concern is the handling of experimental stock at undisclosed sites:  for example, disposal of carcases and animal waste and their effect on soil organisms, and on ground water and run off.  It is said waste materials from transgenic livestock operations will be disposed of off-site; ‘off-site’ being taken to mean ‘not in containment’ under HSNO.  It also means undisclosed geographic locations and, consequentially, unknown interactions with the receiving environments.

The spraying of GE animal waste onto fields is also a clear channel of risk that is to go unmonitored under ERMA’s current approvals. 

The inefficient monitoring and control of transgenic plants in containment: 

Transgenic Brassica cultivars have been allowed to flower in field trials at The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited (formerly Crop & Food) making it inevitable that transgenic pollen would escape.  One cannot assume that there was no contamination of non-transgenic Brassica crops or Brassicaceae weeds with transgenic pollen, and that transgenic hybrid seed set may have occurred. 

A submission to MAF by Stuart Gowers, forage brassica breeder from the former Crop and Food Research, Lincoln, describes Brassica species as being highly promiscuous, with crosses occurring readily between all species within the genus either directly or via an intermediary.  Cross-pollination will occur within each species and between species of B.campestris, B. napus, B.oleracea, B. nigra, and B. juncea.

Novel Brassicae should be subjected to feeding tests.  Mice fed transgenic peas, engineered with a gene from the closely related common bean, were shown to have immunological damage, evident in their lungs (Prescott et al., 2005).  The authors of the study said diversity in translational and post-translational modification pathways between species could potentially lead to discrete changes in the molecular architecture of the expressed protein and subsequent cellular function and antigenicity.  They showed that transgenic expression of a plant protein (amylase inhibitor-1) from the common bean (Phaseolus vulgari) in a non-native host i.e., the transgenic pea (Pisum sativum), led to the synthesis of a structurally modified form of this inhibitor.  They also showed that the consumption of the modified inhibitor as compared with its native form caused an antigen-specific (CD4+ Th2-type) inflammation in the lungs of mice.  The transgenic brassica is engineered with a highly modified, synthetic version of a bacterial gene and the ramifications of post-translational modifications should be researched.

Scant attention is given to pleiotropic effects; unexpected secondary effects of a genetic change.  When Saxena and Stotzky (2001) studied Bt corn engineered to produce the Cry1Ab protein to kill lepidopteran pests, the Bt corn acquired very much higher levels of lignin; a pleiotropic effect.  Professor David Williams, a New Zealander undertaking medical genetic engineering research at the San Diego School of Medicine, California, said:  “I’m afraid that most of us who work with transgenics are pretty uncritical.  Most of us assay for the transgenic product and ignore the secondary effects.  Even those people doing functional genomics on transgenics mostly ignore changes that ‘don’t make sense’, i.e., cannot be seen as immediately attributable to the transgene.  Hence it’s hard to get an idea of the extent and prevalence of downstream effects from insertional mutagenesis and simply imbalances cause by transgene expression. The biggest risk is that we don’t know.  The problem with transgenics that are released into the environment and used in the food supply, however, is that the potential consequences of deleterious unknowns are clearly greater.” 

In private correspondence with PSGR Trustee, Dr Elvira Dommisse, Professor Williams forwarded a paper on insertional mutagenesis of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana, a member of the Brassicaceae.  Precise locations of insertional mutations were determined for more than 88,000 T-DNA insertions, which resulted in the identification of mutations in more than 21,700 of the approx. 29,454 predicted Arabidopsis genes (Alonso et al., 2003).

Brassica experiments at Plant and Food Research (formerly Crop & Food) have been running for almost three decades and give no indication of producing high performing, commercially viable cultivars becoming available.  We should be cognisant of the costs of such long term, unproductive research.  In 30 years, a breeder could have produced some very good commercial brassica cultivars by using classical and DNA marker-assisted (non-transgenic) breeding techniques, cultivars that would be readily accepted, grown and eaten by the public and provide income for the breeder.

Control, containment and contamination

Recombinant DNA can be detected for several months in soil after the deposition of litter from transgenic plants (Meier and Wackernagel 2003).

In the US, unmilled and milled wheat samples have been found contaminated by transgenic soy and transgenic corn.  Co-mingling of conventional corn with the transgenic StarLink variety, not approved for human consumption because of the risk of adverse health effects in consumers, exemplifies the risk of approving GE feed-crops for animals that are not fit for humans but become co-mingled and enter the food chain.  Repeated failures in efforts to segregate such crops are alarming and need urgent action.  The US Department of Agriculture acknowledges it may never be able to eradicate the StarLink Cry9C gene from the food chain.  Most recently FSANZ has approved a form of GE corn that is high in lysine.  This is intended for animals but when heated can create harmful compounds linked to serious human disease. The approval acknowledges that the hi-lysine corn could enter the human food chain accidentally, yet evidence of the potential harm when cooked and consumed by people has gone ignored.

Canola pollen can travel considerable distances (Rieger et al 2002; Science, 28 June 2002).  Chemical and DNA tests have verified the existence of transgenic canola volunteers (wild plants) resistant to three agricultural chemicals:  Roundup, Liberty and Pursuit.  When Tasmania ran trials of transgenic canola, transgenes escaped at 11 of the trial sites, despite stringent controls. 

The Canadian honey industry lost virtually all its export markets because of contamination by proteins of transgenic origin (Smyth et al., 2002).  British bee keepers experienced contamination from field trials of transgenic crops.  Transgenic crops in New Zealand would threaten our multi-million dollar honey export industry and the damage would be irreversible. 

Horizontal gene transfer is natural within a species and sometimes between related species.  It is not common between unrelated species.  Novel transgenes can be introduced to other plants and theoretically to bacteria.  Concern arises because developers have genetically engineered crops to produce pharmaceuticals, vaccines, industrial compounds, and more.  The most frequently used crops are human food crops such as corn.  Corn is highly susceptible to contamination because it relies on pollen from other corn plants for fertilization.           

US farmers and organic growers report that their suppliers can no longer guarantee seed that is GE-free.  In New Zealand, retailers report that it is increasingly difficult to obtain GE-free or organic soybeans for their customers. 

New Zealand is unique in that it has the opportunity to apply caution, maintain control and prevent contamination.  We do not have to plant or experiment with transgenic crops.  We can protect our environment, our health and our export markets, even take advantage of the demand for GE free product.  The global demand for GE-free, organic, low-pesticide-residue and ethically-produced food is strong in New Zealand’s primary export markets. 

Biopharmaceuticals

Producing drugs in the laboratory using genetic engineering technology has not proven itself 100% reliable. 

