Public Health England - The Statistics

Public health England maintains a database of the British Nuclear Test participants. This database is being used for the 4th study into the mortality and cancer incidence of the Veterans.

This study is not including the descendants of the Veterans.

The official response from the UK Government regarding the study into the descendants was recently received by Alan Owen, Chairman of the BNTVA:

So if the children of the Veterans are not to be included, who is in this study?

A review of the Epidemiological studies of UK test veterans was published in the journal of Radiological Protection by the Institute of Physics Publishing.

All British personnel apart from the last two tests in Nevada are now recorded on a database, controlled by Public Health England. The tests are listed below:

Also included are details of the Maralinga experimental programme:

This document also confirms the fact that the Buffalo Indoctrinee Force was exposed during the Maralinga trials - (See previous blog for details of Operation Buffalo):

This document confirms the flagging of NHSCR records in order to mark the records for the study:

It is also stated that to ensure that the right records are flagged, a backup check could also be carried out at other agencies such as the Department of Social Security.

Anyone moving outside the area covered by the NHSCR is excluded:

It should also be noted that other personnel are also excluded from the database:

The BNTVA helped with the creation of the list, or so they thought. Anyone who could not be identified would have introduced a bias into the increased rate of disease.

The number of independent people not included in the main study was 474 or 17% of the independent people who registered. Were these people taken out on purpose?

A breakdown of the main database and their service & rank and a breakdown of the national servicemen is included within the report:

The use of dosimeters to record the radiation experienced by the servicemen is also discussed. It is interesting to note that film badges are recorded as being issued to RN participants of Grapple and Grapple X, but these were discarded and no records are available!

The number of men at each test is also detailed, broken down by service:

Each test is then broken down into the dosage received by the servicemen. These figures are very low for the grapple series as a very low number of film badges were issued:

It is interesting that of the 83 people with records in Grapple, 62 have a dose >0.99mSv which is 74.69%. Of the 5687 records who had readings, 3423 had a zero dose, with the rest recording some dose indicating that 39.81% has some exposure. The other participants who did not have dosimeters are unknown to the study.

When you break this down by the dose received, it is frightening:

The RAF personnel whose dose was over 100 mSv was calculated at 34, this collective dose is 5363, which puts the average dose at 157 mSv. When you compare this to the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommendations of a 20 mSv per year occupational effective dose limit with allowances to go as high as 50 mSv per year so long as the average annual dose over five years does not exceed 20 mSv.

These men were exposed to over 8 years worth of the recommended dose in a few months.

The study also investigated the inhalation or ingestion of radioactive material, but the MoD staff informed the study investigators that, in their view, adequate control measures were in place to prevent significant intakes of radionuclides.

The full report on the study can be found here.

So for anyone who is still not convinced that the records of the British Nuclear Veterans are flagged on a database held by Public Health England and that full details of the participation and exposure is held by the MoD, read the report on the study and if you still remain sceptical, contact Public Health England and ask them if your details are included in the database. If you do not want to be included, you can opt out by contacting the PHE Radiation Epidemiology Group via email:

radiationworkerepidemiology@phe.gov.uk.

The MoD controls the studies, the MoD denies responsibility, the MoD cover up the tests, the MoD lie in Parliament about blood sampling and human experimentation. It is time for it to stop!