The U.S. Army recently awarded Virginia Tech researchers additional money to study whether a combination of stress and exposure to uranium from military ammunition could cause some of the myriad health problems affecting veterans of the first war in Iraq. The U.S. military as well as some NATO forces frequently use depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition because of its density. Although far less radioactive than natural uranium, which is used for nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear power plants, depleted uranium can still pose a health risk to those who come into direct contact with it. Environmental groups and some health advocates claim that exposure to depleted uranium - whether in the form of radioactive dust ingested after detonation, in the form of shrapnel in the body or through contact with spent munitions and their targets - could be causing Gulf War Syndrome, the name given to the assorted health problems suffered by veterans of the first Gulf War.
Others have said depleted uranium ammunition caused a rise in cancer rates and birth defects among Iraqi citizens. Medical studies have offered conflicting results on the potential dangers of depleted uranium, but research into the subject is intensifying.
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