TGN1412 threatened severe allergic (anaphylactic) reactions on human volunteers who suffered varying degrees of long term adverse effects, including a New Zealand volunteer.  A Foot and Mouth outbreak in Surrey, England, was linked to a transgenic vaccine under research at the Pirbright/Merial Animal Health research farm.  Humalin is declared a success, yet the British Diabetics Association claims some 20% of insulin-users have adverse side effects with this genetically engineered human insulin, some serious or fatal. 

The Johnson & Johnson drug, Eprex, is a version of a protein known generically as erythropoietin, or EPO.  Bioengineered erythropoietin is made by splicing the human EPO gene into hamster cells.  This novel EPO is subtly different from the natural protein and in patients with red cell aplasia antibodies treated the drug as a foreign protein and did the same to the patient's natural EPO.  In a study of 522 subjects, patients were given relatively high doses of Eprex for three days or a placebo; most were not anaemic.  Sixteen percent of those treated with Eprex had died three months after the study began, compared with nine percent who were given a placebo.

Human health and transgenic food

Proponents claim that transgenic foods have been eaten by millions of people worldwide for over 15 years with no reports of ill effects.  There have, however, been no epidemiological studies to determine whether engineered crops have or have not caused harm to consumers. 

The British Medical Association journal, The Lancet, reported that rats fed on potatoes genetically engineered with the snowdrop lectin had unusual changes to their gut tissue when compared with rats fed on non modified potatoes.

Ewen SW, Pusztai A (October 1999). "Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine". Lancet 354 (9187): 1353–4. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(98)05860-7. PMID 10533866. 

Studies have found DNA from M13 virus, GFP and even ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco) genes in the blood and tissue of ingesting animals.

Brigulla, Matthias (2010) Molecular aspects of gene transfer and foreign DNA acquisition in prokaryotes with regard to safety issues. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology).

Guertler, Patrick (2009) Sensitive and highly specific quantitative real-time PCR and ELISA for recording a potential transfer of novel DNA and Cry1Ab protein from feed into bovine milk. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry

A gene from rapeseed (canola/oilseed rape) engineered to resist the herbicide glufosinate has been found in bacteria and fungi in the gut of honeybees.  The sole human feeding study looking at the ingestion of transgenic soy involved seven volunteers.  Soy-derived transgenes were transferred into the bacteria living in their gut.

Netherwood et al., "Assessing the survival of transgenic planic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract," Nature Biotechnology 22 (2004):2.

Lowering the intake of agricultural chemicals should be a priority.  In Israel, after banning just three agri-chemicals, the death rate from breast cancer in pre-menopausal women declined by 34% between 1976 and 1986.  Roundup is linked to a 3-fold increase in neuro-developmental (attention deficit) disorders (EHP Supplement 3, Vol. 110, June 2002) and a recent test-tube study revealed that Roundup can severely reduce the ability of mouse cells to produce hormones and interferes with a fundamental protein called StAR (steroidogenic acute regulatory protein).  The StAR protein is key to the production of testosterone in men, and the production of adrenal hormone, carbohydrate metabolism and immune system function.  The researchers point out that “a disruption of the StAR protein may underlie many of the toxic effects of environmental pollutants.”  (EHP Vol. 108, No8, August 2000.)  Exposure to Bt spray can produce skin sensitisation and induction of IgE and IgG antibodies to the spray.  Mice, exposed to a Bt strain that can cause severe human tissue death, died within eight hours from clinical toxic-shock syndrome. 

There are no definitive studies on how human consumers are affected by the Bt toxin which is synthesised in every tissue of GE plants made to produce the toxin.  Nor are there definitive studies on the effects of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, glyphosinate or other herbicides applied to crops engineered for resistance to them.  Before food derived from RoundupReady crops was approved for sale in New Zealand, regulatory authorities increased 200-fold the amount of residual glyphosate allowed.

We do not know how ingesting multiple genetically engineered foods on a daily basis will affect human health in the short or long term.  GE foods have been introduced into the food chain without adequate testing and there have been no proper epidemiological studies to investigate their consequent effects.

Exports, economics and ethics

The transnationals who largely developed various genetic engineered products have walked away from them when problems have appeared.  In 2008, Monsanto sold its controversial POSILAC bovine somatotropin brand (rBGH).  After the StarLink debacle, Aventis sold those interests. 

Over fifty percent of staple food crops are grown from seed marketed by ten corporations that include the transnational biotechnology corporations.  In 2008, Monsanto added to its share by purchasing the Dutch seed company De Ruiter Seeds for €546 million.  Monsanto provides the technology in 90% of the world's genetically engineered seeds.

Yet markets pay premiums for non-GE grains.  Large importers - Britain and Europe, and especially Japan and Korea - refused engineered foods and grains, and those contaminated by transgenic material.  Japan has expressed a zero tolerance for GE contamination.  Importers are buying where they can obtain a GE-free guarantee.  The Scottish Farmers Union described the adoption of transgenic crops as “commercial suicide.” 

Significantly, Ireland has declared itself committed to GE-free production and to marketing its products as such.  Many other local regions in Europe and around the world have moved to protect the integrity of their food system and will continue to seek GE-free crops, seed and animal products. This represents a long-term trade opportunity that we contend will significantly outweigh claimed benefits envisioned from trade negotiations, e.g. with the USA.  This current free-trade agenda is seriously compromised by negotiating a forced acceptance of GE foods, a reduction in regulatory oversight, and removal of so called ‘non-tariff barriers to trade’ such as labelling that will allow people to choose to avoid GE foods. 

It is significant that US consumers are also demanding to know what is in their food and a majority would want to avoid GE-food. Such a betrayal of basic consumer rights has no place in a New Zealand.  In polls, 90% of Americans want GE foods labelled, but vested interests and compromised governance continues to oppose the public will.

PSGR also notes and supports the call for US consumers - especially the elderly, infants and immune-deficient - to avoid GE foods, that has been made by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.  The British Medical Association has also provided similar advice for people in the UK.

A decade ago, rejection of transgenic crops by overseas customers resulted in dramatic slides in the US export tonnage shipped, especially of corn (USDA); likewise, Canadian canola.  The US Economic Research Service expected corn/maize exports to continue falling in 2008/09 (www.ers.usda.gov).  Production was saved largely by corn going into biofuel production.   

The US transgenic soy market is buoyed by close to a 75% government subsidy.  This drastically reduces the prices overseas oil seed growers receive who do not have the benefit of subsidies.  The West spends some US$360 billion/pa in agricultural subsidies which cost developing countries around US$50 billion in potential lost agricultural exports.  Fifty billion dollars is roughly equivalent to the level of development assistance. 

The US currently pays around US$20 billion/pa in direct subsidies, estimated at in excess of 60% of every dollar a US farmer earns.  Transgenic food crops corn, cotton and soybeans are included.  Corn receives the highest level of subsidy. 

