Of the 8000 Australian service personnel who worked in the nuclear testing program, around 2000 are still alive. Despite a Department of Veteran’s Affairs study which concluded that “only 2% of participants received more than the current Australian annual dose limit for occupationally exposed persons,” a 1999 study for the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association found that 30% of the nuclear test veterans had died, mostly in their fifties, from cancers or cancer-related illnesses.In addition, a 2007 New Zealand study found that New Zealand sailors who had been exposed to the nuclear testing had three times the level of genetic abnormality and notably higher rates of cancer than the general population. Following a British decision in 1988, the Australian Government negotiated compensation for a small group of Australian servicemen suffering from two specific conditions – leukemia (except lymphatic leukemia) and a rare blood disorder known as multiple myeloma.
