Lawyers press for revealing secrets of Maralinga’s baby deaths after nuclear bomb testing
the medical records of those 23 stillborn babies remain sealed and held by the National Archives of Australia.
Now, as British lawyers search for others to join the class action against the British Ministry of Defence, they will also push for the secrets of the Woomera baby graves to be revealed.
Secrecy surrounding the disturbing rate of baby deaths and research suggesting fallout from tests blanketed the town despite being more than 600km from the Maralinga testing sites, warrants those families investigating claims as part of the class act
The Children’s Graveyard at Woomera South Australia. Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog, 1 Dec 11 What was known and when?. SECRET records detailing the fate of dozens of babies born in the shadow of Maralinga’s nuclear testing hold the key to a case building as the state’s largest class action. More than 100 South Australians have joined a class action against the British Ministry of Defence over deaths and disabilities they believe were caused by nuclear testing at Maralinga more than 50 years ago.
Among them are families of the Woomera babies – more than 60 lives lost, many without explanation, during the decade of nuclear testing, up to 600km away. Lawyers running the case say it is “just the tip of the iceberg”. They have heard only from people who are “very confident” they have a case for compensation. Already, families of some of the stillborn children, hours-old babies and toddlers who account for more than half the plots in Woomera Cemetery for the 1950s and 1960s, have come forward…..
In all, the Woomera Cemetery contains 23 graves for stillborn babies born in the hospital between December 1953 and September 1968, and a further 46 graves for other children who died around that period. Autopsies were not always conducted and it is understood the medical records of those 23 stillborn babies remain sealed and held by the National Archives of Australia.
Now, as British lawyers search for others to join the class action against the British Ministry of Defence, they will also push for the secrets of the Woomera baby graves to be revealed.
Hickman & Rose partners Anna Mazzola and Beth Handley, working with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in Adelaide, have collected more than 100 names of people who believe they could join a class action for compensation from the British Government.
They will apply for the records of the Woomera babies to be made public.
Secrecy surrounding the disturbing rate of baby deaths and research suggesting fallout from tests blanketed the town despite being more than 600km from the Maralinga testing sites, warrants those families investigating claims as part of the class act, Ms Mazzola says……
The Federal Government still refuses to release the relevant medical records from Maralinga and Pt Augusta Hospital. They are sealed. Government sources stated that they can’t find the Maralinga Hospital documents. Oh, Ok, I’m totally brainless, but I don’t belive that. The Federal Government refused to exhume the bodies of babies who died en masse in 1957 at Ernabella following a Maralinga bomb series, claiming the mass deaths were caused by flu and rubella. Though no doctor diagnosed the illnesses.
What pressure is being put on Japanese medicos today to keep records secret?
What have they been doing with the knowledge of the harms of the fission products originated in the 1940s? Let’s see.
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