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UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’ – politics.co.uk

UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’

politics.co.uk 23, Oct 2008 12:01

UK nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s have left veterans and their children with a variety of congenital diseases, according to a backbench Tory MP.

John Baron conducted an adjournment debate in the Commons yesterday afternoon, where he voiced concerns the government was “backsliding” on its commitment to investigate the issue.

A recent report conducted by Dr Chris Busby for the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association (BNTVA) found higher levels of miscarriage, still birth and infant mortality among the families of those who helped conduct the tests……………………………….

The government carried out several nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean and at Maralinga, Australia between 1952 and 1967, involving over 20,000 servicemen.

Among these were the ‘Grapple Y’ and Grapple Z’ detonations on Christmas island, involving weapons far more powerful than those used to on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of 2,500 men surveyed in 1999, 30 per cent had died, mostly in their 50s. More than 100 veterans children reported reproductive difficulties.

Many children and grandchildren of servicemen have experienced a range of problems including holes in the heart, deafness, reproductive difficulties, missing or excess teeth, deformity and early death.

UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’ – politics.co.uk

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

October 23, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment