The British nuclear weapon tests in Australia (from 1952) and in the central Pacific around Christmas Island (1957-58), involved some 22,000 British service personnel and around 600 New Zealand, mainly naval persons. In the years that followed these tests there have been continuing claims for adverse health effects caused by radiation exposure, both to the veterans themselves and to their children (genetic effects). This has persisted to the present day. In what follows I shall outline the claims that have been made and look at the scientific and epidemiological evidence which is available.
The range of adverse health effects that has been claimed is very wide. A (New Zealand) TV1 2005 ‘Exposé’ listed, ‘leukaemia, multiple myeloma, skin cancer, premature-aging, cataracts, infertility and (more generally) premature death’. There was also reference to the ‘sins’ of the fathers being visited on the children. ‘One in two children conceived after the tests had genetic defects’. More recently, a New Zealand veteran, who was on Christmas Island in 1958, attributed a ‘crumbling spine’, ‘kidney problems’ and skin complaints to radiation exposure.
