The Inter Press Service News Agency describes the long-term effects of nuclear testing. Excerpts below.
Link: HEALTH: Cancer Fears Emerge as Fallout of French Nuclear Tests
Between 1966 and 1996 France carried out 192 nuclear tests in French Polynesia, a group of islands in the south Pacific. These included 42 atmospheric tests, in the face of opposition from local residents.
Now, 40 years after the tests began, the French government has finally started to admit that Polynesian inhabitants may have been right to fear the consequences of radioactivity.
Marcel Jurien de La Gravière, representative of the French Commission on Nuclear Safety, announced in Papetee, capital of French Polynesia last week that a "coherent and continued medical examination" would be proposed for inhabitants most likely affected by the tests.
Such testing will be offered to some 2,000 persons, he said.
Jurien de la Gravière admitted that six of the 192 tests had "affected in a significant manner some islands and atolls" in the region.
The French military carried out the six atmospheric nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 on the islands Moruroa, Fangataufa, Magareva, Gambier, Tureia and Tahiti. These tests "represented a slight (health) risk", the ministry of defence now says.
Two of the Polynesian tests are particularly in question - the ones called Aldébaran (1966) and Phoebe (1971). According to new official figures these tests released far higher radiation than acknowledged so far.
Up to 150,000 people inhabited the islands in the region at the time. Some 20,000 other people worked at nuclear test sites during the 30 years of testing.
The change in the French government's position comes after Florent de Vathaire, a researcher at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM, after its French name) reported that the nuclear tests closely correlate with the appearance of thyroid cancer typically associated with radioactivity.
Florent de Vathaire, head of the epidemiological cancer unit at INSERM found "a statistically significant relation" between the nuclear tests and the incidence of thyroid cancer. De Vathaire studied some 240 cases of thyroid cancer reported in the islands.
On July 17 this year, de Vathaire presented his findings to the ministry of defence, and urged it to declassify military reports that he said confirm the findings.
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