07 January 2024 , 20:27
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The Government has admitted locking away thousands of personal medical records for reasons of national security.
Blood and urine samples taken from servicemen, civilians and indigenous people during Cold War radiation experiments have been hidden, alongside the details of nuclear weapon construction.
The tests could show whether or not radiation entered the bodies of those forced to witness atomic bomb trials, and the potential for serious health consequences that could lead to mass compensation payouts.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is now under intense cross-party pressure to release the files, the existence of which has been denied for seven decades and was only uncovered by a Mirror investigation.
Tory grandee Sir John Hayes said: “It beggars belief that a diagnostic medical test confirming whether or not radiation entered a person’s body, with possible long-term health consequences, is in any way a state secret.
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“Veterans and survivors of this weapons testing have a legal and moral right to know what if anything happened to their bodies as a result, and I am sure they can be disclosed to individuals without any impact on national security.”
In 2018, the Ministry of Defence claimed it “had no information” about blood testing during the nuclear trials. Last year the Atomic Weapons Establishment, an MoD agency, admitted it holds up to 5,000 files, including a list of 150 specific documents mentioning blood and urine tests taken during the weapons programme.
Freedom of Information requests about two of the documents have established they were locked under a Lord Chancellor’s Instruction, the legal means by which official documents can be held back from the National Archives.
PM Sunak met nuclear veterans to announce they would get a medal in 2022, but has since refused to hear their evidence about missing medical records (Reach Commissioned)Culture minister John Whittingdale admitted to Parliament: “The grounds for retention of those AWE files... are national security, security against possible terrorist activity, international relations... the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons or to allow a more detailed review.”
The documents in question are a 1957 series of signals about Operation Antler, a series of three weapons tests in Australia, and a bundle of files entitled “nuclear test veterans”. Both were hidden in 1997, around the time the Tories left office, and Tony Blair came to power. They should have been reviewed by a minister in 2007, and 2017.
The AWE has now been asked to confirm how many other records were hidden in the same way. The records uncovered so far indicate blood testing was carried out not just on British people, but Commonwealth troops under UK command, and those whose traditional lands were used for some of the tests in Australia.
David Purse was in charge of the airfield at Maralinga, South Australia, for a series of highly-contaminating plutonium explosions in the early 1960s (Julian Hamilton/Sunday Mirror)Veteran’s son Steve Purse, who was born with an unknown genetic condition after his father David served at a series of radioactive experiments in the Outback, has been refused the right to his dad’s blood tests. He hoped they would help his diagnosis, and the RAF admits it holds them, but will not make them available to Steve or his mum Jackie.
Steve, 47, of Prestatyn, said: “They’ve told us it’s due to patient confidentiality, but now it seems like my dad’s blood is a state secret. It’s frankly ludicrous to think that giving me that information would endanger world peace.
“It’s far more likely the information they have would lead to compensation, and that’s what really terrifies them. It’s a national cover-up, not a state secret.”
Steve, in wheelchair with his mum Jackie, and other campaigners have taken their cause to WestminsterWithholding, falsifying, or destroying medical records is potentially a criminal offence. Labour boss Keir Starmer has met veterans, and deputy leader Angela Rayner has pledged to give them their medical records, and compensation, if the party takes office.
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Defence minister Andrew Murrison recently told Parliament he would ask for a security review of the documents, and to see them himself. He has refused to give any date for a decision on whether they can be published.
He said: "There has to be a very good reason why this data is not in the public domain... it it is now up to 71 years old, so given the level of public interest, it seems reasonable at least to ask why these documents, so tantalisingly put before us through the Freedom of Information Act in September this year, are not in the public domain in their entirety. I undertake to find out why that is. Wherever I can possibly do so, I will ensure that that material is placed in the public domain... if it is simply sheets and sheets of dosimetry and urine and blood test results, I cannot see why that should not be available."
Terry Gledhill's daughter Jane is now fighting the MoD for the rest of her father's blood testsThe Mirror first revealed the nuked blood scandal in November 2022, with a top secret 1958 memo detailing the blood test results of Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill, who led 'sniff planes' through the mushroom clouds on sampling missions. We have since uncovered orders, discussions, and other evidence that blood and urine testing was carried out on air crew, ground crew, army troops, navy sailors, civilian visitors, and indigenous people over more than a decade. Dozens of veterans and families have come forward to show personal medical records that are missing information relating to service at the nuclear tests.
Hundreds of veterans and families have joined a £100,000 legal action led by human rights lawyer Jason McCue to sue the MoD in the High Court for the mental and physical injury of withholding their medical records.
* You can support the crowdfunder here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/nuclear-veterans-case/