Uranium mining in East Germany for Soviet nuclear weapons by the Wismut company caused thousands of cancers and destroyed the environment in the region. More than 20 years after mining ended, its effects can still be seen.

The mountain range of the Erzgebirge and the adjacent Vogtland was home to one of the world’s largest uranium mining conglomerates, run by the Wismut company in
the years 1946–1990. While by 1990, 5,275 cases of lung cancers were officially recognized as a result of work in the uranium mines, new cases of lung cancer in former uranium miners are not recognized as occupational diseases.

In 2006, the British Journal of Cancer published a study on former uranium miners of
the Wismut company which demonstrated a rate of 50%-70% increase in the rate of lung cancer, leading to a staggering 7,000 radiation-induced deaths amongst the
59,000 subjects surveyed [1].

The effects of uranium extraction and processing do not stop with the consequences
for miners and mill workers: uranium can be transferred through the food chain from soil to plants, animals and humans. The concentration of uranium is still high,  compared with natural background levels, in the farmed river floodplains which drain former uranium mining and milling areas in Saxony.

Namibia is the world’s fifth largest uranium producer. The mine, run by the company
Rio Tinto, is a human rights concern because of working conditions as well as a health risk to workers.

The Rössing uranium mine, commissioned in 1976, has been a cause for environmental, humanitarian and health concerns for more than 30 years through unsafe working conditions, radioactive effluent and tailings. It is now the world‘s largest openpit uranium mine. Miners at Rössing are exposed to dust and inhale radon gas on a daily basis: although vast quantities of water are used to keep uranium dust on the ground, the use of explosives in open-pit mining cause
large clouds of radioactive dust. This dust is carried to the fields and settlements
of the nearby town of Arandis and to the region‘s waterways. Elevated levels of
uranium have been detected in groundwater. A study performed by the Charité
University Clinic of Berlin demonstrated a six-fold increase in uranium excretion amongst uranium miners as well as elevated rates of chromosomal aberrations,
and significantly reduced white blood cell counts [2].