Sir, - As a regular reader and admirer of your paper, I was astonished to read your Editorial of January 17th on the assumed hazards of depleted uranium. For ignorance, emotion and over-reaction, it would be hard to beat. Yet there, a few inches away, was a letter from Prof McInerney of University College, Cork that laid out the cold facts of the matter in language anyone could understand.
In summary, he stated that the radiation hazard of DU was minimal, similar to that from a luminous watch; that, like other heavy metals, it was highly toxic when ingested, but that even in the form of dust and fragments generated by a strike on enemy armour, the danger was restricted to the immediate vicinity of the destroyed vehicle. Although cancer due to ingestion might result over the long term, the sort of leukaemia associated with exposure to intense radiation was out of the question.
On what grounds, then, do you invoke the precautionary principle? Your correspondence columns are perhaps the best of any English-language newspaper. It seems a pity that your Editorial writers are not always as well informed as your correspondents. - Yours, etc.,
Timothy Palmer, West Woodyates, Salisbury, England.