Mexico has gone from having an abundance of maize to export to having to import to meet its needs.  Production has plummeted because subsidies paid to US farmers have made it impossible for Mexican farmers to compete.  Further, US trucks driving Mexican highways to deliver unmilled maize/corn have spilled transgenic seeds and seriously contaminated native land races in this, the centre of origin of corn. 

Nobel laureate in economics, Joseph Stiglitz, argues that farm subsidies have a long term effect of raising global food prices.  This harms poorer populations and increases malnutrition.  Former head of the United Nations Development Programme, Mark Malloch Brown, has estimated that farm subsidies cost poor nations about US$50 billion/pa in lost agricultural exports and distorts global trade.

‘The Tyranny of King Cotton’, Joseph E Stiglitz, Guardian.co.uk, 24 October 2006; Barrie McKenna For U.S. farmers, subsidies the best cash crop The Globe and Mail, 25 November 2010; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy

New Zealand

The loss of New Zealand’s ‘GE-free’ status would adversely affect Brand New Zealand’s ‘Clean Green’ and ‘Pure New Zealand’ images so important in supporting New Zealand’s export and tourism markets.

Many scientists feel New Zealand is being used for risky experiments rather than the developers’ own backyard.  The basis of the Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification was “preserving opportunities” and eight of its 49 recommendations were designed to ensure that any release of transgenic organisms did not contaminate the products of other growers, including beekeepers. 

What is at stake from growing transgenic crops is New Zealand’s market access to food that can be guaranteed GE free, as is preferred by its export customers in Europe, Japan and other overseas markets.  (‘Report exposes Government inaction over GE,’ 16 April 2008, Scoop - Independent News

A 2003 study from Lincoln University found the release of transgenic crops would have no financial benefit for producers.  Multiple studies from the USDA, and university and private research have shown that, generally, transgenic crop yields are down on conventional varieties and despite 71% of transgenic crops being engineered for pesticide or herbicide resistance, chemical use has not been reduced.  The Department has even advised planting fewer transgenic crops.

Surveys found the majority of New Zealand farmers would prefer to go organic than plant genetically engineered crops.  In terms of primary health, this makes notably good sense, moving as it would away from agricultural chemicals.  Studies have found organically grown food more nutritious than conventional crops.  Experiments with methods of sustainable agriculture - in China, Kenya, the US and elsewhere - are reaffirming that pesticide use can be lessened and that insects are less damaging in multi-crop, rotational, sustainable farming situations than with the monocultural plantings dictated by the biotech industry.  Denmark has made the decision to be organic by 2020. 

Using sustainable and organic farming methods in New Zealand could be achieved to the benefit of its population, farmers and exporters.  That option is not open to any country adopting transgenic crops.  There is no feasible coexistence of GE crops with other conventional, IPM and organic farming given that it would require universal acceptance of standards that allow 1% GE contamination or more, with no control as to what GE contaminant, or its risk to the public, is entailed. 

Conclusions

PSGR acknowledge that genetic engineering biotechnology is cutting edge science and strict, secure contained experiments may benefit humanity, particularly in the medical field.  As it stands:

• it is not based on sound science, sound ethics or sound principles.
• it is driven by private profit to the detriment of those areas of the world where transgenic crops have been introduced 
• adverse effects have been observed on the environment
• there is compelling evidence in animal trials of harm caused by GE foods including those already approved to enter the human food chain
• there is no independent testing of safety of GE foods or monitoring of impacts on public health
• there is inadequate labelling of GE foods, e.g. in cafes and restaurants, and for processed ingredients like oils
• consumers are increasingly unable to avoid GE foods, especially important for vulnerable sectors in the community
• segregation of GE crops has proven to fail and resulted in broad low-level contamination of food supplies with potentially devastating harmful results emerging over time
• bio-pharming and cloning of GE animals can result in extreme deformities and animal suffering that is unethical
• New Zealand’s tourism and export economy requires sustainable and ethical approaches to building our clean, green, 100% pure, natural and ethical production system

The over-emphasis of research funding on genetic engineering molecular biology to the detriment of other approaches is long overdue for re-adjustment in order to preserve the local knowledge base that has been developed over decades within New Zealand’s academic and other publicly-funded research institutions.  The exciting new developments in molecular genetics research must be incorporated into a wider view of biological knowledge rather than being pursued as an exclusive goal presented by genetic engineering biotechnology.  By doing this, our country will continue to make important contributions to humanity’s legacy of scientific achievements.

Government has a duty of care.  Decisions must be based on what is best for New Zealand and New Zealanders.  The present history of genetic engineering biotechnology shows it could ruin New Zealand environmentally and economically, and bring health problems to its people.  Common-sense and caution must dictate decisions.

PSGR would like government to establish:  

• informed assessors and regulators, truly independent of proponent interests, to police any considerations relating to genetic engineering biotechnology and New Zealand
• education programmes for the public and those involved in genetic engineering biotechnology in this country uninfluenced by industry and price-tagged research monies
• an immediate moratorium on the use of GE organisms outside full containment pending cessation of the socialisation of risk from commercial use of GE organisms
• new standards for food regulation preventing importation of untested GE foods into the food chain
• the withdrawal of GE foods already approved, and development of pre-testing protocols, full labelling, and systems for public health monitoring and diagnosis of GE-food related heath issues

We hope government will take a common-sense, responsible attitude towards genetic engineering biotechnology on behalf of the public.  This means ensuring that genetically engineered organisms continue to be kept under the strict controls of laboratory confinement, where they can be used for research and medical purposes, and are not released into the environment or the food chain.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Signed by the Trustees and Members of Physicians and Scientists for Responsible

Email copies to:

All Members of Parliament; leaders of political parties

Ministries:  Environment; Agriculture and Forestry; Economic Development; Foreign Affairs and Trade; Health; Research, Science, and Technology; Science and Innovation; Conservation; Consumer Affairs; Fisheries

New Zealand Councils; District Health Boards

Federated Farmers; Rural Women; Service Groups and NGOs; National Council of Women of New Zealand; Christian Churches New Zealand

News services

Response from the Hon Dr Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment:  www.psgr.org.nz/administrator/index.php?option=com_content&sectionid=-1&task=edit&cid[]=90.

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility

PSGRNZ Charitable Trust

Why DU should be banned from New Zealand

1. Depleted uranium

Weapons and tank armour using depleted uranium (DU) have developed in part because of the unique qualities of DU and partly out of a need to dispose of extensive stockpiles of the waste product of uranium enrichment for fuel and weapons.  The waste accumulated over several decades has posed a huge storage and disposal problem, and will increase further with any nuclear resurgence.  In monetary terms, estimates of the disposal cost have been put at billions, not millions of dollars.

