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Americans had better be watching the Flint Michigan water situation and those US Congress members who have been trying to further postpone help. It is clear that when a Chernobyl or Fukushima-like nuclear accident or other radiological emergency happens, which is too serious for the US government to hide, Americans are on their own. If there were any doubt, the US EPA just imposed a PAGs which sets aside the Clean Water Act in the event of a nuclear emergency. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/usepa-gina-mccarthy-issues-confusing-misleading-simplistic-radiation-in-water-pag-after-accusing-michigan-of-that-for-flint-comment-deadline-monday-11-59-pm The US FDA doesn’t check food for radiation unless it is suspected as having 15 times more radiation than that which is acceptable in Japan.
In the case of Flint, treated Flint River water should be safer than water from Lake Huron. Bruce Nuclear Power Station has 8 CANDU Nuclear Reactors which discharge radioactive materials, in particular high levels of tritium, into Lake Huron. The turnover of Lake Huron is about 22 years. It is the eastern part of Lake Michigan, which has additional nuclear reactors discharging into the Lake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Huron
Uranium, like most radionuclides, is both a radiological and chemical poison. Similarities between uranium and lead should come as no surprise. Both are heavy metals. Lead is actually the end of the uranium radioactive decay chain. That is, uranium eventually becomes lead.
According to Briner (2006), “DU has many similarities to lead in its route of exposure, chemistry, metabolic fate, target organs, and effect of experimental animals… The biochemical effects of uranium are not nearly as well studied as those for lead, which has an extensive literature, especially for lower dose exposure. Some literature does exist indicating that uranium has some biochemical effects similar to lead… However, there are differences between lead and uranium. In blood, 90% of lead is associated with either hemoglobin or the membranous components of red blood cells and the bulk of lead body burden is associated with the skeleton. Uranium in blood is about 40% plasma bound and the remainder is found as the soluble uranyl ion. Inhaled lead and uranium dust (as the oxides) both appear to have pulmonary half-lives of about 4-5 years. However, the skeletal half-life of lead is about 20 years but uranium has a skeletal half-life of less than 1.5 years, making the long-term kinetics of the two metals substantially different. Despite these differences there appears to be enough “face validity” to suggest that lead may be a useful model to anticipate the effects of uranium exposure until the time that the scientific literature on DU has matured. Provided that DU is similar in its’ biological activity to lead we are likely to see effects that are subtle, but pervasive, and most likely to impact children. Lead is well documented to have a negative impact on intellectual function at very low blood concentrations. These effects are likely to be seen only using large sample sizes and fairly sophisticated designs and tools for measurement.” (Briner WE, Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2006 Jun;3(2):129-35. “The evolution of depleted uranium as an environmental risk factor: lessons from other metals.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16823086, Emphasis our own, The entire article is available for free.)
The dangers of lead and uranium have been long known, yet continue to be ignored: “The Romans were aware that lead could cause serious health problems, even madness and death. However, they were so fond of its diverse uses that they minimized the hazards it posed. Romans of yesteryear, like Americans of today, equated limited exposure to lead with limited risk. What they did not realize was that their everyday low-level exposure to the metal rendered them vulnerable to chronic lead poisoning, even while it spared them the full horrors of acute lead poisoning.” https://web.archive.org/web/20160208011715/http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-historical-perspective
“Diseases of miners were the first to be linked to the risks of uranium, even before uranium was the purpose of the mining. Pitchblende, a waste ore in silver, bismuth and cobalt mining, was already linked to lung disease in miners in the mid 1500s. The radioactive dust from these mining operations, as well as radon exposure, produced noteworthy rates of lung cancer in German miners” (Briner, 2010)
Related to article: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/chernobyl-birds-have-smaller-brains/
Yellow and red emphasis added. The original “The Toxicity of Depleted Uranium Wayne Briner” found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819790/pdf/ijerph-07-00303.pdf
Mining Awareness + 
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