杏吧原创s鈥� requests for blood tests on servicemen about to take part in British nuclear tests in the 1950s were overruled by armed forces commanders, newly declassified documents reveal.
The revelations are increasing pressure on the government to compensate test veterans who have become ill.
The minutes of a secret meeting on 15 July 1958 reveal that scientists at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire wanted 4,500 people who took part in nuclear tests at Christmas Island in the Pacific to have their blood examined. But this was rejected as 鈥渋mpossible鈥� by commanders of the armed forces.
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鈥淎WRE were concerned about the political repercussions which might ensue if charges of negligence, however unfounded, could be proved,鈥� record the minutes. Blood counts might have helped to show whether radiation from the nuclear explosions reduced the number of white cells 鈥� and increased the risk of disease.
But Air Commodore Stamm, who ran an RAF hospital, told the meeting he did not want records showing that veterans鈥� counts were normal before the nuclear tests, in case they later developed leukaemia. 鈥淚t might be difficult to refute the allegation that this was due to radiation received at Christmas Island,鈥� he said.
Successive UK governments have refused to offer veterans compensation on the grounds that there was no proof that the radiation they were exposed to from the tests made them sick.
In May, declassified military documents highlighted how some servicemen were used to test the effectiveness of protective clothing against radiation.
Now, the new revelations have infuriated the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, which claims that blood counts were denied in order to avoid legal liability.
鈥淥fficials at the time and successive governments have sought deliberately and explicitly to evade their duty of care to servicemen,鈥� says Sue Rabbitt Roff, a radiation researcher from the University of Dundee who works with the association.