Only about 3 kg from every 1000 kg of processed uranium ore is suitable for use in reactors and traditional types of nuclear weapons.  And for every 1kg of low-enriched uranium produced for reactors, 7 kg of waste depleted uranium remains and is classified as intermediate level nuclear waste.  As a pure radioactive heavy metal, depleted uranium is far more concentrated, in a purely chemical sense, than naturally occurring uranium ores.

2. Military and other uses of depleted uranium and the effects

It is clear that DU was used on a large scale by the US and UK forces in the Gulf War in 1991, in Bosnia in 1994-1995, in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, and again in Iraq in 2003.  It is suspected that the US also used DU in Afghanistan in 2001.  The continued use of A10 ‘Warthog’ aircraft in support of NATO ground troops indicates that DU may be being used.  It is likely to have been used in the US intervention in Somalia in the mid-90s. It is also likely that Russia used DU in Afghanistan in the late 80s.  Its use has been alleged in Lebanon and most recently in Libya.[i]

Following 1991, American tankers described their 120mm DU rounds as the ‘Silver Bullet’ because of their efficacy against Iraq’s ageing Soviet tanks.  However, most NATO countries opted for tungsten kinetic energy weapons due to the environmental cost and political concerns over the use of DU.  These concerns have limited their proliferation, with only the five permanent UN Security Council members (plus Pakistan) producing DU munitions and 15 other states known to stockpile them.[ii] Most military DU use has been as ordinance.  In tank armour, it is sandwiched between sheets of steel armour plate.  It is used as a tamper in fission bombs and as a fissile isotope in some nuclear bombs, e.g., the “neutron bomb”.  In the mid-1990s, DU was also used in some types of area-denial mines.

The use of DU has not been confined to war zones.  DU rounds were test fired at Okinawa, Japan (later removed to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea) up to 400 times daily for 250 days each year.  DU weaponry was test-fired 3 km from Socorro in New Mexico and, between the mid-80s and 1994, at the Army Proving Ground in Indiana, leaving some 70 tons of DU shell fragments and contaminated buildings.  The Nuclear Regulation Commission allows 7900 DU rounds of 30 mm shells to be fired annually on the Las Vegas side of the Nelis Air Force Base by the Nevada Nuclear Testing Site.  As an indication of the quantities of DU weaponry used, the US Navy admitted to the accidental firing of 263 rounds of DU bullets in 1999 at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.  This is less than one normal burst of automatic fire.

There is growing international concern about the unacceptable levels of DU weaponry being used, leading to harm to military personnel and civilians, and to adverse effects on essential crop growing areas, ground and drinking water, fauna and flora, and environments exposed to the DU radiation and toxicity created by its use.

Decontamination poses many problems.  It “is impossible to fully remove all the contamination.  It is also very costly - the Cape Arza site in Montenegro cost DM 400,000 (almost $280,000 US) and took about 5,000 working person days to decontaminate 480 rounds, which in total took around 12 seconds to fire.  Given that even after extensive decontamination many penetrators can remain in the ground, sites may require ongoing testing of groundwater.  In some circumstances, estimates of how long this may need to be done run into centuries, and again the testing is very expensive.”[iii]

There is considerable evidence from animal and tissue studies that DU has the potential to damage human and environmental health through both its radioactivity and chemical toxicity.  Its uncontrolled release in conflict, a lack of transparency from DU users, and the technical difficulties inherent in decontamination, have all increased the risk of unnecessary civilian exposures.  Ongoing reports from Iraq and elsewhere continue to link exposure to DU to increases in certain cancers and birth defects, but the highly detailed epidemiological studies that are urgently required have not been undertaken.  Nevertheless, the potential risks from DU weapons are clear.

It has been proposed that DU may prove to be the ‘Agent Orange’ of the twenty first century.  Governments and the military have consistently misrepresented the radioactive and toxic effects of DU.  Admitting DU can harm would mean multi-billion dollar liabilities for health affected, damage to the environment, and for contamination leading to cleanup costs.  Results are already evident.

2.1. Depleted uranium use in areas of conflict and the effects on human health:

Allied forces used substantial quantities of DU weaponry in Iraq in 1991 and 2003; the US admitting using a total of around 400,000 kg during both conflicts.

While detailed environmental analysis has not yet confirmed the use of DU in Fallujah, Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Iraq's Minister of Women's Affairs, sent a report on 12 October 2009 to the United Nations General Assembly. [iv] It stated:  “In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.  This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.  Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003.”

Showing photos of birth defects - cleft palates, elongated heads, a baby born with one eye in the centre of its face, overgrown limbs, short limbs, and malformed ears, noses and spines - Dr Samira Alani told Al Jazeera, the Arabic language news network:  “We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine.”  Dr Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital since 1997, said she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009.  Eight days later that number had risen to 699.  “There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we’ve never seen them until now.” iv

A study by researchers at the University of Massachusetts and Tufts University concluded:  “... human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU.”[v]

In North Mitrovica, in Kosovo, population movement works against any study to analyse medical records of illness before and after the conflict.  Informally, hospital physicians have reported that the number of patients suffering from malignant diseases has increased dramatically since 1998.[vi]

A 2003 study of the impact points of DU weapons by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina found contaminated drinking water and DU particulates in air samples.[vii]

2.2. Military personnel, depleted uranium and health

In 2004, the UK Pensions Appeal Tribunal Service attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning.  One year after US veterans began returning from the 1991 conflict reports began of birth defects in offspring.[viii] The American Gulf War Veterans Association says half of the 697,000 US soldiers involved in the 1991 Gulf War have serious illnesses.[ix] Exposure to toxic chemicals is currently claimed as the cause, leading to acute and chronic symptoms.  Some 250,000 of the 697,000 who served are afflicted with enduring chronic multi-symptom illness.[x] Uranium has been found in the blood and urine of veterans in the US and Canada.

Uranium oxide is insoluble in water.  It forms aerosol particles that can travel tens of kilometres in air.  Once on the ground, these particles can be resuspended in air when sand or earth is disturbed by motion or wind.  Once breathed in, the very small particles of uranium oxide, those which are 2.5 microns or less in diameter (one micron is one millionth of a metre or a 1000 nanometres) can reside in the lungs for years, slowly passing through the lung tissue into the blood.

2.3. Non-conflict effects of uranium / depleted uranium on health

In November 2002, the US Government admitted that residents living in the US from 1958 to 1963 were exposed to fallout from 1200 nuclear weapon tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site resulting in cancer, gene mutation, heart disease, autism, diabetes, Parkinson’s, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also referred to as motor neuron disease and Lou Gehrig's disease), asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism in new-born infants, obesity and learning disabilities.

