Govt considers study of nuclear test vets’ children
The UK government is considering a new study into the health of the children of British veterans used as guinea pigs in its Australian and Pacific nuclear weapons tests, to test fears of a poisonous genetic legacy.
If a link can be found it may form the basis of a claim for compensation from the UK government, despite courts previously turning down such claims from the veterans themselves.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has told officials in the Ministry of Defence to look at the feasibility of a study into the health and well-being of the children of nuclear test veterans, an MOD spokesman said.
Decades ago, around 22,000 British military personnel witnessed nuclear weapons tests in South Australia, on the Montebello Islands off Western Australia, and on Kiribati’s Christmas Island in the Pacific.
Some felt the heat of the explosion on their backs and were ordered to turn around and observe the mushroom cloud.
One veteran told the BBC in February the tests ‘‘bowled people over’’ and left them on the ground screaming. He had watched ‘‘another sun hanging in the sky’’, dressed only in a T-shirt, shorts and thongs.
‘‘We were guinea pigs,’’ Bob Fleming, 83, said. He said 16 of his 21 children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren had birth defects or health problems: his youngest daughter has thyroid problems and severe breathing difficulties.
The family believe it is a result of the radiation Fleming was exposed to during the test.
Another veteran, RAF sergeant Roy Kirkland, slept a half a mile from Ground Zero and was ordered to collect dead seabirds from the Christmas Island test site.
His grandson, Wayne, was diagnosed with cancer of the nervous system at age three and died before he was 10. Wayne’s aunt told the Daily Mirror ‘‘the biggest health issue for these veterans now is their descendants’’.
The new feasibility study follows a campaign by the Mirror and Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, who have been pushing for recognition and compensation for the veterans who were exposed to radiation during the tests in the region between 1952 and 1967 – and their families.
In 2007 a study of New Zealand nuclear test veterans found they had more than double the expected amount of genetic damage for men of the same age – even higher than that detected in workers close to the Chernobyl nuclear accident or involved in the clean-up.
The study by researchers from Massey University found the genetic damage was most likely attributable to the veterans having been on board NZ navy frigates observing nuclear tests at Christmas Island.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency reviewed the Massey research and agreed with their conclusions. Earlier this year the UK’s Centre for Health Effects of Radiological and Chemical Agents at Brunel University in London announced a three-year genetic study looking for any possible damage to the veterans’ DNA caused by the tests.
In 2014 a study by European researchers found a ‘‘significant excess’’ of infant mortality and congenital illnesses in nuclear test veterans’ children. The veterans’ wives had five times as many stillbirths, and 57 children of veterans had congenital conditions – ten times the rate in the control group and eight times the national average. There were also significantly higher congenital illnesses – and cancer – among the veterans’ grandchildren. The researchers said their results were ‘‘highly statistically significant’’.
The UK has regularly reviewed the health of British nuclear test veterans – though not their families – since the 1980s, using a big database compiled from military records that identified 21,357 personnel with the potential for exposure to radiation during the atmospheric nuclear weapon tests.
There have been three major reviews in that time. The most recent (in 2003) found some evidence of a raised risk of leukaemia among the test participants, though on the whole they were more healthy than their British peers of the same age (the ‘‘healthy worker’’ effect means that people who have been regularly employed will be healthier than the general population).
In July Williamson launched another iteration of the study into nuclear test veterans’ mortality and cancer rates – which because of its methodology and source data cannot include the children of the veterans.
And on Thursday it was revealed he had also asked the MOD to look at the feasibility of a study into the health and well-being of their children.
Tom Watson said on Twitter the possibility of an official study was ‘‘very good news’’.
An MOD spokesman said there was no official start date for either the new study or the feasibility study, but ‘‘it will take quite a while’’.
In 2012 the UK’s Supreme Court rejected a test case for nuclear test veterans, ruling it was too long since the veterans’ health problems first emerged to succeed in a claim for compensation from the government.
By a 4:3 majority, the court also ruled it would be very difficult to prove a causal link between the veterans’ illnesses and the tests.
– Fairfax