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UK govt’s health study of nuclear veterans – but they’ve lost half the records

Nuclear test guinea pigs study announced – then Government admits it’s lost half of them https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/government-announces-study-nuclear-test-14134958

Veterans say the research is meaningless, and demand a long-promised medal review By Susie Boniface,  14 MAR 2019 

The government has “lost” all trace of almost half its nuclear veterans – making a mockery of a planned health study.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson is now facing calls to cancel the expensive and “meaningless research” which survivors of the bomb tests say has no chance of proving their claims to have been irradiatedduring Cold War radiation experiments.

Alan Owen, chairman of the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, said: “We have been palmed off with meaningless research that has no chance of being definitive or accurate. The only reason for continuing it is shameless PR.

“Mr Williamson should cancel this useless study immediately, and use the money to provide our veterans with a medal for their exemplary service.”

Several studies have been carried out since the 1980s into the veterans’ rate of cancer, which if accurate could indicate radiation exposure.

But veterans says they are flawed because they compare the health of scientists with soldiers, and the health effects of smaller weapons that had fewer eyewitnesses with massive hydrogen bombs. Many of the servicemen lived in the fallout of such weapons for more than a year.

In 1983 the MoD said it could find records of only 85 per cent of those present, and now PHE staff have admitted they have lost almost half.

An official has now said privately to campaigners that they can trace 12,000 deaths of veterans for the research, but details for the remaining 9,400 people – or 44 per cent of the total – are missing from the records.

Those who have moved abroad, not registered with a GP after moving home, or who use private doctors will not be included. If a veterans’ NHS number becomes inactive they cannot be tracked for the study.

The Ministry of Defence did not confirm the figures that were leaked to the veterans.

A spokesman MoD said: “Around 2,000 [of the veterans] have emigrated and around 100 have not yet been traced. We continue to follow up with the remainder and are confident this study will bring the current information up to date.”

March 16, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, UK