High breast cancer rates have been identified in the proximity of nuclear power plants, particularly on the US east coast.[xi] Adverse health effects have been documented in employees and residents living near Puducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington.  These areas are associated with DU activities.  Employees at uranium manufacturing or processing facilities in New York, Tennessee and southwest Colorado have reported adverse health effects similar to those reported by verified Gulf War DU casualties.[xii]

In a study of soil samples taken at Colonie, NY, USA, uranium oxide particles were found to have been dispersed into the environment from a local factory by prevailing winds during the 1960s and 1970s.  The contamination footprint has been mapped northward from site, and the uranium in a soil sample from the surface 5 cm, collected 5.1 km NNW of the site, is considerably depleted.  The study states that “the total mass of uranium contamination emitted from the factory is estimated to be c. 4.8 tonnes.”  Uranium has been found in workers 20 years after exposure and a health study is currently underway on local residents.[xiii]

2.4. Effects on the environment of depleted uranium

DU contaminated soil and dust remain long after conflicts end.

Plant and animal tissues, soil, and water samples were collected in six selected regions in the south of Iraq.  Analysis confirmed the presence of isotopes from the U-238 decay series in over a third of the collected plant samples.  Wild plant samples were found to have radioactive elements at concentrations up to three times the natural background. [xiv]

A report from The Royal Society, London (2002), looking at Uranium in soil in war zones concluded that herbivores ingesting soil whilst browsing may ingest particulate DU present in upper soil layers and vegetations.  Fodder crops would also be expected to absorb uranium and DU from soil.  The highest level of exposure to DU came from contaminated dust and, for livestock, drinking water derived from contaminated groundwater.^xiv

In 1991, the largest ever explosion of a DU munitions and tank storage area occurred at a 500-acre base at Doha, Kuwait.  Soil from Doha was shipped to the US for disposal at a radioactive waste management facility, as were army trucks hit by 'friendly' DU fire.[xv] Failure to complete the work proficiently caused health issues for occupiers and nearby residents; the camp being near Kuwait City and Kuwait City International Airport.  A final cleanup was ordered in 2006.

The live DU weapons test range near Dundrennan, Scotland, has left debris from in excess of 6000 radioactive munitions on the seabed of the Solway Firth.  By 2002, this had amounted to more than 30 tonnes of nuclear waste.  The Journal of Environmental Monitoring (JEM) reported soil samples from the Range “had uranium concentrations and isotopic signatures indicative of contamination with DU.  Furthermore, plants and earthworms collected from above and within contaminated soils respectively also had uranium isotopic signatures strongly influenced by DU, indicating that DU was indeed assimilated into biological tissues.”

Earthworms are a crucial part of a healthy ecosystem, aerating the soil and aiding the nutrient uptake of plants, and affecting the food chain.  If they are contaminated, it suggests the wider environment is also polluted.[xvi]

3. How depleted uranium contaminates

DU is pyrophoric.  It ignites on impact and burns at 3000 °C to 5000 °C, creating radioactive dust particles as small as a nanoparticle; that is, one billionth of a metre.  Nanoparticles are so fine air filters are ineffective.

DU contaminates all living organisms, air, soil and water.  It can settle anywhere.  The Institute of Nuclear Technology-Radiation Protection of Attiki, Greece, states:  “the aerosol produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites or can be inhaled by civilians and military personnel.”

4. The effects of depleted uranium in storage and transport

In the US alone, 686,500 tonnes of DU had accumulated by 2008.[xvii] DU storage presents long term ecological, health and safety risks.

DU first appears as a byproduct of uranium enrichment processes in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF₆).  At ordinary temperatures and pressures it forms solid grey crystals.  It is highly toxic, reacts violently with water to produce uranyl fluoride (UO₂F₂) and hydrogen fluoride (HF) and is corrosive to most metals.  It is mostly stored in steel cylinders, which must regularly be inspected for signs of corrosion and leaks, in open air yards close to enrichment plants.  The US government is slowly converting its large inventory of depleted UF₆ to solid uranium oxides for disposal.[xviii]

4.1. Accidents with depleted uranium in storage and in transit

Accidents involving DU storage cylinders can result in an uncontrollable, irretrievable release into the environment, potentially affecting workers on site, civilians downwind and the ecology and environment.  The most immediate risk to a population is inhalation of hydrogen fluoride (HF); exposure potentially resulting in health effects, from eye and respiratory irritation to death, depending on the exposure level and duration.

Storage accidents involving DU can include:  dropped cylinders; sheered or weak valves, and stiff or hardened ring defects; all forms of transport, including forklift.  In a country prone to earthquakes, New Zealand should be cognisant of the additional potential for serious accidents.

DU handling accidents on public record include the Mont-Louis which sank in 14 metres off the Belgium coast with 30 drums of UF6 on board.  A UF6 cylinder ruptured at a commercial uranium conversion facility, Sequoyah Fuels Corp., Gore OK.  Thirty one workers were exposed to HF inhalation, one worker died.  At the Starmet Corporation, West Concord, Massachusetts, DU was buried in a waste pit and contaminated groundwater at up to 3000 times the official maximum ‘safe’ level.[xix]

4.2. Exposure to depleted uranium in storage or in transit

Workers at DU storage facilities are daily exposed to low-level external radiation.

In ‘The DU Threat’ (14 August 2008), author, Thomas D Williams said:  “The (US) Department of Defense (DoD), the nation's biggest polluter, is now cleaning up 29,500 currently or formerly contaminated sites in every state and territory.  California alone has 3,912 contaminated sites on 441 current and former DoD installations.  Many of DoD's facilities have already contaminated groundwater sources of drinking water. ... The cost to clean up toxic munitions contamination and unexploded ordnance at active and former military installations around the country may reach US$200 billion.” [xx]

Safety at storage facilities would have to be stringent.  Terrorist action would be a possibility.  For example, in 2008, Colombian authorities found a laptop owned by a FARC insurgent group.  On it was a reference to nine kilograms of DU, later retrieved.  In 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported the theft in Argentina of a canister of Caesium-137, a radioactive isotope which is a fission product of nuclear fission.[xxi]

5. Non-military and other uses of depleted uranium

PSGR is mindful of non-military uses required of DU in New Zealand.

5.1. Medical and scientific use:  Because of its high density of 19.1 g/cm³ (1.7 times as heavy as lead) DU is used in science and medicine; e.g. as radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy.  Industrial radiography cameras include a high flux gamma radiation source (typically Ir-192) that is surrounded by a DU shield.[xxii]

5.2. Aircraft usage:  Aircraft can contain trim weights of between 400 to 1500 kg of DU; e.g. the Boeing 747-100 of the Lockerbie disaster; El Al Flight 1862, which crashed in Amsterdam, containing 282 kilograms of DU; the Boeing 747 cargo jet that crashed during takeoff from Halifax International Airport in October 2004.

