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By Susie Boniface 16/09/2007

A major scientific study into the families of soldiers used as guinea pigs in Britain's first nuclear tests shows they will suffer acute health problems for TWENTY generations.

Relatives of up to 22,000 servicemen who witnessed tests in the 1950s have been cursed with massive genetic damage which will be passed on for at least 500 years.

The shocking new study shows how children and grandchildren suffer limb deformities, tumours, heart, eye and hearing problems, epilepsy, autism, brain deformities, twisted spines, missing organs, extra fingers and toes and a range of rare conditions. The survey, of more than 1,000 veterans and their families, has just been completed by radiation expert Dr Chris Busby of the University of Liverpool.

The statistics show that compared to the rest of the population children of veterans are:

• Ten times more likely to have an inherited genetic deformity
• Five times more likely to die as infants
• Three times more likely to be stillborn

And their grandchildren are:

• Eight times more likely to inherit a defect
• Twice as likely to get childhood cancer

The findings show that the men who witnessed Britain's first atom-bomb tests have "scrambled DNA" which has been passed to their descendants. The study, the biggest scientific survey ever carried out on the veterans' descendants, provides the most damning evidence yet of the horrific legacy of the tests. It also backs up a Sunday Mirror investigation in 2002 which found leukaemia rates among grandchildren of test veterans were SIX times the national average and the number with Down's Syndrome was seven times the norm. The cause of the test veterans and their families was championed for more than two decades by our columnist Richard Stott, who died this year.

He railed against successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, for failing to accept that the vets were poisoned by radiation and compensate them accordingly.

Now campaigners say this new study is the final proof of the horrific cost to their health.

Hundreds of trial atomic and hydrogen bombs were detonated in the South Pacific, America and Australia between 1952 and 1967 as Britain joined the nuclear arms race. The other nations involved in the tests - America, Australia and New Zealand - have all recognised the problems and are helping their veterans. But so far only America has paid compensation.

The veterans in Australia and New Zealand are still fighting our MoD for compensation as their governments say it is our responsibility.

Dr Busby says the effects on the British men were similar to those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power station leak in 1986. He says: "The main finding is that the grandchildren are suffering at almost the same rate as the children of veterans. In normal genetics, with each generation the effects would be less as new DNA is added to the family line. But with radiation exposure, what happens is that a kind of instability is passed down - like an alarming message in a bottle passed from mother to child. It tells the child to scramble its genes randomly in all directions, so you get many children with strange deformities.

"The genes do it in order to evolve around the radiation. But it is terrible that women, whose function is to give life, have this fear hanging over their heads like a sword because of what happened to their fathers. And yet there is no concession from the Government or military that it happened at all." The men who witnessed the blasts and worked near the military installations where they were carried out were given no protective clothing. Some were given film badges to pin on their clothes to test radiation levels. Some were simply told to turn their backs to the blast and cover their eyes.

They returned home without apparent ill-effects, married and had families, but a very high proportion of the 22,000 veterans later developed bone abnormalities, skin conditions and rare cancers. Today only 3,000 are left alive, but they are still fighting for recognition of the suffering they and their families have undergone.

Around 1,000 have banded together to take the MoD to court in a major legal action - but the first hearing is not until next year.

Recent research on veterans in New Zealand is still "being considered" by the MoD, which still maintains radiation for servicemen would have been "minuscule".

John Lowe, chairman of the British Nuclear Test Veterans' Association, said as time passes more veterans are dying from the radiation. He says: "We have lost five to bone cancer in the past week alone. We're not looking for money - we want recognition. We want help for our children and grandchildren. We want someone to see these problems are there and do something about it. With research there might be a way to reverse or limit damage."

Dr Busby will present his study to a Parliamentary hearing next month in a new attempt to persuade the Government to provide medical research and compensation.

The inquiry has been arranged by MPs Dr Ian Gibson and John Baron .

