### Handicapped used in nuclear tests
6/11/01

> London - Britain used physically and mentally handicapped people as guinea pigs during nuclear tests in Australia in the 1950s, the daily The Independent reported on Monday.
> The handicapped people were never seen again after the tests and they probably died after being present during nuclear explosions at Maralinga in the desert of South Australia, the paper said.
> The Independent recalled that similar allegations had been investigated and rejected in 1985 by an Australian royal commission.
> However, it said, a pilot who claimed to have taken the handicapped people to the test site confided at the end of the 1980s in an Australian scientist, Robert Jackson.
> Jackson, director of the Centre for Disability Research and Development at Edith Cowan University in Perth, found the pilot's statements credible and was trying to find the man, who used to work for the centre but left several years ago.
> Several Australian soldiers based at Maralinga had said that two groups of seriously handicapped people had been taken to a test area shortly before one of the 12 nuclear blasts carried out by Britain in Australia in the 1950s, the paper said.
> At the beginning of May the British government admitted having exposed 12 soldiers from New Zealand, Australia and Britain to nuclear radiation, while saying their role was to test protective military clothing.
> The British defence ministry spokesperson then said: "These were not nuclear tests as such, these were radiation tests on clothing. We were not testing people, we were testing the clothing. People have never been used as guinea pigs."
> The British government claimed in the European Court of Human Rights in 1997 that no humans had ever been used in experiments in nuclear weapons trials. - Sapa-AFP
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