PSGR acknowledges that some of New Zealand’s military aircraft have DU trim weights and recommend that this be replaced with less toxic or harmless material as soon as practical.  Reports say DU is being phased out in commercial aircraft and replaced with tungsten.

The fact that the New Zealand Defence Forces, along with countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, have decided to use tungsten or remove DU from their arsenals, brings into question the claims of the US and UK that DU is indispensible as an anti-armour weapon.[xxiii] (See also

5.3. Non-military / domestic usage:  Medical facilities, industries and mining operations may use radioactive material and depleted uranium has been used in domestic products.  The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued draft NUREG-1717:  Systematic Radiological Assessment of Exemptions for Source and Byproduct Materials.

Its report covered items containing DU, including “dental ceramics, ophthalmic lenses, glazed ceramic tableware, piezoelectric ceramic, glassware, glass enamel and glass enamel frit, photographic film, negatives and prints, counterweights, shielding in shipping containers, fire detection units, among others.”  Other uses have been high-temperature superconducting materials, lawn mower parts, and catalysts in furnace tubes at a hydrogen manufacturing plant.  PSGR recommends transitioning to procedures and technologies that do not rely on byproducts of uranium enrichment processes.[xxiv]

Extensive, stringent, effective, monitored upgrading of national and placement of international regulations for all usage are urgently needed.

6. Military regulations for uranium / depleted uranium

To suppress opposition, claims that depleted uranium is safe have frequently been based on false premises and misinformation, and do not equate with published and established facts.  For example, Pentagon spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel David Lapan, speaking about studies into the health risks of DU, told BBC News Online (14 April 2003):  “One thing we’ve found in these various studies is that there are no long-term effects from DU.”  This despite the fact that a US Army video, produced in 1995, outlined the dangers.[xxv]

The risks associated with DU were identified very early in its development.  In September 2002, US Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, signed Army Regulation 700-48.  It specifies rules for handling DU weaponry and contamination, including destroyed or disabled enemy targets that have been hit and contaminated by DU.  It states that local commanders must:  “identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE (radiologically contaminated equipment).  Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.”

Regulations had already required damaged vehicles to be moved to a collection point or maintenance facility, and “covered and wrapped with canvas or plastic tarp to prevent spread of contaminants.”  Loose items were to be placed in double plastic bags.  The personnel carrying out these tasks must wear protective equipment.

Regulation 700-48 also states:  “Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment without approval from overall commander.”  Radioactive equipment must be cleaned up and disposed of as soon as practicable.  Other military regulations require DU tank drivers to be medically examined if they are exposed to dust or other radioactive debris.  It is reported that US Army and DoD regulations prohibit the use of DU munitions during training.  Troops are instructed to avoid sites where DU weapons have been used such as destroyed tanks and exploded bunkers, and to wear masks if they do have to approach.  Reports show that the US military’s ‘green think tank’ has been suggesting for some time that alternatives to DU should be sought.

As with the Japanese authorities following the Fukushima earthquake, the US is now allowing its troops who are caught in Level I or Level II DU incidents – for example, in a vehicle struck by DU or cleaning contaminated vehicles – to waive US occupational radiation exposure regulations.[xxvi]

(See www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/281.html;

Statement from Britain’s current Defence Minister on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/382.html;

The Dutch Minister of Defence referring to DU as “heavy polluting stuff” on www.ikvpaxchristi.nl/news/?v=2&cid=1&id=1273&lid=3.)

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/225.html; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/57.pdf; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/58.pdf; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/73.pdf.)

After the Kosovo intervention, Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, admitted that DU intended for armour-piercing weapons had also been contaminated by small amounts of plutonium.[xxvii] Plutonium is a radioactive poison that accumulates in bone marrow.

7. The science

Official statements claim that only “safe” low level alpha radiation emanates from depleted uranium.  Alpha particles are completely absorbed by human skin, depositing all their energy close to the surface.  Beta particles can penetrate up to about 2 cm, depending on their energy.  Gamma radiation can penetrate deeply and can generate beta radiation along its track through the body.

Depleted uranium comprises 99.3% ²³⁸U.  It gives off three forms of radiation:  alpha, beta and gamma.  The nature of radioactive decay is such that alpha or beta emissions from an atom result in that atom changing into a different element.  When an atom of ²³⁸U emits an alpha particle it decays into an atom of thorium, ²³⁴Th.  Thorium is a beta emitter with a half life of 24 days.  The thorium beta emitter decays, emitting beta particles and transforming into an atom of protactinium, ²³⁴Pa.  This is a beta emitter, with a half life of seven hours. Thus, depleted uranium is emitting alpha, beta and gamma radiation.  After a few months, the concentrations of thorium and protactinium – known as daughter products - will have built up so that the amount of beta and gamma radiation will each be twice the amount of alpha radiation.

The decay rates of uranium isotopes are expressed as half-lives, the time required for a given amount of the isotope to be reduced by half.  A shorter half-life means more intense radiation and, in general, greater potential to damage or destroy cells.  The half-life of ²³⁸U is 4.5 billion years; equivalent to the life-span of Earth.  The half-life of plutonium, which can be part of or contaminate DU weapons, and which is lethal in even microscopic amounts, is 24,000 years.[xxviii]

See http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/environmental_risks/docs/scher_o_123.pdf for details of ²³⁸Uranium decay series, p. 38; and natural uranium activity (²³⁸Uranium series), page 40.

Decontamination is expensive and technically challenging and the UN Environment Programme has concluded that it is “very difficult to achieve comprehensive detection and complete decontamination of DU at a given site.  Even after thorough decontamination efforts have been conducted, some contamination points may remain.”

The use of DU weaponry raises serious questions about potential long-term health effects for many generations to come.[xxix] Dispersing DU into the environment in a form that is so readily

Internalized is profoundly irresponsible and unconscionable.  It may kill the perceived enemy, but as has been shown it can also slowly kill one’s own personnel and civilian populations.  At all stages of handling, DU is dangerous.

Dust particles derived from DU weapons contain high proportions of uranium, typically more than 50%.  Uranium is a known carcinogen and induces birth defects.  Its chemical toxicity is about a million times greater in vivo than its radiological hazard.  DU can be absorbed through skin, lungs and eyes, or ingested in food, and can accumulate in the brain, central nervous system and other body organs.  The effects on human health are determined by such factors as the extent of exposure and whether it was internal or external.  Normal function of kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure.  Multiple studies suggest leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.  Uranium has a strong chemical affinity for DNA phosphate structures.  Uranyl ions can bind in the minor groove of DNA and to "zinc finger" structures of some DNA-binding proteins, leading to significant changes in the regulation of genetic expression in selected tissues.[xxx]

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is the principal US federal public health agency concerned with hazardous substances.  In its latest draft guide to uranium’s toxicity, the section on genotoxicity is updated[xxxi] (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp150-c5.pdf ) and a study by Alexandra C Miller of the US Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute examines DU as a carcinogen (http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/outreach/pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf).

