Exposure to Uranium through Skin and Injury

Workers in the nuclear industry or people involved in uranium mining or milling may be accidentally exposed to uranium through cuts or injuries. Fragments of DU munitions that are embedded in soft tissues may be slowly oxidized in the body and provide a continuous source that is absorbed by the bloodstream. Selected studies of these special populatious are discussed later. However, the general population would not be normally exposed to uranium through this pathway. 

Some remarks on these studies There is little doubt that the lack of proper hygienic conditions in the early postwar days led to a large nnmber of lung cancer and bronchial diseases [for a vivid description of those conditions, see (Zoellner 2010)]. The main canses were uranium containing dust and radon and their progenies, but there could also be some contribution to illness from arsenic and silicon in the breathable dnst. External gamma radiation may have also played a role. 

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