from Sunday Herald, 09 November 2008
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been accused of “a cover-up of a cock-up” in the wake of new evidence that it failed to investigate genetic damage amongst the veterans of Britain’s nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s.
Confidential correspondence from 1984 reveals that the Medical Research Council (MRC) discovered DNA defects in a test veteran characteristic of radiation damage. But the council was never asked to look for similar problems in other veterans.
The revelation is seen as the “smoking gun” that could finally bring justice for the test veterans, who have been campaigning for compensation for illnesses they blame on radiation for decades. They recently launched legal action against the MoD, which has in turn promised an inquiry.
Between 1952 and 1962 Britain exploded 46 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere around Australia and Christmas Island in the Pacific. The explosions and their radioactive aftermath were witnessed by over 21,000 British servicemen, often dressed only in shorts and sandals.
A series of government investigations since the 1980s have failed to find conclusive proof that the servicemen suffered as a result. But now documents released to the National Archives and passed to the Sunday Herald suggest that this was because they were looking in the wrong place.
On 24 January 1984, H John Evans from the MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh wrote “in confidence” to a senior MRC official in London. Evans recounted how his staff had delayed analysing blood samples from Christmas Island veterans because they were expecting to take part in a nationwide study of veterans’ health.
The Edinburgh researchers specialised in examining people exposed to radiation to check for aberrations in their chromosomes, a sign of genetic damage which could be linked to cancers, birth deformities and other health problems. But in the end their services were not required, Evans said, because the MoD commissioned the then National Radiological Protection Board to conduct a purely statistical analysis instead.
Evans then ordered the blood samples from the Christmas Island veterans to be examined. “I had thought that it was highly unlikely that we would find any chromosome abnormalities,” he said. “But it turns out that one of these patients in fact has quite a high degree of chromosome damage present in his blood cells.”
This “would not be inconsistent with having received radiation exposure 20 or more years ago”, Evans observed, though it could have other causes. According to a colleague of Evans at the Western General, seven of 100 blood cells examined had chromosome damage “abnormal for an apparently healthy man aged 48 years”.
Sue Roff, an expert from the Centre for Medical Education at Dundee University, has been researching the health problems of the test veterans since 1995. “The government failed in its duty of care to conduct follow-up studies of the health of men who participated in nuclear weapons tests,” she said.
“The scientists and military leaders who conducted the tests knew there were hazards for the men. But few safety measures were put in place and no proper blood studies were done after the men returned.”
Instead the MoD opted for an epidemiological study which was never going to have enough statistical power to link radiation to cancers, Roff argued. “It has always seemed to me to be a cover-up of a cock-up. And that's the kinder interpretation.”
A study published earlier this year by scientists from Massey University in New Zealand found high levels of chromosome damage amongst 551 veterans of nuclear bomb tests in 1957-58. They concluded that that this had “most likely” been caused by radiation from the explosions.
The type of chromosome damage found by Evans had “all the hallmarks of radiation”, according to Dudley Goodhead, the former director of the MRC's radiation unit in Harwell, Oxfordshire. Other causes were possible though, he said.
“It is very unfortunate that a controlled study was not commissioned at the time to carry out similar tests on a large sample of veterans,” he told the Sunday Herald. “Such a study should still be possible.”
The MoD accepted that test veterans may have chromosome aberrations, but argued that this didn’t necessarily mean that their health would suffer. The three epidemiological studies carried out in 1988, 1993 and 2003 had been the best way to test for excesses of cancer, it said.
The defence minister, Kevan Jones, met with test veterans the week before last, and agreed to investigate the health of their children and grandchildren. “I have asked my officials to work with experts on the design of a study,” he said. “We are hopeful that a decision will be made on a way ahead before Christmas.”
But Dennis Hayden from the Combined Veterans' Forum International accused the MoD of making a “politically-motivated” decision to by-pass chromosome studies. “Any advanced technology showing the mark of the bomb in the DNA of veterans does not suit the government's agenda,” he said.
“This is why the government prefers epidemiological studies, based only on death certificates and without blood tests, because these studies can, and have been, continually manipulated to deny any exposure to radiation.”
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