See also:  A Review of Depleted Uranium Biological Effects:  In vivo studies, Alexandra C. Miller, PhD, Uniformed Services University, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/184.pdf

See also:  A Review of Depleted Uranium Biological Effects:  In vitro studies, Alexandra C. Miller, PhD, Uniformed Services University, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/183.pdf

8. Depleted uranium and New Zealand’s image

In 2009, the Belgian Senate restricted investments by Belgian banks in the manufacturers of DU weapons, land mines and cluster munitions.

On 24 October 2009, the Board of Trustees at the University of Vermont adopted a resolution to withdraw the University's investment funds from companies involved in the production of DU weapons.  It cited “indiscriminate use” and “broad adverse effects to human health and the environment” of their use.[xxxii] While the University did not identify the manufacturers or their investors, the largest US producers of DU weapons are General Dynamics, ATK Alliant Systems, and Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee.  Their US financiers include the Bank of America, the US Bank, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs.

A report released on 5 March 2012 by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) - Don't Bank on the Bomb:  The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers – identifies the significant investors in the 20 major nuclear weapons producers. (See full report http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DivestmentReport.pdf .)

Several investment funds have been established that exclude investments in DU manufacturers in anticipation that DU will be banned.  One announcement, made in June 2011, can be read on www.globalpensions.com/global-pensions/news/2082156/msci-launches-range-esg-indices:  “Indices have been developed for use by institutional investors who wish to avoid investments in cluster bombs, landmines, chemical, biological, and depleted uranium weapons.   A growing number of regulatory and legislative initiatives in Europe and Australia are also considering banning investments in such weapons...”

PSGR suggests such actions against the presence and/or usage of DU could have significant repercussions on the New Zealand economy and exports if sufficient bodies took similar action.  Having uranium / depleted uranium in this country in any form, other than controlled, lawful medical and scientific uses, is inconsistent with our Clean Green image.

9. Depleted uranium and international laws

The United Nations Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution that calls for prohibition on the use of DU.  There is currently no definitive international treaty to regulate, limit or prohibit the use of weapons containing depleted uranium.  However, there is strong scientific debate and concern regarding the impact of the use of such weaponry which suggests there will be a consensus view at an international legal level in the foreseeable future that the use of DU weaponry violates the general principles of the law/s applicable to the use of weapons in armed conflict.

The use of weapons containing DU is already viewed by many as illegal under International Humanitarian, Human Rights and Environmental Laws.  Annex II to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material 1980 (operative from 8 February 1997) classifies DU as a category II nuclear material.  The storage and transport rules set down for that category indicate that DU is considered sufficiently “hot” and dangerous to warrant these protections.  The International Atomic Energy Agency classifies DU as a source material and it is covered in the Safeguards system.  The use of DU in weapons can breach one or more of the following treaties:  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions including Protocol I, the Convention on Conventional Weapons of 1980, and the Chemical Weapons Convention.  In 1996, in a ruling from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, DU weapons were classed as “weapons of indiscriminate effect”.[xxxiii]

There is a consensus view in international legal circles that the use of projectiles, such as those using DU, nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction, violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict.  Such weapons are universally acknowledged to have the most deleterious consequences to populations and environments.[xxxiv]

Three UN General Assembly resolutions on DU accept that it is a potential hazard.  All three resolutions have been supported by New Zealand.[xxxv]

It is also significant that four European Parliament resolutions have called for a moratorium on the use of DU, with the most recent in 2008 being supported by 94% of members calling for a ban.[xxxvi]

PSGR proposes that the illegality of DU weapons must be tested by recourse to the general rules governing the use of weapons under humanitarian and human rights law.  Parties to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 have an obligation to ascertain that new weapons do not violate the laws and customs of war or any other international law. These include whether the effects of DU can be limited only to legitimate military targets; whether their use is proportionate, and whether

Their use breaches the expectation that all efforts be made to avoid unnecessary damage to humans and the environment.  The International Court of Justice considers this rule as binding as customary humanitarian law.

A review of the legal status of DU can be found on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/74.pdf;  a summary on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/63.html.

10. New Zealand’s position and laws

A New Zealand Herald article (26 June 2010) read:  “uranium ore concentrate has been coming through our ports for 30 years, but only at the rate of one shipment per annum ... “until last year the shipments didn't require a permit.” [xxxvii]

It adds:  “The National Radiation Laboratory administers importations of radioactive material, but because these shipments are transiting they don't require its consent.”  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) began vetting “shipments only last year (2009) under the Customs and Excise Act which requires MFAT consent to transit strategic goods.”

The Herald reported that the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA), now replaced by the Environmental Protection Authority (www.epa.govt.nz) was only made aware in 2009 (by chance) that the shipments fall under the HSNO Act 1996 which it administered, and ERMA approved applications for the trans-shipments of uranium ore concentrate in steel drums, the drums in sealed containers shipped under deck.  The details of the applications suggest the uranium containers form only part of the ships’ cargoes; therefore, are port personnel handling any or all of the remaining cargo and is the remaining cargo tested for contamination?  There have been no reports of any radiation problems associated with these shipments, but one port Harbour Master has produced photographic evidence of serious damage in storms to containers stored in the bow area of such ships as the uranium ore concentrate is, and proposes that they should be stored in the mid section of the hold of ships.

The National Radiation Laboratory official review document of 1976-1980 indicates ships loaded with uranium began stopping over at the Ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Napier and Nelson at least three decades ago.  This coincides with the build-up to the passing of New Zealand’s Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.

(See National Radiation Laboratory Information Sheet No. 28,     http://www.nrl.moh.govt.nz/publications/is28.asp.)

Three uranium ore companies are reportedly involved:  Energy Resources of Australia, a subsidiary of British-Australian Rio Tinto group, owner of the Ranger Mine; BHP Billiton Olympic Mine; Heathgate Resources Beverley Mine.  Vessels have an allowed 20-day turnaround period under transhipment regulations and the cargo must remain on board.  Nuclear physicist, Robert White, co-founder of the Centre for Peace Studies at the University of Auckland and Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, maintains that the shipments breach the Resource Management Act under which it is an offence to store radioactive waste or other radioactive matter in our coastal marine area which includes our harbours.  This is still under investigation.

The above situation is a poor reflection on official regulatory oversight, and this trafficking is inconsistent with the spirit of New Zealand's nuclear-free policy.  While Australia may claim that it exports uranium ore for use for peaceful purposes only, an end product of processing the ore is depleted uranium, and the main end use for DU is weapons of war.

