Nuked blood: PM Rishi Sunak is urged to uncover the truth on veterans’ missing health records

The PM has been told to fix his “broken promises” as MPs urge an investigation into missing blood records of nuclear veterans

Rishi Sunak promised to meet test veterans and back a police investigation into possible crimes committed against them, but has yet to do either

Mirror UK, By Susie Boniface, Reporter, 14 Jul 2023

Rishi Sunak has been told to fix his “broken promises” to nuclear test veterans by telling Parliament the full truth of their missing medical records.

Labour and Tory MPs have asked the Defence Select Committee to hold its own inquiry into the blood tests that Cold War veterans say are being illegally withheld from them.

Labour peer Lord Watson of Wyre Forest has written to the Prime Minister asking him to correct Ministry of Defence claims in Parliament that it does not hold the blood data, and fulfil the promise made last year to meet the test veterans in person.

“Given the series of misleading statements, broken promises, and unwarranted delays, the onus rests upon the PM to rectify this matter,” Lord Watson said……………….

Lord Watson added: “It is an affront to expect elderly veterans to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of the MoD, merely to ascertain partial truths.”

It followsthe Mirror’s revelations yesterday that veterans’ service records appear to have had health data, including blood and urine analysis which may have showed radiation damage during their time at the weapons tests, removed from the files.

It is potentially a criminal offence for any healthcare provider to withhold, falsify or destroy medical records, due to the likely impact on the health of patients who cannot later be properly diagnosed or treated.

A timeline of denial…

December 2018: Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood tells Parliament “the MoD is unable to locate any information AWRE staff took blood samples for radiological monitoring”

October 2022: Atomic Weapons Establishment confirmed in Freedom of Information requests it held the results of “a small number” of blood and urine tests; the same information is given to Parliament

February 2023: Royal Navy tells veteran’s son that “the AWE does not hold any evidence that such tests ever happened”

March 2023: Defence Minister Andrew Murrison tells Parliament “AWE does not hold the blood test results for Nuclear Test Veterans” but only “references” to them, which are “included in scientific documentation related to nuclear weapons trials”. He says veterans can request any information held, individually

June 2023: Murrison tells one Tory MP that AWE only has information about blood tests of “one individual”; 10 days later he tells a second Tory MP it holds “blood test data for a small number of individuals”……………………………………

Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck, who sits on the Commons defence committee, has urged it to consider launching an investigation. She said yesterday: “There is enough evidence to show blood tests were ordered, arranged, and taken, from large numbers of people. The results were stored and analysed. The veterans have always had a right to that information, and failing to provide it can cost lives.

“We must find out when and why they were removed from the medical records.”

Support has come from Tory backbencher Dr Julian Lewis, on behalf of a test veteran constituent, who has asked the committee chairman Tobias Ellwood to question the MoD further.

We have uncovered more than 200 pages of archive documents, ordering blood to be taken from servicemen at all of Britain’s nuclear weapons tests, from 1952 onwards.

They show:

The MoD had a “Director of Hygiene and Research” who organised blood tests of personnel and kept a “master record” of results
Orders from the Air Ministry and War Office telling unit medical officers to arrange repeated “blood testing of personnel working regularly with radioactive sources”, from 1952 onwards
The medical forms used and instructions on how to duplicate and store them
Officers seeking guidance from government ministers on testing troops and civilians
A task force commander demanding all RAF sampling and decontamination personnel, and 25% of other trades under his command, have blood tests
RAF crews being blood-screened before leaving the UK, with some rejected for service as a result
Proof that army blood tests were copied “from AWRE records” to be put into soldiers’ main medical files – where they can no longer be found
Pathologists attached to the weapons trials were told to create a “special health register” to log the data, with “safety limits” set for the blood counts, and instructions to send home or withdraw from service anyone who tested below those levels.

We have uncovered documentary evidence that urine was taken from men ordered into the forward area after Britain’s first atomic bomb in 1952, and analysed by scientists. Everyone who served at nine subsequent bomb tests on the Australian mainland had their blood tested. And for another three atom bombs, and six hydrogen bombs, detonated at Christmas Island in the South Pacific, there is evidence that RAF and Army soldiers were tested too.

Almost 22,000 men took part in the weapons tests, which were the biggest tri-service operation since D-Day.

Alan Owen, who founded campaign group LABRATS, said: “It is inconceivable that with all these orders, and thousands of men involved over more than a decade, there isn’t a warehouse somewhere filled with the results. We understand they were held on microfiche at the AWE in Aldermaston, and may have been recently reclassified or moved.

“We are certain these records exist and are being withheld, and the only possible reason to do that is to limit compensation claims to those injured by the radiation the government has always denied they were exposed to.”

All the documents are available to view online at www.labrats.international/blood https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nuked-blood-rishi-sunak-promises-30464869