Health Effects
In 2005, a Massey University study in New Zealand concluded that sailors from the Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal Navy and Fijian Navy who observed the tests from nearby ships later suffered adverse health effects from exposure to radiation fallout, including cancer and genetic abnormalities in the veterans' children. A class action lawsuit was filed against the British Ministry of Defence by various veterans' organisations following the publication of the study.
The Ministry of Defence maintains that few people were exposed to any radiation or contamination at all, and that studies had shown little or no health effects. An analysis of illnesses in veterans of Grapple and other weapons tests produced statistics that are hard to interpret. The veterans showed rates of illness that were slightly higher than the control group, but the control group had lower rates of illness than the population as a whole while the veterans had rates that were about the same. Neither of these results has a clear explanation. Reliable statistical analysis of the data is difficult because the samples are fairly small and incomplete.
Read more about this topic: Operation Grapple
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