Relevant New Zealand Acts: 

• Resource Management Act (Section 15), http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0069/latest/DLM230265.html;
• HSNO (Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act) 1996, (reprint as at 18 August 2011),  http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0030/latest/DLM381222.html;
• Customs and Excise Act, (reprint as at 2 January 2012) http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0027/91.0/DLM377337.html;
• Maritime Transport Act, (reprint as at 1 October 2008)  http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1994/0104/latest/DLM334660.html;
• Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, (reprint as at 20 August 1998), http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0086/latest/DLM115116.html.
• Marine Pollution Act 1974 (Sections 21A and 21B), http://www.elaw.org/node/3501.

11. Depleted uranium and New Zealand

The New Zealand government has a duty of care to all New Zealanders and the New Zealand environment to prevent injury and damage derived from depleted uranium.  No level of DU can be claimed to be safe.

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility

March 2012

www.psgr.org.nz

PSGR acknowledges the contribution made to this statement by Doug Weir, BSc, MA,

International Coordinator for the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/index.html.

[i] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/314.html.

[ii] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/21.html.

[iii] ‘A Question of Responsibility - the legacy of depleted uranium use in the Balkans’, a report examining user transparency, the capacity of states to manage depleted uranium contamination and the development of health studies, seen through the experiences of Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, 11 October 2010 – ICBUW, http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/342.html.

UNEP – Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro, www.postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf.

[iv] Letter to the United Nations www.iraqirabita.org/english/index.php?do=article&id=1237.  ‘US claims no depleted uranium used in second Fallujah siege’ www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/406.html.  ‘Fallujah babies: Under a new kind of siege’ www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html. ‘Uranium and other contaminants in hair from the parents of children with congenital anomalies in Fallujah, Iraq’, Alaani et al, Conflict and Health 2011, 5:15 doi:10.1186/1752-1505-5-15, www.conflictandhealth.com/content/5/1/15

[v] www.ehjournal.net/content/4/1/17/abstract.

[vi] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/134.pdf.

[vii] http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?ArticleID=3926&DocumentID=298.

Further information on www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/134.pdf.

[viii] www.birthdefects.org/research/veterans.php.

[ix] www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/veteran-statistics.php; (www.census.gov/compendia/statab/)

[x] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome.

[xi] The breast cancer map from The Enemy Within:  the high cost of living near nuclear reactors by Jay M Gould, with members of the Radiation and Public Health Project, Ernest J Sternglass, Joseph J Mangano, William McDonnell.

[xii] http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DUuse+hazard.html#n12.

[xiii] ‘The distribution of depleted uranium contamination in Colonie, NY, USA’, Lloyd NS, Chenery SR, Parrish RR, Sci Total Environ, 20 December 2009;408(2):397-407, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19853279.  www.rsc.org/images/NLloyd_tcm18-128519.pdf.

[xiv] ‘Impact of Depleted Uranium on Man and Environment in Iraq’, from an international scientific symposium on the use of Depleted Uranium and its impact on man and environment in Iraq held in Baghdad 2-3 December 1998, http://stgvisie.home.xs4all.nl/VISIE/DUREPORT/du-symposium.html.  The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions Part II, The Royal Society, London, 2002, ISBN 0 85403 5745, http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2002/9954.pdf.

xv ‘DU, The Emerging Radiation Crisis in Iraq and US Students: Vermont Takes Lead with Divestment’OpEdNews Don Lieber, 24 November 2009; http://lisa4everwonders.blogspot.com/2009/11/depleted-uranium-emerging-radiation.html.

[xvi] See ‘2002 Marine Environmental Depleted Uranium Survey Report Kirkcudbright Training Area’, C Toque.  ‘Assessing depleted uranium (DU) contamination of soil, plants and earthworms at UK weapons testing sites’, Ian W Oliver, Margaret C Graham, Angus B MacKenzie, Robert M Ellam and John G. Farmer, J. Environ. Monit., 2007, 9, 740-748, DOI: 10.1039/B700719A, http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2007/em/b700719a.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/depleted-uranium-turns-earthworms-into-glowworms-1.828561.

[xvii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

[xviii] See also www2.fluoridealert.org/Pollution/Nuclear-Industry/US-Babcock-Wilcox-awarded-428-million-contract-to-deconvert-depleted-uranium-hexafluoride.  www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/404.html.

[xix] D. Fahey: Case Narrative - DU Exposures; Swords to Plowshares, National Gulf War Resource Center, Military Toxics Project, (September 1998) www.join-snafu.org/PDFs/du.pdf.

[xx] http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0808/S00179.htm.

[xxi] www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11902, 28 October 2010.

[xxii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

[xxiii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZLAV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster#Ammunition.

[xxiv] See European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements, Karlsruhe, Germany, Civil use of depleted uranium, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Volume 67, Issue 3, 2003, Page 265, M. Betti, www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB2-460WGT9-2&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_cdi=5914&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=1&_refLink=Y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=824e44ffbfa8f346fa470bd89875ccf7&searchtype=a.).

[xxv] Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the US Army, US Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI), June 1995) www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/techreport.html.

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/225.html.

[xxvi] http://www.pdhealth.mil/downloads/OTSG_MEDCOM_Policy_11-047_Med_M.pdf.

[xxvii] www.internettrash.com/users/socialjustice/du.html.

[xxviii] http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/dupost.htm, IPPNW, IEER.  Plutonium:  Deadly gold of the nuclear age. Cambridge, MA: International Physicians Press. 1992.

[xxix] UNEP – Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro, www.postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf.

[xxx] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/58.pdf.  Wendy J Hartsock et al, ‘Uranyl Acetate as a Direct Inhibitor of DNA-Binding Proteins’, Chem. Res. Toxicol. 20(5), 2007, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx600347k.

Kim J et al, ‘Binding of uranyl ion by a DNA aptamer attached to a solid support’, Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2011 1:21(13). Epub May 6 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21612923.

[xxxi] http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=440&tid=77.

[xxxii] ‘Depleted Uranium, The Emerging Radiation Crisis in Iraq and US Students: Vermont Takes Lead with Divestment’OpEdNews Don Lieber, 24 November 2009; http://lisa4everwonders.blogspot.com/2009/11/depleted-uranium-emerging-radiation.html.

[xxxiii] See http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/95.pdf for the actual wording.

[xxxiv] Legality of Nuclear Weapons, ICJ Rep. (1996), 242.

[xxxv] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/245.html.

[xxxvi] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/244.html.

[xxxvii] ‘Nuclear-free status under scrutiny’ by Phil Taylor, 26 June 2010, NZ Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10654417.

Ends