Antinuclear

Inadequacy of health study into Australian nuclear veterans

Letter to Governor General from Major Alan Batchelor Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog, 11 April 11,  Quote:
29 March 2011 “…….requests a review and cancellation of the currently accepted study of the health of Australian nuclear veterans contained in Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests in Australia by Dr Gun et al. Both the hazardous environments and resulting detriments to the health of many nuclear veterans have been incorrectly assessed in this document, leading to many false exposure and compensation assumptions that also need revision and remedial action…….

The basis on which the Cancer and Mortality Study was constructed omits several important areas of consideration and makes no effort to explain the effect of these omissions.
• It confined the study to the carcinogenic effects of ionising radiation, ignoring:
o Non-carcinogenic effects following exposure to internal radioactive emitters with long biological half-lifes resulting in;
• Loss of immune competence,
• Short and long term sterility, miscarriages, stillbirths, etc,
• Heredity defects in subsequent generations,…….
The above background discussion provides a number of conditions that reduce the viability of the Cancer and Mortality Study and should have, as a minimum, been taken into account in the findings. In addition, Royal Commission Conclusion 201 (15.6.13) goes even further and questions the feasibility of attempting such a study:

“Because of the deficiencies in the available data, there is now little prospect of carrying out any worthwhile epidemiological study of those involved in the tests nor of others who might have been directly affected by them.” Letter to Governor General from Major Alan Batchelor « Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog

April 11, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, health