Witness for bomb test veterans wins disclosure battle with MoD

Veterans of the British nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s (some ill, some dying) and the widows of some who are dead are demanding war pensions. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has always argued that radiation doses from the tests were too low to have caused any health problem. This opinion is based on film badges worn by service-men observing the test explosions. However, film badges can detect only gamma rays; they do not show exposure to beta and alpha emitting radioactivity from fallout. Since it is now known that internal contamination by alpha and beta emitters is, dose for dose, far more dangerous than gamma expert witness Chris Busby submitted a Freedom of Information request to the MoD to see what data they held on fallout levels. He had already come into possession of one such report. It showed that an area of Christmas Island 40 Km from the explosion site was heavily contaminated with Uranium - one of the radioactive substances that film badges cannot reveal. The MoD revealed the existence of a substantial number of reports but refused to release them. They used a variety of excuses including the claim that they had no data on Christmas Island because it was an American test site. A Judge in the War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Chamber has now ordered full disclosure.
Click here to see the correspondence up to March 2010

Before you leave this page

• The Busby, de Messieres 2007 study cited in the correspondence shows how research on members of the British Nuclear Test Veterans' Association revealed that the children and grandchildren of test veterans suffer anomalously high rates of disease. The paper is on this site
• New research from New Zealand shows increased rates of genetic damage in naval veterans exposed to nuclear weapons test fallout in the 1950s and '60s. The paper is on this site The lead author Dr Al Rowland, blamed internal radiation. According to the New Zealand Herald, he believes that the sailors' exposure to ingesting fallout was a greater hazard than the direct radiation from the bomb explosions. They became internally contaminated because their ships remained in the area for some time and they used rainwater for washing and drinking. For press coverage see : this randomly selected article from a Utah paper, an article in the Daily Mail, a Sunday Mirror report, and an editorial.

  MoD forgetfulness

  Reported in the The Times, May 14th 2007, a spokesman for the UK Ministry of Defence said: “The MoD remains open to new scientific or medical evidence concerning nuclear test veterans. [But] previous independent reports have concluded that there is no evidence of excess illness or mortality among the veterans as a group that could be linked to their participation in the tests or exposure to radiation.”

  Poor memory, worse epidemiology

  MoD has forgotten a 2002 court case in which LLRC demolished the "independent reports" by showing the gross flaws in the epidemiology they rely on. See all the detail in Radioactive Times Vol 5 number 1, June 2003.

A video of Professor Busby discussing the bizarre story of the MoD's refusal to release data under a Freedom of Information data request is on YouTube.