British Nuclear Test Veterans' genetic legacy
Study finds shocking rates of congenital disease in second and third generations.

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A study by Green Audit has looked at health in the descendants of members of BNTVA (British Nuclear Test Veterans' Association). BNTVA's members are ex-servicemen who, in the 1950s and '60s, were deliberately exposed to radiation from test firings of nuclear bombs in Australia and at Christmas Island.

Veterans' children and grandchildren were studied for miscarriages, stillbirth, infant mortality, congenital illnesses and cancer. Rates found were compared with national statistics and with the descendants of unexposed controls.

The findings are a challenge to conventional estimates of the health impact of radiation, because high levels of miscarriages, stillbirths and congenital conditions were found, though cancer was not greatly elevated.

• Miscarriages were 2.75 times higher than expected,
• Stillbirths were 2.7 times higher than expected,
• The rates for congenital conditions are shocking. In the veterans' children they are 10 times higher than expected. The grandchildren have almost as much — an 8.35-fold excess, indicating that genetic damage is being passed down the generations at an unexpected rate. Conventional genetic theory would suggest that damage would be diluted in later generations. The study's results for congenital damage are in line with post-Chernobyl animal research that shows such effects persisting for up to 22 generations. The outlook for the future of the veterans' families is grim.

None of the results correlates with doses recorded by the radiation film badge monitors that some of the servicemen were given to wear during the tests. Neither do the findings correlate with attendance at actual explosions, as the genetic damage is present in the descendants of men who served on test sites only between tests. These men were nevertheless exposed to fallout inhalation hazards. These two considerations strongly suggest that the cause of the health problems is chronic internal radiation, rather than acute external irradiation from the explosions themselves.

The findings confirm and extend earlier research by other workers and point to a need for reanalysis of a 1999 BNTVA database currently held by the University of Dundee. The Green Audit paper can be downloaded from here (right click the link to download, left click to view).