"Radiation From 1960s Nuclear Tests Is Still Hurting My Family"

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/27-1

Radiation From 1960s Nuclear Tests Is Still Hurting My Family

The Government is to hold an inquiry that may finally lead to compensation for British servicemen exposed to radiation during nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. But for one of them the wait is far from over

by Steve Boggan


Even with the thick, almost opaque, goggles he had been given, Derek Allen could see the flash of the atomic bomb as it exploded 15 miles away. It was so bright that he saw all the bones in his hands as if he were holding up an X-ray. He was 21, a long way from home and terrified. Sitting in his khaki shirt and a pair of shorts, with his back to the blast, the young soldier hugged his knees close to his chest and braced himself for what he had been told would come next - the searing heat from the nuclear explosion.

"It felt like someone had opened an oven door behind you," he recalls. "It went right round your body and inside your guts. I had never been so frightened."

But it wasn't over yet. Next came the blast, so strong that it lifted Derek and shoved him to one side with the force of an invisible punch. Then he turned around and saw his first mushroom cloud, snaking thin and beautiful up into the atmosphere behind him. That was the first of 24 nuclear explosions to which Derek, now 68, was exposed in less than three months. It was April 1962 and he was taking part in atomic weapons tests, the medical effects of which would not become clear until years later.

After decades of campaigning by veterans, and shameful prevarication on behalf of successive governments, the nuclear test guinea pigs have made significant progress in recent months towards receiving the compensation and war pensions many argue they deserve. In January, the first leg of a test case began at the High Court in which 900 veterans and their widows are suing the Ministry of Defence for negligence. Then, last Tuesday, Defence Minister Kevan Jones announced in the House of Commons that the Government is launching an inquiry into possible links between the severe illnesses suffered by service personnel and their families and the tests they took part in.

snip//

"These men have been treated extremely shabbily," says Gibson. "Successive governments have been dodging their responsibilities while families have been suffering. The MoD's denial of a link between nuclear tests and ill health looks increasingly shaky now that children and grandchildren of veterans are experiencing congenital disease and early death." Gibson and Baron's efforts led to last week's announcement of Government-backed research.

Only a small number of people have seen the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion close up. Most of them are dead. Those who survive endure not only their own awful ailments but must, in many cases, wince and weep while their children and now grandchildren suffer before their eyes. As Derek Allen says: "When we realised that we had been put in harm's way by our country, that was bad enough. But we never dreamt our country would turn its back and forget all about us."

[Forkboy]

1. K&R

I've read a few books on this, all disturbing.

[TheWraith]

2. 15 miles?

Unless this was Castle Bravo or something, there's no way that those effects should have been so pronounced at 15 miles.