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UK govt using “cooked books” to discredit nuclear veterans

accusing them of “misusing” science in their study and branding their conclusions as “deficient”.

New Zealand nuclear study at odds with British, This Is Derbyshire, 16 July 2010, Former Armed Forces Minister Kevan Jones told the House of Commons last December that studies had ruled out a link between veterans’ cancer and the nuclear tests..….ministers have also been quick to point out the “considerable research” the Government has done, only to find veterans did not suffer more from cancer than the general population…………

But soon after the study was published, serious concerns were raised about the way it had been carried out.

In 2003, a senior research fellow from the University of Dundee, Sue Roff, wrote to the British Medical Journal criticising the study.

She highlighted 16 cases of a particular type of cancer that had occurred in the veterans’ group, which had not been counted by the NRPB.

If they had been, it would have altered the results showing that more people among the veterans had cancer than among the group of random people…………he said at the time: “The NRPB studies seriously under-report the incidence of this marker radiogenic condition among veterans of the UK’s atmospheric atomic and nuclear weapons tests.”

Even sharper criticism was to come from Dr Keith Baverstock, a radiation expert who had worked for the World Health Organisation, the European Centre for Environment and Health and the UK Medical Council.

In 2003, he wrote to the medical journal, The Lancet, citing Roff’s work and criticising the NRPB for dismissing as “chance” a high rate of leukaemia among veterans.

In a talk he later gave in Edinburgh, he delivered a fierce attack on the NRPB – accusing them of “misusing” science in their study and branding their conclusions as “deficient”.

“Further work needs to be done. It is sad that the NRPB, which should be an independent body, was complicit,” he said.

……..New Zealand veterans who took part in the same nuclear tests as UK soldiers commissioned Professor Al Rowland at Massey University to carry out a study of their own.It has concluded that the level of genetic abnormalities in nuclear test veterans was three times higher than in the average person.Alan Rimmer, spokesman for the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, which represents former servicemen in Derbyshire, accused the Government of a “selective memory” over the scientific evidence.”The Rowland report showed undoubtedly that those in the vicinity of the British nuclear tests have been affected by genetic damage,” he said.”But the Government seems to ignore this evidence, instead spending money on NRPB reports that were discredited over the years.”

VETERANS of Britain’s nuclear tests who have suffered from leukaemia, other cancers, infertility, skin conditions and even hair loss all blame their illnesses on radiation.

July 17, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive