The following extracts from my html ebook are shortened, lack the active links and the illustrations, charts, maps and graphs.
1994.
Mr Bolt needs to say sorry.
Part 1
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW Click here to return to top of page
“The Lucky country?”
Since the 1950s the Australian people have been told by government that the Atomic tests in Australia were safe. Past actions were excused on the basis of ignorance. Yet a chronological study of scientific findings from the 1940s, legal findings from the 50s and timeless moral imperatives give credence to an alternative view.
Historical technical information derived from sources of high integrity, provide a contrast to comments made and attitudes held by successive Australian and British governments in relation to the British Atomic Tests conducted in Australia.
In this e book I compare many of the conclusions of the Australian Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee in the light of scientific knowledge available in the era of atmospheric atomic weapons testing. This is a ready means of establishing the accuracy of the claims of Australia’s Atomic Veterans.
Strontium 90, present as fallout from Global atomic weapons testing during the period of the 1950’s to the 1980’s, has ceased accumulating in the environment. The cessation of Southern Hemisphere atmospheric tests ended the build up of long lived radio-isotopes in Australia. These substances continue to decay world wide.
While research in Florida indicates a health risk from large power reactors, (source: Florida Baby Tooth Strontium survey website), Australia has no such large scale power reactors. Openly confronting this emissions issue is a route to providing the will to improve the emissions performance of reactor design. This may lead to improved nuclear emissions regulations and enforcement.
During the period of atomic weapons testing, the entry of Strontium 90 and other radio isotopes into the human food chain was clearly documented.
As fallout landed on farm land, from the 50’s to the 80’s, dairy products in particular became a direct source of Strontium 90 in the human diet. Other foods provided a vector for the entry of Strontium 90 into the “white” diet, but these were comparatively dilute sources. (Source: Professor Sir Ernest Titterton et al., “Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee Report Number 2, Commonwealth of Australia, Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 in the Australian Environment During 1969 and some results for 1970, May 1971”)
“The Indigenous Contrast”
The impact of nuclear fallout and nuclear industry pollution on Indigenous diet and exposures is complex. It is complicated by the lower concentration of calcium in the diet and shielding considerations including processing of food, lifestyle intimacy with the land, dwelling type, daily activities and location in relation to areas of high radiological contamination. Thus many of the safety assumptions pertaining to those living a White or Euro-centric lifestyle do not pertain to Indigenous cultures. The issue is also one of contrast. In the “White Diet” or “English Diet” (Comar 1962) enjoyed by these populations in the US, UK Australia, etc, calcium boosted diets had the effect of minimizing radio Strontium uptake. Thus these issues will be discussed in a section of the e book dedicated to the Indigenous Diet.
The populations which most closely approximate the radio strontium uptake of the population of the USSR during the Cold War are the Indigenous Peoples of the world. The question has to be asked: were such populations knowingly exposed to risks above the those faced by the “White” or “Euro” or “Anglo” populations in order to provide a baseline of harm per kiloton to the Soviet Union? Such questions are not answered by declassified documents such as “Report on Project Gabriel”, US AEC, 1954. Rather, such publications cause the question to asked by extension rather than by inclusion.
Australian dairy products have not been a source of Radio Strontium since the cessation of atmospheric atomic weapons testing.
The health effects of this intake on people world wide caused global scientific debate. It was the fear of possible health effects which finally resulted in the cessation of atmospheric atomic weapons testing. These are historical facts, publicly confirmed by Dr Michael Wooldridge, then Minister for Health and Aged Care, in a Media Release dated September 2001.
“The Permitted Hot Spots and Multiple Insults”
The evidence regarding the Maralinga test site clearly shows that Australian authorities did not act on accurate testimony. The historical record shows what authorities did know and when they knew it.
The Uranium series (Uranium and its daughters) and those chemicals capable of inducing radiation type insults to living tissue create a synergistic assault upon the cell. Where this occurs, the effects may be considered to be “reverse Oncology”.
That is, insult a healthy cell with certain chemicals and then insult that cell with ionising radiation and that cell may well become far more likely to suffer disease causing damage than by either single insult alone.
Models allowing for the enhanced vulnerability of living tissue to ionising radiation where chemical exposures have occurred have yet to be devised. However, current knowledge in the field of Oncology may be a route by which such a model may be devised. Such vulnerability is utilised in medical treatments using both chemo-therapy and radiation treatment. It seems at least prudent not to subject healthy populations to doses of chemo/radiation via economic and military uses of agro chemicals, petro chemicals, the uranium series and fission products.
If such a model is devised, it may be shown that substances which are currently considered harmless may present as initiators for disease in situations of cellular insult from multiple sources.
The usefulness of single-agent health studies are increasingly meaningless in the modern world. A total and Holistic approach to the problem of environmental health and toxic exposure needs to be developed.
Over a period of many years, people who served in the environments of the British atomic tests in Australia have stated that chemical warfare agents were used in conjunction with the atomic tests. The substance mentioned in this regard is Mustard Gas. Most recently, Mr Colin James of the Adelaide Advertiser reported on this issue.
The information I present here shows that Mustard Gas, and related substances, do indeed increase the vulnerability to the effects of ionising radiation.
Mustard Gas was found to mimic the effects of radiation as a consequence of an escape of the substance in the Italian port of Bari during World War 2. As Allied possession of this substance in a war zone breached the rules of war, the incident was suppressed for many years.
After the War, the first trials in chemotherapy used that group of chemicals called the “mustards”. The chemical formula for mustard gas is :
CH2CH2CL
S
CH2CH2CL (Source: “Atomic Radiation and Life”, Peter Alexander, Pelican, 1957, page 221.)
“The Atomic Test Era or Proxy Nuclear Exchange?”
Some strongly and sincerely believe the era of widespread atomic weapons testing – 1950s to 1980s – prevented World War 3.
Others believe that the era of atomic weapons testing was World War 3 by stealth. The point of view is that the 2,044 atomic and thermo nuclear bombs detonated in this period represent a great burden to humanity and the world and resolved little if anything at all.
In the final analysis, we bombed ourselves. Any other perspectives are, I believe, attempts to ideological viewpoints.
Hence, atomic veterans and civilian victims are indeed veterans. They deserve honest acknowledgment.
“Accumulating Exposures from many Sources”
The people of the Southern Hemisphere experienced less than half of the Strontium 90 exposure suffered by the people of the Northern Hemisphere. We also escaped the exposures caused by the Chernobyl disaster. However, if the atomic bombs dropped on Australia were converted into “Chernobyl Equivalents”, then modern Australians would have some appreciation of the effects of the atomic tests.
The most likely exposures to radioactive substances modern Australians can be expected to encounter are cigarette smoke (which contains the radioisotopes Lead 210 and Polonium 210 -the tobacco plant has a talent for concentrating these daughter products of naturally occurring Uranium.
Concentrations of the gas Radon and its decay products – all solids – occur in poorly ventilated and poorly cleaned buildings. Again, these are naturally occurring daughter products of naturally occurring Uranium.
Uranium comprises 2% of the earth’s crust. (Source: “NCRP Report No. 77, Exposures from the Uranium Series with Emphasis on Radon and its Daughters” March 15, 1984, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, 7910 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.)
On October 18, 1953, “dust clouds” arrived over Canberra and were “not dangerous according to the Australian National University”. Three days earlier, the UK had exploded “Totem 1” a ten kiloton atomic bomb in South Australia. (Source: The Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, ISBN 1872031 80 3, Chronicle of Australia Pty Ltd, 487 Maroondah Highway, Ringwood, Victoria, 3134 and Chronicle Communications, London. 1990 Jacques International Publishing, Paris)
In response to the “dust clouds”, Sir Robert Menzies was reputed to have exclaimed “What the Bloody Hell is going on?”.
Later, when similar “dust clouds” arrived over Adelaide, and delivered a dose of 1,500 times greater than (but in addition to) natural background radiation, CSIRO scientists were silenced by threats and insults by Menzies’ official delegates – mainly Prof Titterton and the Australian Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee.
The fallout cloud arrived via the northern suburbs. (Source: Fallout, Hedley Marston and the British Bomb Tests in Australia, Dr Roger Cross, Wakefield Press, 2001, ISBN 1 86254 523 5. Dr Cross states “The people of Adelaide were not told that a radioactive cloud from the third bomb explosion passed over the city, nor that some of the state’s northern communities received several dressings of radioactive debris from the tests. Indeed, they have never been told.” Page 71, ibid., quoted with permission.)
The fallout cloud left Adelaide by going out to sea via the then market gardening suburbs to Adelaide’s West. Vegetables are normally washed before use, and so rendered safe. The people at most risk in Adelaide Western suburbs were market gardening families. These people were unknowingly exposed to both radioactive fallout and the agro-chemicals then being introduced and used with innocent abandon.
Many of those then new chemicals were “radio-mimetic”, that is, they acted on living tissue in the same manner as radioactive fallout. (Source: Atomic Radiation and Life, Peter Alexander, Pelican Books, 1957, page 220 – 228.) Many such chemical substances are far more powerful than ionising radiation in their biological effects. (e.g. 2,4,5 T, Dioxin, Agent Orange, various insecticides, volatile hydrocarbons, benzene….)
Oncologists may choose to discuss why it is that a combination of chemotherapy and radiation often forms the most effective treatment for some types of cancer. It seems that such cancer cells are rendered more than twice as vulnerable when both chemotherapy and radiation are applied.
Likewise, healthy cells are rendered much more susceptible to damage and disease if both radio-mimetic chemicals and ionising radiation are present. Of the Western suburbs population, it appears to me that those most vulnerable were females and children who lived among the market gardens.
It is a tragic that in Australia, no cancer registry existed until the 1970s.
Fossil fuels are carcinogenic, mutagenic, filthy and unsafe. They are also mildly radioactive – due to the presence of decay products of Uranium which collect in the same geological features as the fossil fuel. This is why the build up of radioactive deposits on oil rig piping and valves is an issue. (Source: “NCRP Report No. 77, Exposures from the Uranium Series with Emphasis on Radon and its Daughters” March 15, 1984, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, 7910 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA..
A Scientific Paper entitled “A straightforward method for determining the surface contamination level on oil and gas production equipment” was presented at the ARPS 2003 Scientific Committee Conference, Hobart Function and Conference Centre, Tasmania, Australia at 11.10am on Monday 27 October 2003. The Paper will be presented by Carolyn Thomas of ESSO. The authors of the Paper are J.G. Young, C.Y. Thomas V. Ibbestson, D. Hamilton & D. Billingsley.
It can be shown that any mechanism which concentrates Uranium and its progeny elements presents a health physics concern.
Depleted Uranium ammunition is a potent concentrator of these elements of concern.
The experience of atomic veterans and adjacent civilian populations is a warning to us. Experiments in the early 1950s show that radio-mimetic chemicals “…at doses when they are not generally toxic,…have a selective action on tissue containing rapidly dividing cells; …and the first tissues to be affected are the blood forming centres such as the bone-marrow…” (Source: “Atom Radiation and Life”, 1957 page 221.)
Certain people – veterans and other exposed populations – have crossed an exposure threshold. At what point in the future will their experiences become a norm for Western industrialised populations? Finding the truth about the health impacts on Australians veterans is crucial, for the knowledge can be used to protect present communities.
Authorities must take responsibility for the elevated health effects produced by radio-isotopes introduced into a multi stressor environment. Sadly, the situation is one which is used to deny responsibility.
“The Search Begins”
In 1994 I began to research the impact of British Atomic testing on South Australian water supplies.
As time passed, what I found led to the conclusion that the people responsible for the safety of the tests knew that specific risks and harms were being inflicted on Australians.
Of the people involved three stand out: Dr Edward Teller of the USA, Prof. Penney of Britain and Prof. Ernest Titterton, a major influence on the conduct of the atomic tests in Australia He was the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee’s second Chairman. Various members of the Safety Committee, especially Wise and Moroney, authored reports in the late 1970s that continued the point of view known as the “Titterton line”.
Titterton held that the tests were safe. Reports written under his Chairmanship acknowledge that Radio Strontium is in the food chain due to atomic testing. However, the followers of Prof Titterton maintain, even to this day, that Radio Strontium resides solely in bone and is harmless. Ample evidence exists which strongly contests the Titterton Line.
Many years of propaganda and suppression have denied this alternate viewpoint a free hearing before the Australian public.
“Military Secrecy and the Roots of the Civilian Radiological Star Chamber”
The secrecy which surrounds the military use of nuclear technology in Australia has helped form a culture of secrecy in other areas of nuclear activity. The events of the 50s and 60s are still very relevant. They form the backbone to an oral history at logger heads with official views. As a result, the oral history of Veterans and other affected groups is still considered to be “gossip” by many in power. In South Australia nuclear secrecy is facilitated by the Radiation Protection Act.
Sophisticated nuclear technology demands an aware public. For at the heart of the civilian nuclear undertakings lie the contradictions born in earlier times.
At its core is a disagreement among experts in which the Australian public was not permitted to fully participate.
Originally, in Britain people such as Bertrand Russell and later Alice M. Stewart (of the Cancer Epidemiology Research Unit, Dept. of Social Medicine, University of Birmingham Edgbaston), and in the USA Linus Pauling, Rosalie Bertell and others led mass protests against atomic testing.
In Australia however, government influence over the media, the pervasive influence of Prof. Titterton and the imposition of secrecy attenuated the protests. Dr Marston had to work quietly and even now some of his work remains unavailable. So who was right?
“President Clinton’s Openness Executive Order”
In 2002 a US funded research project was commenced by researchers at Flinders University of South Australia to determine the effects of low level Gamma radiation. Ironically, President Clinton commissioned this study in order to answer concerns raised by Nevada residents and US Atomic Veterans. The study considered only external gamma exposure. It did not include internalised alpha and beta emitting particles. The results of this study were unsurprising as the study ignored Hot Particle internal contamination.
The United States of America is much more open in relation to information pertaining to the health of its Atomic test era veterans. As a response to an Executive Order authorised by President Clinton, an apparently full accounting of its atomic weapons tests and their consequences is found on the Internet. The US Department of Energy has placed a wealth of knowledge regarding its Human Radiation Experiment programs on the net. (http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/index.html).
Although President Bush has severely curtailed the web contents of this Openness Project – Post 9/11, it remains a resource for researchers.
I’d like to know when the British and Australian governments intend to establish their own Offices of Human Radiation Experiments (OHRE’s).
We need to find what was known, when it was known and how knowledge was used in relation to the Atomic Weapon Tests in Australia.
If this can be learnt, then we can move some way toward concluding why it was that the Australian public was placed in harm’s way.
Rapid social and technological change sometimes has the effect of separating history from current events. Nuclear physics is not a new science. Nuclear scientists throughout the twentieth century created a cutting edge of knowledge.
“Control Scientific Knowledge and Control Populations”
By the 1940s a vast amount of knowledge regarding ionising radiation, its hazards and safe use had been amassed.
Prof. Titterton when alive claimed to know all that was useful about Nuclear Safety. Since his death apologists have maintained his ignorance of consequence was appropriate for his time – while at the same time arguing his position was correct. I have found that Prof. Titterton knew exactly what he was doing.
From the evidence presented, I conclude the atomic tests went ahead despite knowledge that harm would be inflicted in such a way as to create credible denial. The strongest evidence for this is found in an open examination of the assumptions at the heart of the Human Bone Survey (Both UK/Australian surveys and also the US global Survey named “Operation Sunshine”).
Early in the atomic test program, Dr. Marston came forward with information which indicated harm was certain to be caused. Prof. Titterton and the rest of the Atomic Weapons Safety Committee suppressed it and denigrated Marston. ASIO created case file on Marston and opened his mail.
What Marston found in relation to Radio Iodine 131 in animal thyroids from Fallout was evidence that Titterton should have known and did. From this Marston extrapolated a Radio Strontium hazard to the Australian population. But Marston’s work was suppressed by delay and censorship.
Earlier, by 1945 enough had been learnt to enable the successful use of atomic weapons. By 1943 scientists involved in the Manhattan Project had calculated the fission product inventory (the radioactive constituents of fallout) created by the atomic bombs they were working on.
Seaborg (aware as he was of the radium dial painter health disaster of the post WW 1 period) was so concerned about plutonium &endash; a substance he jointly discovered &endash; that he wrote a memo urging in depth health studies. So the now infamous Human Plutonium Injection Experiments came to be. Note that injection studies were undertaken as alpha and beta emitting substances pose a far greater hazard inside the body than they do when present on the skin.
It is indeed ironic that the current definition of a Hot Particle includes the premise that HP’s pose a “skin dose” risk only in the USA.
“The Blue Danube”
All of the atomic bombs exploded in Australia were of a series designated the “Blue Danube”. This series of bombs used Plutonium as the fuel. Though detonated from 1952 to 1957 in Australia, they were obsolete by 1962 and taken out of service. The name reflects the area of the world the UK expected to use them against the massed tanks of the Soviet Union. It is past time that Australians should automatically associate “Fatman”, “Little Boy” and “Blue Danube”.
I dispute the claim that leaders and atomic test proponents could not conceive of the risks inherent in the undertaking. I have found that foresight existed and the tests went ahead anyway.
Scientific findings dating from the 1940’s undercuts Prof Titterton’s assertion that radio-active isotopes of Strontium remain “locked harmlessly to bone when ingested.”
Propaganda was used to quell opposition. In later years, the aftermath was blamed on ignorance. The effect of this compounded the suffering of victims because they became socially isolated and politically de-powered. And that social suffering was foreseen.
Many victims believe with good reason that the government is waiting for them to die so that the matter can be forgotten.
As Australians we will recognise the bravery and sacrifice in a military/civilian action with consequences as profound as any found in any of the “hot” wars fought by Australians. We won’t forget and as time passes the deception foisted upon us by the “Titterton Line” will become common knowledge.
The people who suffered as a result of the tests are truly ANZACs.
“What was known and when – Turning Back Time”.
“The postwar years have witnessed a historic broadening, at least in the courts, of the procedural and substantive rights of the injured and the duties of manufacturers to produce a safe product. Judicial decisions throughout the fifty states (of the USA) have given meaning to Walt Whitman’s dictum, “If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.” Mr Justice Jackson in 1953 defined the duty of the manufacturers by saying,
“Where experiment or research is necessary to determine the presence or the degree of danger, the product must not be tried out on the public, nor must the public be expected to possess the facilities or the technical knowledge to learn for itself of inherent but latent dangers. The claim that a hazard was not foreseen is not available to one who did not use foresight appropriate to his enterprise.” ” – Ralph Nader, “Unsafe at Any Speed”, preface, Grossman Publishers, New York, 1965
These concepts, cited by Nader in relation to automobile design, are generic. The atomic bombs tests were claimed by manufacturers (governments) to be safe but were coupled with long term experiment and study involving the general public (eg Project Sunshine).
Just how much foresight was possible and how was it used? The long and difficult journey of Atomic Veterans and other victims has been partly a process of uncovering knowledge possessed prior to the first Atomic bomb and into the 1950s, and understanding the methods of concealment so that the truth can be unraveled.
“The relationship between dose and effect is being studied at lower and lower doses for a number of radiation effects. …..The possibility of detecting effects at the lowest levels has therefore practical limitations determined by the size of the experiment that would be necessary to reveal them…..Radiation induced lysogenesis is detectable at doses as low as .3 rad.” – The Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, General Assembly Official Records: Seventh Session, Supplement No.16 (A/5216), United Nations, New York, 1962, Chapter 11, “Physical and biological aspects of the interaction of ionising radiation with matter”.
The atomic tests in Australia commenced in the 1952, but in the 1940s experiments with dairy cows and smaller mammals gave scientists the knowledge that Radio Strontium from fallout would present risks not only to bone but to soft tissue. Particularly in the case of pregnant and lactating females. The tests went ahead and soft tissue exposure was ignored as a risk.
“In April 1958 Mark Oliphant sent Hedley Marston glad tidings from the second Pugwash Conference at Manoir St Castin, Quebec. The great American chemist Linus Pauling had lent him a manuscript that would, Pauling claimed, expose the falsehoods of a blatantly pro-nuclear book, “Our Nuclear Future” (by Edward Teller and Albert Latter), that had recently been published. Oliphant recommended that as soon as Paulings book was published Marston should immediately send a copy to the CSIRO executive. It would, he said, “vindicate you completely”.
Pauling’s book was published later in the year with the emotive title: “No More War!” It cast serious doubts over the estimation of the risks of radioactive fallout by Teller who, according to Pauling, deliberately distorted the facts. For Marston this was splendid news. To his mind, distorting the facts was exactly what the (Australian Atomic Weapons Test ) Safety Committee were about.”(Dr Roger Cross, “Fallout – Hedley Marston and the British Bomb Tests in Australia”, Page 155, Wakefield Press, ISBN 1 86254 523 5, quoted with permission.)
Did Pauling, Oliphant and Marston base their views, as world leading scientists, on the facts or were they mere “Conspiracy Theorists”? Why did the UK government prevent Sir Mark Oliphant from having even an observer role in the tests? To what extent then did Australian Members of Parliament submit Australians to harms in compliance with a Foreign Power?
“The Dose Fudge”
Official documents list radiation doses from artificial sources in fractions of background dose (ie “less than 1/10th of background”). When you see this in the texts quoted here, don’t forget to ADD the background dose to the artificially imposed dose. For example, if the background is 1, if the dose added by humans is .1 then the total dose is 1.1 of background. (The official documents use language which encourages the reader to do subtraction instead of addition.)
The background dose varies from place to place. Everyone is different. Every life’s total dose is different. Each dose is cumulative throughout a person’s life. Balance the benefits of nuclear technology with the personal costs. The dose levels for many illnesses remain unknown. Individuals are not protected by statistics, for if we fall ill, we have to prove we are the “1 in 1,000” in order to be taken seriously. Step 1, who were the other 999, and how are they doing? Given the lead time of radiogenic illness and the mobility of Australian populations, statistics aren’t a guarantee of individual safety over time.
Long odds are used to discredit victims. However, just as every horse race has a winner, every undertaking has its losers. Apparently by showing Moscow that the UK was tough enough and cunning enough to bomb Australia with 12 nukes and get away with it, some geo-political and social advantage was gained.
Had the USSR dropped the same bombs however, the victims would have been identified, not hidden, and held as heroes. The USSR would have revealed itself to be the twisted monster that it was. However, it was the British and Australian authorities who bombed Australia.
“The early Radiological Knowledge Base”
“Recently Pecher has demonstrated a marked similarity in the metabolism of radio-calcium and radio-strontium of mice and rats……much of the calcium found in milk may be derived from that present in the diet, and Pecher has shown, in mice, that some is derived from that most recently deposited in the trabecular portion of bone..” – “Secretion of Radio-Strontium in Milk of Two Cows Following Intravenous Administration”, L.A. Erf and Charles Pecher, page 762, “Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine” Volume 45, October- December 1940 (Nineteen Forty), New York. (This work was received by Adelaide University at the time of publication and is held in the South Australian Universities Joint Research Repository at Flinders University today. As a world leading biologist, Hedley Marston thus had access to this text as a possible basis for his concerns)
Pecher’s work demonstrated that upon absorbing radio strontium, mammals pass it to the fetus and the nursing infant.
This includes humans.
Clearly, leading edge research in 1940 indicated that radio-strontium is mobile in the body and similar to calcium in its biochemistry. 12 years before the first atomic bombs detonated in Australia dispersed Radio Strontium into the food chain, Erf and Pecher had found that Strontium moved through the body, and even when deposited in bone, was mobilised and secreted in milk. Yet the following lie remains the official line:
“Any effect of Strontium 90 on individuals in the population results from the radiation doses it delivers to bone tissue, after ingestion in foodstuffs.”- Professor Sir Ernest Titterton et al., “Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee Report Number 2, Commonwealth of Australia, Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 in the Australian Environment During 1969 and some results for 1970, May 1971”. Note that the two radio isotopes of Strontium &endash; 89 and 90 are bio-chemically identical. Atomic bomb fallout is a form of chemical warfare. Chemical warfare is illegal.
Prof Titterton was a brilliant Scientist. He considered he knew all there was to know during the relevant period, and he considered he had a command of his area of expertise far in excess of his critics. He was the man who pushed the button to detonate the Trinity Device in New Mexico.
The Australian and British Governments appointed Prof Titterton to the AWTSC in order to ensure the safety of the tests. During his tenure at the Australian National University, Canberra, Prof Titterton advised successive governments and maintained great influence over the field of radiological safety in Australia well into the 1970s. It is reasonable to equate him as Teller of Australia, while Oliphant might be seen as the Australian equivalent of Pauling)
Ignoring the soft tissue impacts of Radio Strontium on the health of Australians and ignoring findings relating to the mobility of Strontium in mammals which date to 1940, as Titterton appears to do as late as 1971, is a strong indicator that Pauling, Marston and Oliphant had strong grounds to question the safety of the tests.
“The institutional control period is 200 years. This is adequate only for isotopes with half-lives of about 30 years or less.” – “Exposing the Federal Government’s Nuclear Dump” by the Nuclear Information Centre, April 2003, The Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield St, Adelaide, SA, 5000 Phone: (08) 82235155 fax: (08) 82324782 http://www.ccsa.asn.au
The Federal Government knows the effects of an isotope with a 30 year half life requires secure isolation for 200 years – and the knowledge of half life impacts dates back many, many years. Why were Australia’s 3 major test sites (Monte Bello Island, Emu Field and Maralinga) left to erode in a “hot” condition for so long? Monte Bello Island is completely unrestored.
If you are asking “What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”, the answer is the stability and shielding provided by bitumen and concrete and the fact those 2 bombs exploded high.
Many studies made of fallout in Japan have found fission products present in those environs in the current era.
Australia’s 12 bombs were either exploded at ground level or at low altitude and finally, the minor trials created a large amount of locally dispersed radioactive material, much of it in the form of fine particles. In addition, Titterton iced the cake by demanding that Cobalt 90 pellets be randomly scattered. Appatently he ordered this in order to test the abilities of the Radiac survey teams. (Source: Doug Rickard.).
Radiological warfare is not new. (Source: US Dept of Defence publication “Report on Search for Human Radiation Experiment Records, 1944 – 1994, Volume 1, Assistant to the Secretary of Defence for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defence Programs, June 1997”, United States of America, Chapter 6, Radiological Warfare, page 59.)
The concept of using the risk of harms posed by discrete particles of radio-isotopes as a weapon as a weapon introduces the concept of the Hot Particle.
Once taken into the body a Hot Particle may become trapped in tissue. The surrounding tissue is as a consequence subject to constant irradiation from that particle. Hot Particles exist within a 3 D environment. Normal 2D surface monitoring will fail to adequately record their presence in volume. An environment deemed “clean” may still present a Hot Particle hazard. “…the problem that highly active particles may be present in the air although the external dose rate is below the recommended operative action level is notonly theoretical.” (Source: Pollanen, R. “Nuclear FuelParticles in the Environment &endash; Characteristics, Atmospheric Transport and Skin Doses”, STUK &endash; Radiation and NuclearSafety Authority, University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, Academic Dissertation, presented May 28, 2002.ISBN 951-712-528-3). See also “Radioactive Particles in the Environment &endash; Occurence , Characterisation , AppropriateAnalytical Techniques Review ” , prepared by Nora Vajda,Budapest, 2001, IEAE.
The concept of the Hot Particle confirms the information provided by Dr Doug Rokke on the hazards of Depleted Uranium shells. Such radiological weapons constitute risks now and will do so into the future.
“The Perpetual Battle for Open Information”
With the formation of the Manhattan Project in War World 2, a deliberate attempt to separate physics from biochemistry was made. The pre war work conducted by biologists and doctors trained in nuclear physics in Allied countries was seen as a security threat. (Oliphant, letter to Marston, cited by Cross, ibid, above.) This compartmentalisation of knowledge created a disconnect between nuclear science and medicine which continues to this day. (the DOE Openness Project website provides oral histories of those involved which confirm this. Those willing to take a contrary view such as Drs Gofman and Sternglass were excluded and hounded in the US. Gofman describes threats against him.)
“Science and Society”
Many attempts to force the responsible and verifiably safe use of nuclear technology have been made over many years by many people. Many people have suffered at the hands of self-proclaimed “democratic” governments in supposed “open” societies. For example, the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenhiemer himself was suspected of being a Communist and was denied a renewal of his Security rating. This was due to his opposition to the construction and use of the Hydrogen bomb.
Karen Silkwood was probably murdered while trying to blow the whistle on unsafe practices taking place at the Kerr-McGee nuclear processing plant. In the event, her family was awarded millions of dollars for her death.
Victims and opponents of the tests became socially isolated by a process which excluded their knowledge and experience from full public awareness. Their testimony is treated as gossip and their suffering hidden.
What is the information Veterans seek and want to share?
It is four fold: 1. Service and dose rate data 2. Scientific data relating to the effects of exposure doses and sources of secondary exposure. 3. What that information means in terms of individual health impacts. 4.Justice for themselves and their families.
In the absence of the provision of this information as it relates to individuals, it is a logical step to seek out non-governmental sources of information relating to general exposure doses.
This leads to studies of the environmental and biological impacts of nuclear fallout and the fission products that comprise it. Most authorities rate Strontium 90 as the main isotope of concern, although it is not the only one. Strontium 90 is chemically similar to Calcium. The body incorporates Strontium 90 in similar ways to that of Calcium. Atom bombs also generate Strontium 89. This is biologically identical to Strontium 90. However, Strontium 89 is much more radioactive and has a short half life.
In an open society, dedicated to the removal of Weapons of Mass Destruction and their effects, the installation of the Rule of Law and Free Societies globally, one would think that the open seeking of information and the sharing of that information would be encouraged. Experience has proven that the opposite is the case in respect to Australia’s Atomic Veterans.
“My Personal Experiences”
During the period 1971-1973 I was trained as a Radiological Safety NCO at the Radiac Calibration Centre, Royal Australian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (RAEME), 4 Base Workshop, Bandiana, Victoria. This establishment calibrated and repaired military and Civil Defence instruments used to detect radiation. This introduction to radiological safety marked the start of my interest in the subject. Prior to this I studied agricultural science and biology at an Agricultural High School, Urrbrae. Ironically this school is located across the road from the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, an Institute where Marston carried out world leading research.
Among the training aids used at Radiac were films relating to the British Atomic Weapons Tests in Australia. These were classified secret at that time, but are now available, at a high price, from the British Imperial War Museum for public viewing.
I even was shown official US film footage of the SL-1 reactor meltdown, Idaho. These films were classified secret at the time, but are now available publically.
As a civilian, in 2002, after a request to Central Army Records Office (CARO), I received my military radiation dose information. Veterans of the Atomic Tests in Australia have not had such a straight forward experience. In many cases they and their children are currently being denied access to their health records. This is in contravention of the mandate of CARO (Central Army Records Office) and its successor organsations. It is a further breach of Duty of Care.
I was subject to dose rates many orders of magnitude lower than those inflicted upon Veterans of the British Atomic Weapons Tests in Australia. In fact I was probably better off at work than I was off duty. (At that time fallout from French atomic tests was arriving in Australia. I was in a filtered monitored building.)
“Does the Government have a case to answer in respect to its Atomic Test Veterans and affected civilians?”
I left the Army in 1973 and in 1975, triggered by a media article on the risks of ionising radiation, I rang the Army Censor at Keswick Barracks, Adelaide. I asked for permission to speak publicly about radiological safety issues. The Army Censor angrily told me to “keep my mouth shut or face the consequences”. Since then, various Ministers, facing periodic rising tides of voter discontent, has repeatedly stated exService personnel are free to rise concerns. And once a topic enters the public domain, as a citizen of this country, ex service personnel has as much right to participate in public debate as anyone else. After all politicians are bound by oath to serve. So who is failing who here?
The intimidation and stonewalling many Atomic Veterans claim to have experienced is highly credible.
“Suppression and stonewalling still exist”
There is still an organisation wide culture of secrecy and suppression throughout all levels of government in Australia in regards to radiological safety issues. There remains a great reluctance on the part of government to provide information which would promote rational and accurate public contemplation of radiological safety issues.
Current governments excuse past actions by saying that the dangers were not known. It is interesting to seek out research findings which predate or were concurrent with the Atomic Weapons Tests. I believe the work of Pecher et al in immediate post war era put paid to such pleas of innocence.
Charles Pecher died in 1941 by way of gunshot to the head, officially recorded as suicide. John Lawrence wrote an obituary to Pecher published in “Science” vol 94 of that year.
In 1959 the UN found genetic damage posed a risk to future generations. The threshold dose for some cancers remain unknown or controversial to this day. The dangers of combinations of nuclear weapons effects and chemical exposure where known earlier than 1957.
“History Shows Knowledge is Ignored, so Leaving it to the Experts is not Enough”
In 1962 a major conference finding (“The Movement of Calcium and Strontium Across Biological Membranes – Proceedings from a Conference held at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, May 13-16, 1962”, Academic Press, New York, 1963) was that Strontium 90, a fission fallout product, not only collected in bone, but was able to cross the placenta and become incorporated in the tissue of the growing baby.
Further, the mechanism which resulted in the transport of Strontium 90 into the breast and into breast milk was examined. These findings rested on research conducted over the decades of the 1940s and 1950s. The conference was told Strontium 90 uptake was increased in those people exposed to “whole body Radiation”. Some findings were the result of deliberately injecting radioactive isotopes into living people, others relied on Human bone samples obtained globally, including Australian specimens.
Yet still the government’s position is that the Atomic Weapons tests were harmless to specific individuals, and current ARPANSA held documents continue to toe the Titterton line that Strontium 90 intake is safe because it is a soley a bone seeker. (Source: Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee Report Number 2, Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 in the Australian Environment during 1969 and some results for 1970.)
The Cornell findings postulate the existence of a “Calcium pool” to account for experimental results relating to Strontium 90 movement in and secretion from the Bovine mammary gland. Initial experiments in this area date from the 1940s. (Erf and Pecher – Intravenous Strontium 89 tracer doses to two cows results in 11.00% and 7.88% of dose secreted to milk up to 102 hours after dose administration Source: “The Transfer of Calcium and Strontium Across Biological Membranes – Proceedings of a Conference held at Cornell University Ithaca, New York, May 13-16, 1962, Page 329 ). Despite these findings from the 40s being re-republished in 1962, the AWTSC states: “Any effect on individuals ..results from the radiation doses it delivers to bone tissue, after ingestion in foodstuffs…and are not a hazard to health” Yet in the same publication the AWTSC state that Strontium 90 was present in the bones of stillborn babies (Source: Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee Report Number 2, Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 in the Australian Environment during 1969 and some results for 1970. table 11 page 30).
If the Australian Government is correct in that Strontium remains locked in bone, how is it that the tissue taken from still-born babies during Project Sunshine show a radio-strontium reading? How did it get there but via the mothers’ soft tissue transport?
It is a nonsense to claim ingested Radio Strontium delivers radiation to bone alone when the AWTSC evidence itself admits Strontium 90 is mobile enough to cross the placental barrier and nourish the growing baby. If it is present in the fetus, Strontium 90 must be mobile within the soft tissue and intercellular fluid of the mother.
Why did authorities choose bone as the only tissue to monitor? Why go to the bother of concealing bone sample removal if easily extracted soft tissue samples could readily be obtained?
Adult bone is one of the least radio-sensitive tissues of the human body. (Source Radiac Radiological Safety Notes, 1972, RAEME, Australian Army) Human soft tissue sample Strontium 90 results have never been mentioned by government. The only sampling results released have been exclusively bone. Interestingly, bone marrow is among the most radio-sensitive tissues. (Source: ibid.) Only ashed bone was used in the sampling results and the total Strontium 90 residue attributed to bone only. (Source: ARPANSA). The use of bone as the sole monitoring tissue enabled higher REM figures (measured radiation exposure) to be translated in lower RAD figures (biological equivalent dose) (Source: A discussion of the units of radiological measurement is contained in Radiac Radiological Safety Notes, 1972, RAEME, Australian Army. This is a non-classified text of precised information which staff were permitted to retain upon the authority of the Officer in Command.) But the bone marrow exposure dose is never mentioned. Neither is the dose to lymph or soft tissue, including breast tissue.
From the bone sample results, governments peddle the average exposure dose received by the “Average Man”. This mythical creature is endowed with both genders. The problem posed in 1962 remains unanswered.
What is the impact of Radio Strontium on female soft tissue? Can the animal test results be transferred to human females? Is there a “Calcium pool” in human females which allows for rapid movement of Calcium and Strontium between tissue types? Why is it that when gender based studies of Strontium 90 storages have been made, females show less storage of Strontium 90? Where did it go? Into her babies via placental exchange and via breast milk? In the case of chronic Radio Strontium intake – during the period of atomic testing and for the decay periods* – is there a constancy in Radio Strontium movement between tissues in women that is not present in males? Project Sunshine admits the uptake of Radio Strontium was similar in the genders.
(*29.1 years per half life for Strontium 90, (Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radio nuclides/strontium.htm) various half lives for the resultant decay (“progeny”) elements.
Were the Radio Strontium present in the Australian environment “nuclear waste” instead nuclear fallout, under the government waste management policy, it would be required to have an institutional control period of 200 years. ARL documents give a combined Cesium137 / Strontium 90 half life period of concern as 30 years. As the NIC information states, the effect of radiation from the daughter products of Sr 90 decay produces a 200 year period of control.
The transient soft tissue dose rate as distinct from bone resident dose rates is not mentioned in government accounting of human Strontium 90 uptakes. In men, the Radio Strontium route from intake to bone is relatively easy to count. Intake minus discrimination** at gut, minus discrimination at kidneys.
In women, the story is radically different and more complex. Is there a human “Calcium pool”? Does Radio Strontium move from bone to Calcium pool and so on? What is the soft tissue exposure difference between men and women? Were any human soft tissue samples taken? If not, how can it be stated by government that Strontium 90 “remains locked in bone”?
Should the soft tissue dose ascribed to Cesium be added to the Radio Strontium dose as a result? If so why have governments been at pains to keep the internal doses of these two fission products separate and assigned to two different tissue types? To artificially and misleadingly comply with safety concepts and to deflect arguments presented by the likes of Pauling, Oliphant and Marston?
(**discrimination – in this context, the ability of the body to discriminate between Calcium and Radio Strontium at membrane walls (the gut, the kidney, the breast etc). This discrimination results in a ratio of Calcium and Strontium being metabolised which favours Calcium. Various individual factors influence this ratio.
As this relatively simple example shows, as far as radiation dose goes, contrary to what governments would have us believe, the composite “Average Man’s” exposure dose is not applicable to half the human race and to no individual. Everyone’s exposure is individual.
“The Fallacy of Single Stressor Health Surveys”
Increasingly in the modern world sources of challenge to health come from multiple sources. Whether chemical or radiological, multiple challenges produce effects ignored in single item health effects studies. (A case study of this problem is found in the case of the Fallon Nevada childhood cancer cluster, as conducted by the US CDC.)
Using dose models which assume bone seeking radioisotopes present no hazard, the original ARL documents originally estimated the number of cancer deaths in Australia due to atomic testing as being 7. This was later increased to 35. The names of these people are unknown. They are definitely civilians, and non-aboriginal, because service personnel and Indigenous Australians were deliberately excluded from the stats. The calculations are wrong. The number of casualties from Atomic testing will probably be never known, at least by the general public.
In the USA, private radiological health surveys have been undertaken in areas such as Rocky Flats and the area down wind of the Nevada nuclear test site. The results of these surveys are disquieting in their applicability to Australia. No private radiological health survey has ever been carried out on the Australian population generally. Health surveys of veterans have been seriously open to question (and questioned with skill by Sue Rabbitt Roff of the University of Dundee) and the only health survey of an Aboriginal population was found to be seriously flawed by the McClelland Royal Commission.
“The 1996-2007 Australia Cancer Mortality Study”
The health survey undertaken by government (as impelled by Sue Rabbitt Roff’s findings) from 1996 and completed in 2007 was a foregone conclusion – prior to its commencement, a government expert stated “it would not find anything”. This survey is now complete, and its “findings” are as expected. The Government again claims that the excess cancer deaths were due to factors other than radiation. Indigenous Populations and Pastoralists were excluded from the study. It is in my opinion a national disgrace of grave affront to Australians.
If the weapons’ use in Australia was safe, why is so much data being hidden?
“The Hidden Data”
I know that data is certainly being hidden.
I have been assured by the previous State government and by SA Water Corp that radiological monitoring data on SA drinking water for the period 1953 to 1964 does not exist. So on that basis only the data from 1965 to the time of my request was supplied.
I sought the assistance of a Melbourne academic, Dr Roger Cross. This academic lodged a Freedom of Information request for this information at his own expense. The result was a refusal based not on the unavailability of information, but on the then current secrecy provisions of the SA Radiation Protection Act. These provisions remained in force until April 2003 when they were changed by the Rann government. While not a proof that the records exist, it is logical to conclude that an invocation of the Act has some purpose.
An appeal lodged (again at personal cost to Dr Cross) after the time of the legislative change occurred likewise failed.
Yet an article written and published by Titterton regarding the short lived radio isotope Iodine 131 in drinking water as a result of the British bomb tests gathers dust in a 1962 scientific journal.
In response to my letter to the Minister for Environment again seeking the water information, I was advised by Mr Hill to reapply for the refused information by way of another FOI request.
I was advised that this was because the State has limited resources and such requests cost money. The original request and appeal was costly for the academic who undertook the excersize. I asked the Minister (Hill) for the documents and have not received them.
This is despite at the time I wrote to Mr Hill, his government was fighting the Federal government over the citing of a Federal Nuclear Waste dump in the South Australian land occupied by Indigenous people among the most affected by radioactive fallout from the British Atomic bombing of Australia, and despite the fact that the Federal government had by then announced its new health survey of those affected by the atomic bombings.
It was clearly in the interests of both justice and public knowledge to release the information, but this did not happen.
The section of the Act under which the information was refused in 2002 is paragraph 19, which then read:
“Secrecy. A person who is engaged or has been engaged in any office or position connected with the administration of this Act shall not, otherwise than in the course of the duties or functions appertaining to that office or position, divulge or communicate any information obtained by virtue of that office or position.”
On the face of it, another costly FOI would fail. The South Australian government is pro uranium mining and has permitted acid leach mining of uranium from rock within the South Australian artesian basin. An examination of water contamination is in my opinion not in the interests of the South Australian government.
There are other matters for which I asked information and they relate to the deaths of Indigenous people as a result of atomic testing. These requests received first blanket refusals from government and then cursory and careless responses.
Do mass graves exist up North as claimed by journalists citing a specialist doctor treating Indigenous people at the time? (Adelaide Advertiser 1980, McClelland Royal Commission, Hansard record Sen Chaney cited as asking the South Australian to investigate; these documents refused for release.)
“Officialdom selectively Cites”
In defence of its position that the atomic tests were safe, the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee itself quotes select reports from 1950’s era water monitoring data. (Source: “Public Health Impact of Fallout from British Nuclear Weapons Tests in Australia, 1952-1957” by Keith N. Wise and John R. Moroney, Australian Radiation Laboratory, reprint, Department of Health, Housing and Community Services, via ARPANSA., page 40, some stated extracts from the data for the atomic tests known as “Mosaic” and “Buffalo”).
In 2001 I wrote to the British Consulate asking for the same information. The Consulate promised that I would receive a response from the UK authorities. I am still waiting.
In July 2002 I asked the National Archives of Australia to supply me with a copy of a file created by Radiac at the time I served there. This covered the period 1971 – 1975.
National Archives advised me that I could not have a copy “because the file is empty”. The file had arrived at the National Archives in that condition. My subsequent emails to the Research Assistant at the National Archives went unacknowledged.
“Redifining “Open Government””
Government in Australia tell us that it is open, honest and sovereign, and that it acts within the parameters of Westminster concepts of accountability and stewardship, both for individuals and the nation. As subjects of the Crown, we are protected by the provisions of the Constitution.
Apparently, if the Crown moves to place radio-strontium in our bones, we have no say in the matter. What’s the difference between being a “subject” under the Constitution and being a “target” under the atomic weapons test protocols? None really I guess. Though targets are usually openly admitted and victims of hostile acts are generally honoured.
The most likely victims of British atomic weapons were British subjects. To save us from the consequences of atomic bombs, the Australian government had an obvious course to follow. (At the time of the tests Indigenous Australians were not allowed Australian citizenship. However, the Crown had and has a sovereign duty to these people. Indigenous Australians became citizens by Constitutional Change via Referendum in 1967).
Until information is freely provided, until people are provided with the means to achieve justice, government radiological safety statements regarding the atomic tests lie in the domain of propaganda and are impediments to the safe use of civil nuclear technology. Nuclear technology is in daily use. Open public scrutiny of safety data gathered by impartial experts is the best guarantee of safety.
The present situation of suppressing history corrodes public confidence in government, encourages a secret “star chamber” mentality within government and industry and breeds a deep public distrust of a critical activity and area of research. If nuclear realities are withheld from the public, how long will it take us to become informed about them?
“Signs of the Times”
The era of atomic testing came about due to a confluence of technological, political and sociological threads. The sociological threads include the sociology of knowledge – manifest as a power relationship between the governed and the power elite. When Robert Menzies instructed the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee to ensure the tests were safe, they used the best algebra at their disposal to fulfill their brief. When public opinion began to threaten the tests, the Committee became increasingly reliant on compliant journalists, social strata, organisational hierarchy, the Official Secrets Act, bullying and exclusion. It wasn’t long ago that letters to editors of Australian publications from the public regarding nuclear issues were vetted by government authorities. The scientific establishment of the era created a totalitarian domain to ensure that the tests and their consequences were safe from the enemy.
Who were the enemy in the eyes of the elected governments? Those deemed so by a Foreign Power, not the Soviet Union, but Her Majesty’s British Government.
“A Failure of Duty of Care”
Australians were not told of any technique to lower their exposure dose from British atomic weapons. Many techniques exist and these were known prior to August 1945. 50’s era US Civil Defence films show some use of these techniques in response to the threat posed by Communist atomic bomb detonations. The Cornell Conference of 1962 discusses dietary protective (“displacement”) measures and Peter Alexander, writing in “Atomic Radiation and Life” (Pelican, 1957), discusses protective measures based on the use of chemical substances. Linus Pauling investigated such methods on behalf of the US Army. The research upon which Peter Alexander bases his work predates his publication date by many years.
Titterton held enormous sway over the field of Radiological safety in Australia from the early 1950’s, up to and beyond the 1970 publication “Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee Report Number 2, Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 in the Australian Environment during 1969 and some results for 1970.” Neither is it plausible that he was unaware of the findings of the “The Movement of Calcium and Strontium Across Biological Membranes – Proceedings from a Conference held at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, May 13-16, 1962” So why did he maintain his stance? Was it because he was aware of statements such as Mr Justice Jackson’s in 1953? Did Titterton and the Australian government:
“.. experiment to determine danger” ? Or did they do it to measure comparative harms between target populations: Westerners and the Soviet population?
In fact by boosting the calcium intake of those sections of Australian society able to benefit without giving the reasons why (ie the school milk program, calcium fortified bread), the government admitted its foresight. But its actions in secret resulted in the exclusion of minority groups from these protective measures. Such groups included the rural/ remote, the traditional Indigenous and those who suffered lactose intolerance.
“What really motivates continued Secrecy – 50 year old Bomb technology, Fear of Legal Liability, or that Atomic bombs and their fallout are safe and that there is nothing more to tell?”
Is the secrecy surrounding the consequences of the Atomic Weapons Tests in Australia an attempt to conceal “blind eye” foresight and knowledge of actual harms? Given that the design and construction of atomic weapons is a common engineering and scientific knowledge, security of 1950s era British bomb design in the year 2007 is not a plausible reason.
Until all the information is made public, what information there is enables a logically consistent conclusion.
But of itself logical consistency is not legal proof. All it does is damage government credibility and corrode confidence. In an era when terrorists in Thailand are arrested for apparently carrying sacks of Soviet Cesium, surely the Teller-Titterton deception Pauling claimed to have uncovered needs to be examined in an open and honest light.
“Sunshine Supermen”
Throughout the period of Atomic bomb testing, a military code-word for atomic fallout was “Sunshine”. Indeed, the global human bone sampling survey took this name.
(Source: Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency Report “Australian Strontium 90 Testing Program 1957-1978” page 12 Attachment A, which states “The Rand report noted that atmospheric testing had as an unintended side effect, introduced tracers into the world’s eco system. The group recommended that there be a worldwide study of the distribution of strontium 90 from the nuclear detonations that had occurred. The project was called “Project Sunshine”….the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (set up by US president Bill Clinton) detailed the secrecy surrounding the collection of human bones….” verbatim. Myriad civilian books note the use by NATO and allied military forces of the word “Sunshine” as a code name for atomic fallout. e.g. “Men Who Play God.”)
“Sunshine” plus sunlight = Increased Radio Strontium absorption and mobility due to the action of increased levels of Vitamin D.
To calculate group risks based on location is one thing. To be able to guarantee each Australian was safe is another.
We are a highly mobile people. Yet assumptions of dose only relate to specific population centres. Group exposure is not a predictor of individual life events and consequences.
The nonmilitary people most at risk at the time of the tests were in my opinion pregnant women and their babies and especially Indigenous Australian pregnant women and children who lived traditional lives and relied on local traditional foods which were eaten totally unprocessed. This group of people were deliberately omitted from ALL AWTSC, ARL and ARPANSA surveys. (Source: ARPANSA supplied documents), and also the 2007 Health Survey.
Why were they omitted? Were they really omitted or has their data been separated. The US global bone survey Operation Sunshine was supplied by the Australian government with human bones from all states and territories, including New Guinea. The origins of the bone samples were recorded.
How likely is it that Indigenous Australian Radio Strontium absorption data was not compiled? If so there is no basis for the repeated exclusion of Indigenous Australians from the repeated health surveys.
Did the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee act on appropriate foresight? No. The atomic tests went ahead and pregnant women were not told that Calcium and Strontium delivery to their babies would increase with increasing sun shine exposure and in proportion to increasing food chain radio strontium. The foresight existed but was not excersized.
Carlsson’s findings contradict Titterton’s assertions and Carlsson’s findings predate Titterton’s 1970 assertions by 18 years. Pecher’s findings contradict Titterton by 30 years.
If competent, Australian Government experts should have known of Carlsson’s findings before the first British Atomic bomb produced Radio Strontium in Australian local fallout.
Yet no pregnant women were warned that their and their babies’ Strontium 90 soft tissue exposure could be reduced if they minimised exposure to the sun. There is a case to answer. Australian experts at the time were competent.
The population was treated instead to calcium boosted bread, free milk for white/urban school children and the promotion of Iodine enriched salt.
My heart breaks when I read that the deaths of babies and children at Woomera were medically ascribed to the intensity of solar radiation, leaving the false impression that the deaths were heat related. (The Adelaide Advertiser, May 10 2003, Page 1, 12 & 13 “Tell us how our children died” by Colin James). The poor people on the receiving end had no hope of hearing of Carlsson’s findings. They had a right to expect to be protected from the dangers of a product manufactured and used by and on instructions from their own government.
The “Titterton Line” regarding the safety of Radio Strontium exposure to Australians contains a contradiction that any proficient Year 10 science student would spot once the propaganda of the tests is stripped away. But the chances of the AWTSC documents relating to Radio Strontium ever being used as instructional material in schools is remote.
What Colin James and the Advertiser may have found is the nature of a monumental fudge in the radiological safety assumptions of the “Titterton Line”. That is, mobility of Radio Strontium is determined by biochemical status, reproductive cycle placement and external environmental factors. Two people therefore can be identically exposed, one can be taken and the other one remain.
The Government calls it an Act of God. It wasn’t, it is multi-factorial biochemical reality which may go some way to providing data relevant to the low dose effect debate. It was an act of Government. But, one way or another, every individual dies. Government is a legal perpetual legal entity, comprised of individuals who deny past wrongs and illegal conduct.
We can begin to see why fallout was given the name “Sunshine” by NATO.
In April 1962 “The Australian Journal of Science, Vol. 24, No 10, P. 397” (Source: ARPANSA reprint) published an article by Bryant, Dwyer, Moroney, Stevens and Titterton, entitled “Strontium 90 in the Australian Environment, 1957 to 1960”. It reached the scientific audience one month before the May 1962 Strontium 90 – Calcium conference at Cornell University.
In the article the AWTSC states: “Early in 1957 the Australian Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee extended its fallout monitoring program to include measurements of global fallout and, in particular, Strontium 90, in materials from the Australian Environment. Comparatively little was known then of the sources from which Strontium in man is normally derived, but it was expected that the element would be closely associated with calcium in the food chain and in the skeleton.”
This opening statement seems to be at one and the same time a plea of ignorance, a professional anticipation of the pending Cornell Conference and a stamp of continuing scientific leadership.
In fact, natural Strontium was discovered in 1790 by Adair Crawford and William Cruikshank in the of the mineral strontianite in Scotland. Metallic strontium was isolated in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davy. No form of naturally occurring Strontium is radioactive. Discovered in the 1940’s, radioactive isotopes of Strontium are created by the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.
It was Charles Pecher, working at the University of California, Berkeley’s Crocker Labs in the immediate pre war era who defined Strontium as a Calicum analog. Thus Titterton and the Australian Government, by quoting his findings, admit to prior knowledge of his experiments.
Seen in this light, the AWTSC position that comparatively little was known about food chain sources of natural Strontium is clearly open to dispute.
The scientific impartiality of the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee in Australia is further open to question in the light of the following statements made at the Cornell Conference of 1962:
“There are now data from measurements of fallout Strontium 90 in thousands of human bone samples collected from most areas of the world.” (page 394)
“Results from the Southern Hemisphere indicate a level of Strontium 90 in bone which, while lower than that in the Northern Temperate Zone, is not lower by a factor which one could expect in view of the differences in fallout. Thus, while fallout levels are lower by perhaps a factor of five, bone levels are lower by no more than a factor of two. (Kulp and Schullert, (1961). The retention of Ingested strontium in beagles, U.S.A.E.C. Document UCD-104, page 61). This relatively greater human accumulation of Strontium 90 in the Southern Hemisphere may simply be due to a diet consisting of foods naturally high in Strontium 90…..” (page 397) Roy, C. Thompson, Biology Laboratory, Hanford Laboratories, General Electric Company, Richland Washington.
So the bone survey analysis of the Southern Hemisphere shows much more strontium 90 than the stated atom bomb fallout would indicate. The only explanation for the discrepancy offered by the nuclear industry spokesman Thompson is that of a diet containing “foods naturally high in Strontium 90”. As we have seen, Strontium 90 does not occur naturally.
The riddle of the higher Sr90 absorption rates in the Southern Hemisphere has to do with diets lacking bovine dairy milk among Indigenous and poor populations of the southern continents.
For while dairy is cited as a source of Sr90, a diet lacking the benefits of dairy’s high concentration of calcium induces a far greater uptake of radio strontium.
The fallout from British bombs quickly fell upon Australia, New Zealand and the Island nations to Australia’s north. This fallout was comparatively concentrated. In contrast, the US thermo-nuclear weapons produced fusion products which reached the stratosphere and troposphere.
Much of the Fallout took months and years to reach the earth’s surface and was diluted over the entire Southern Hemisphere. Exploding lower yield atomic bombs close to ground has the effect of greatly increasing the amount of radioactive fallout, as tonnes of dirt and debris are sucked into the mushroom cloud. There are no craters at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Crating did occur during the British Atomic Tests in Australia. A number of bombs were dropped on target by British Bombers. Even these were exploded at low heights. Its seems the British interest was served by this. Fallout would have been greatly reduced if the bombs had exploded high. But doing this may not have enabled the military study of radiological and blast effects of battlefield atomic weapons.
The Nuclear industry via General Electric and its employee Roy Thompson state that all Southern bone samples show Strontium 90 levels several times higher than expected. This increased figure is an average of all southern bone samples. It is reasonable to ask whether Australian bone samples contained even higher levels of fallout Strontium 90 than the southern average due to the rapid deposition of fallout from British bombs in Australia, coupled with White Australia’s US style dairy consumption and Aboriginal Australia’s special vulnerability to the effects of fallout.
Experts such as Dr Roger Cross (“Fallout”, Wakefield Press) have shown that data such as fallout cloud trajectories and fallout deposition data were misreported by the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee. Dr Cross documents the suppression of the findings of Dr Marston by the AWTSC.
What is the most likely reason for the higher than expected Strontium 90 contamination of people living in the Southern Hemisphere?
It is an important matter to consider how we can best prevent such a massive error from ever happening again in regard to Radiological Safety in Australia. Individual responses to low dose exposures are not fixed and immutable. The dose response is a function of ionisation insult, individual biochemistry, biological and reproductive status and external environmental potentiators. The assumption that a safe dose limit can be applied community and nation wide is false.
