British Nuclear Test Veterans Association
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Mortality and Morbidity of Members of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association and the New Zealand Nuclear Tests Veterans Association and their Families
SUE RABBITT ROFF
University of Dundee Centre for Medical Education
Published in Medicine, Conflict and Survival (Volume 15, Supplement 1, July-September 1999)
Foreword
As this report was being prepared for publication, papers appeared in leading US and UK medical journals confirming what servicemen who had served in the 1991 Gulf War, and their relatives, had long been saying in the face of official denials: that they were suffering more ill-health than would have been expected from their age and previous health record. Sue Rabbitt Roff believes that the health of servicemen who attended the UK nuclear tests in the Pacific between 1956 and 1964 was affected by their presence at the tests, which up to now has been officially denied. She calls for a full inquiry into the health of the survivors as a matter of urgency: up to a third of the attenders at the tests may already be dead, so that vital evidence is already lost.
It is already established that several cancers are more frequent in the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombings. Roff's findings, if confirmed, remind us that mortality and morbidity from nuclear explosions are not confined to a few kilometres from ground zero or a few months after the detonation. They appear as negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons, to which the nuclear weapon states are committed under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are at a standstill. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan are a warning that unless progress towards elimination continues, the non-proliferation process will break up, making it more likely that nuclear weapons will be used again sometime somewhere. The aftermath of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could dwarf the experiences described here. Over and above its formal recommendations, this report adds to the calls for the global elimination of nuclear weapons as a priority for the new millennium.
Douglas Holdstock
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
601 Holloway Road, N19 4DJ
(28 April 1999)
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