Thread by @fleetstreetfox

EXC: Bombshell govt study finds nuclear test veterans were more likely to die, and more likely to get cancer.

This blows apart 70 years of official denial.

Full story here: mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/n…

Main findings:

* HALF the crew of HMS Diana, ordered twice to sail through fallout in 1956, died from tumours
* Atomic scientists were SEVEN times more likely to kill themselves
* RAF decontamination crews were FIVE times more likely to die from leukaemia

* There were more cancers than deaths, meaning some veterans have fought multiple malignancies
* And despite @DefenceHQ claims servicemen were well-protected, 77% were not checked for radiation, + clean-up workers were both unmonitored, and more likely to die from blood cancer.

This study was ordered by @GavinWilliamson in 2018, after he met @BNTVA patron Sir John Hayes, widow Shirley Denson, and then-BNTVA chairman Alan Owen as a result of the Mirror's #medalforheroes campaign.

Shirley walked into the room and said: "So, you're the man responsible for killing my husband." The SoS was so impressed he ordered fresh research, which has now proved what Shirley always knew: the veterans and families ARE the proof.

Shirley died last March. Yesterday I rang her daughter Shelley to tell her the news. We both cried, because all we wanted to do was tell Shirley she'd finally won, after 40 years of fighting the MoD for the truth.

Shelley told me: "“My mum was a formidable woman. She raised four daughters, and had to deal with the tragedy not just of my dad’s suicide, but his illness in the years before it. It took over her life."

Eric's plan was used in an experiment when it flew through the mushroom cloud of the Grapple Y bomb. He took a huge radiation dose to the head, and later took his own life, saying he couldn't cope with the pain in his head.

Shelley said: "I hope now that the veterans and their families finally get everything they deserve. It would be an awesome legacy for my mum. She fought so valiantly, and it broke her heart that there was no justice for her girls.”

.@AndyBurnhamGM said: "This is all the evidence required to seek a formal inquiry into the issues and injustices that more than 20,000 veterans of nuclear testing have faced. It appears to be incontrovertible proof that their service led to serious health issues...

"...They need recognition + for govt to give them the respect owed by acknowledging what they have known for yrs: they paid a devastating price for their vital role in protecting our country. We are at a critical moment in this journey for justice + we need to see action now.”

.@BNTVA patron Sir John Hayes made it a cross-party call for justice, saying: "There can be no doubt and no more excuses. Based on these facts, we need to act with no delay to recognise these exceptional veterans’ extraordinary sacrifice.”

The govt had this report for months. They published on the morning Russia invaded Ukraine, to the surprise of the report authors who were not informed.

More findings: Test veterans are 20% more likely than controls to die from stomach cancer or pleural cancer, 59% more likely to die from skin cancer, and 26% more likely to die from acute lymphatic leukaemia.

There were 12 % more deaths from suicide, and 377% more deaths from chronic myeloid leukaemia.

CML is caused by genetic mutations in bone marrow. By-products of nuclear weapons, including plutonium-239 and strontium-90 are considered “bone-seeking”, and they damage DNA.

The authors at @UKHSA warned about dodgy dose records, saying that there should be no raised risk of death if the records “accurately reflect the broad levels of exposure”. They added that risks they found should be expected “if doses… had been much larger than recorded”.

Ken McGinley was sent to Christmas Island aged 19, has blood cancer, + is now battling stage 4 lung cancer. He said: “This study is proof, but it isn’t the full picture. It doesn’t analyse sterility, birth defects, or miscarriages, or the number of cancers some of us have had."

Ken said: "It’s time for full disclosure - a public inquiry. I was treated like an enemy of the state... when my wife and I were trying for children, a note was added to our file that the doctors would be ‘very interested in the outcome of any pregnancy ’.”

I hope now that, while there is an actual war on, other journalists on national outlets will pick up what is a massive volte face for govt science, and a huge issue for 155k descendants with 10x normal rate of birth defects. I should not be only one. #journorequest

There's a reason it was released when Putin invaded. And it wasn't because they wanted all the defence editors to cover it, or the Mirror to do the splash and spread we would otherwise. @haynesdeborah @bealejonathan @larisamlbrown @DomNicholls @MarkNicolDM @helenwarrell

Full report available here: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108… and statistical tables, which are the most devastating part, are in "supplementary data" tab at the top of the abstract.