“The Legacy”
For many years, Australia’s atomic veterans stated that the atomic test sites were unsafe. These sites were probably regularly monitored. Yet in the 1980’s, after continual Federal assurances that Maralinga was safe, the then South Australian Premier, Mr Bannon, visited Maralinga. He and his party wore no protective clothing. Scientists were appalled at the radiation their instruments detected during this visit.
However, it is safe to assume that the Australian Military had been monitoring the test sites for a period of time equivalent to the half life of the long lived fission products. How likely is it that the military and government would have no interest in the “area denial” provided by the fallout at the bomb sites? Such information is crucial in battle planning.
The constant pressure from indigenous Australians, atomic veterans, the findings of a Royal Commission and later, the government’s own scientists caused the Australian Government to negotiate with Britain. This resulted in an amount of money being given by Britain for the purposes of cleaning up Maralinga.
There have been earlier cleanups of Maralinga and Emu Field. These were failures and the evidence, according to scientists indicates that Britain deliberately misled Australia as to the extent of the radioactive contamination it left here.
For example, refer to New Scientist Magazine of 12 June 1993, and the article “BRITAIN’S DIRTY DEEDS AT MARALINGA” I an Anderson of Melbourne: “Fresh evidence suggests that Britain knew in the 1960s that radioactivity at its former nuclear test site in Australia was worse than first thought. But it did not tell the Australians”
The recent cleanup of Maralinga cost over $100 million. A small area remains fenced off and is clearly marked. The State Government is unwilling to accept a Federal Government hand over of the land until it can verify that it is in a suitable condition to hand back to its Aboriginal owners.
A former project manager, Dr Parkinson, is of the view that the cleanup was not satisfactory. The Federal Minister responsible for the clean up maintains that it is.
The important thing for me is that had Australia and Australians listened to atomic veterans, the Menzies government in the 1950s would not have been allowed to be lied to so completely by the British Government and Her Majesty’s Scientists. And scientists acting for Australia, such as Titterton, would not have been so free to act against the individual interests of so many in so many populations.
“The Present and the Future”
Nuclear weapons development has enjoyed a process of continual improvement since World War 2. The scientific record shows that health impacts and risks to public safety have been ignored despite clear knowledge of the risks.
In the current era the nuclear weapons of choice are radiological weapons. These devices do not use nuclear explosions to spread harmful fallout. Rather, these weapons spread radioactive particles over battlefields after firing by conventional weapons. No nuclear detonations are involved in the use of radiological weapons.
Generally, the radioactive particles spread by these weapons are harmless to humans unless ingested, inhaled or otherwise internalised into the body (e.g. through cuts on the skin). The particles usually emit alpha and/or beta radiation, which is much more difficult to detect than gamma radiation. Specialised detectors which require close proximity monitoring (the detector must be placed against the suspect material) are used. In contrast gamma radiation can be detected by Geiger instruments placed in aircraft flying over a suspect area.
The main countries currently using these weapons are the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The weapons currently in use are antitank shells made from processed Uranium known as Depleted Uranium. This is Uranium isotope 238. The fissionable Uranium isotope, 235, which makes up 2% of the contents of Uranium has been removed. Hence it is called “Depleted”. It remains a potent emitter of Alpha radiation. (By contrast, Uranium ore, commercially viable at concentrations of 1% Uranium, emit corresponding less radiation than purified 100% Depleted Uranium. Depleted Uranium dust is therefore a greater internal hazard than dust from Uranium ore.
Uranium and its daughters are all bio-chemically active and toxic heavy metals. As well as being radioactive, if ingested their toxicity compromises the body’s ability to repair damage and fight infection.
Depleted Uranium munitions were used in Kosovo and in both Gulf Wars. A10-Warthog antitank aircraft fired these munitions at an attack rate of fire of 4,000 rounds per minute during these conflicts. US and British tanks fired thousands of these munitions in the Gulf conflicts.
Dr Doug Rokke, a Gulf War veteran, had the duty of leading a team to inspect the radiological hazard caused by the use of DU munitions in the Gulf. He and his team had to crawl inside damage tanks and monitor the area around them for radiation. His reports and recommendations were ignored. He is now seriously ill. Uranium excreted via his urine is currently hundreds of times over the “safe” level.
The dangers posed to life by depleted uranium dust on battlefields lasts for thousands of years. It is more of an internal hazard than uranium ore.
The atomic test sites in Australia posed a radiological hazard. We have seen above that the state of Maralinga was subject to British Government deception. Even though the site is now clean to the satisfaction of the Australian Government, some people question the standards of the cleanup. The fact remains that from the 1950’s until very recently, the radioactive contaminants at Maralinga were allowed probable local food chain entry and were allowed to remain subject to wind and water erosion for many, many years.
In the 1960s the United Kingdom carried out “trigger mechanism safety tests” – the so-called “minor trials” – on atomic warheads at Maralinga. This involved blowing up the war heads with conventional explosives.
There were six series of “trigger mechanism safety tests” conducted at Maralinga. The warheads were destroyed by conventional explosives. The explosions produced plumes of smoke which carried, as fine smoke particles, the radioactive material contained in the warheads. This spread radioactive material in a wide area of the Maralinga Test Site.
The intense contamination of the test site caused by the minor trials consisted of the following radioisotopes being reduced to wind blown fine dust.
8,105 Kg of Uranium, 24.4 Kg of Plutonium and 101 Kg of Beryllium. (Source: ARPANSA)
Dr Rokke’s information can be found at the Traprock Peace Centre web site.
Is there really a continuous process of development of atomic and radiological weapons which involved deliberately contaminating areas of land and then leaving the filth to blow about for half a century for experimental purposes? Why?
A 1943 memo outlining the development of radiological weapons is included in the Traprock Centre Web site.
“The Lesson”
A major lesson of the atomic tests in Australia is this: Radioactive hazards are tasteless, odourless and silent. On the basis of our verified history, think twice before trusting the Government on matters of radiological safety. Successive Australian governments have been shown repeatedly to be very naive and easily led in these matters, to the detriment of Australians. Throughout this e book, my comments about the safety of Australia’s atomic test sites relate to their situation prior to the recent cleanup of Maralinga, and the impact the occupation of those sites had on the health of the Atomic Veterans who served at them. I wonder when it will be deemed appropriate to rehabilitate Monte Bello Island.
“They all knew of the hazards: the Americans, British, French and the Russians. For sure, history will tell that the Cold War cost millions of lives. And, like you, I made the analogy of seriously injuring yourself to show how mean you are to your enemy.” – Email to me from Keith Whittle, editor Portland Oregon Atomic Veterans, USA.
“These people, like your friend Dr Caldicott, are trying to destroy this country. This is exactly what the Soviet Union wants – to undermine us, to destroy from within” President Reagan, talking to his daughter, Patti Davis after meeting with her friend, Dr Helen Caldicott. (“The Way I See It”, Patti Davis, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1992, ISBN 0-399-13748-3
“…humans were being adversely affected by radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons……….” Dr Michael Wooldridge, then Minister for Health and Aged Care, Media Release Sept 2001.
The complete html based data cd is available from me or, in a basic pdf form, from The University of California Library (actually mac and ibm compatible.)
Catalogue entry:
Material Type: Document
Document Type: Computer File
All Authors / Contributors: Paul J Langley; Atomic Ex-Servicemen’s Association (Australia)
Find more information about:
OCLC Number: 223255346
Notes: Cover title.
Adobe Acrobat software required to view files. Version included on CD-ROM.
Description: 1 CD-ROM ; 4 3/4 in.
Details: System requirements: For IBM compatibles, Windows 95 or better; Internet Explorer 5 or higher; Acrobat reader; CD-ROM drive.
Contents: The Government monitoring of South Australian water supplies. (Water.pdf) —
Governments maintain that their use of nuclear technology is safe and economic. Is it? (Propaganda.pdf) —
The Black Mist Incident which resulted from the Totem 1 Nuclear Test. (Black.pdf) —
The link page to images of Operation Totem 1. (Bitmaps.pdf) —
Atomic Fallout magazine, Dec 1994. The journal of the Atomic ExServicemens’ Association. (Atomag.pdf) —
Chronology of 20th Century Nuclear development and events surrounding them. (History.pdf) —
Bitmap images of nuclear weapons detonated on Australia (Bombs folder) —
Bitmap images of Operation Totem 1. (Blackmist folder).
Responsibility: written by Paul Langley for the Atomic ExServicemens Association.
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