Mr Baron says: "We're going to examine all the new evidence and are determined to get to the truth. The report will be presented to Parliament and we hope our new Prime Minister will accept whatever its findings may be." An MoD spokesman said last night: "We cannot comment on the report as we have not seen it. But we remain open to new scientific or medical facts".

"We want help ..not money"

"Their genes are all scrambled"

CASE 1

"Now I'm pregnant I'm really terrified"

Louise Roberts is facing the birth of her baby in the New Year with a terrible fear at the back of her mind. The curse of the nuclear tests has already affected four generations of her family - and now she is terrified it will strike again.

She has already lost one child after it grew in the womb without arms or legs.

Louise, 21, says: "I'm absolutely terrified. What happened with my first baby was horrible."

Her family, from Caernarfon in North Wales, have been plagued by serious health problems since her grandfather Norman Callender was sent to Christmas Island in 1957. Then a 19-year-old soldier in the Catering Corps, he witnessed the A-bomb explosions on two tours of duty.

He married Maureen on his return but rarely spoke about his experiences until 30 years later when he began to get ill. "Norman went from being this healthy strong man to a total wreck," says Maureen. "He just wasted away. I know in my heart that if he had not been on Christmas Island he would still be here today."

He died in 1999 at the age of just 63, with a tumour the size of a rugby ball in his stomach. Louise's mother Michelle was born with a heart condition and miscarried a baby at 26 weeks. Louise's brother Dylan also had heart problems.

Louise lost her first child five years ago, when a scan revealed the baby had a head and torso but all its limbs were missing.

"I had a termination and promised myself I wasn't going to risk going through that again," she says. "But two years afterwards I got pregnant by accident."

As soon as her son Jac was born he was whisked away for tests. "Doctors said he was fine," she says. "I counted his fingers and toes just to make sure he was all there. "

Jac has since suffered hearing problems - a common result of radiation damage - and he also has eczema and problems with his speech development.

Louise says: "Nothing can ever make up for what we have been through. Nothing will bring Grandad back, and nothing can bring back the baby I lost."

CASE 2

"Three of us have suffered"

Archie Ross, a corporal in the RAF, had been on Christmas Island for just five days when he was told to turn his back and put his hands over his eyes.

"There was an almighty flash and you could see the shadow of your bones," he says.

Three years later, back at home in Burton on Trent, newly-married Archie became a father. His daughter Julie was seriously deformed, with a right arm and hand many times their normal size and a twisted rib cage.

Archie, now 73, says: "I thought it was just one of those things. Then in the 1970s I began to get eye pain, and a specialist told me I had skin growing between my eyelid and my eye. He said it could be due to Christmas Island."

Archie has been told eventually he will probably go blind. He had two other apparently healthy children, but one of their children has the genetic condition Down's Syndrome. "They can't deny the truth any longer," he says. "There's been funeral after funeral."

CASE 3

"I will fight for truth until I die"

When his son died from aggressive liver cancer at the age of just 28, Kenneth McCormack, who died just a year later, blamed himself.

He had been stationed as a 21-year-old REME corporal on an observation ship near the Monte Bello islands off Western Autralia when the British detonated the first nuclear bomb. Afterwards he returned home to Birmingham, married his sweetheart Muriel, and fathered seven children - five of whom had radiation-related abnormalities.

Muriel, now 75, said: "Kenneth blamed himself and said he had murdered Peter. He died himself a year later in 1985 of a heart attack. I am sure both their deaths were related to the radiation Kenneth absorbed.

"I just want the authorities to be honest with us. I have written to every Prime Minister in succession asking for them to recognise the families' problems.

"I will write to Gordon Brown... I will fight for the truth until I die."

THE GRIM FIGURES

• Vets' children have 10 TIMES more deformities
• Are FIVE TIMES more /likely to die young
• Grandchildren get TWICE AS MUCH cancer
• Are EIGHT TIMES more likely to have a "defect"