testvets2ndsupplBusby C (2012) Health consequences of exposures of British personnel to...

7/28/2019 testvets2ndsupplBusby C (2012) Health consequences of exposures of British personnel to radioactivity whilst serv

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Health consequences of exposures of British

personnel to radioactivity whilst serving in areas

where atomic bomb tests were conducted

2ndSupplementary report to the composite report for the

Royal British Legion, the RAFA and Rosenblatts

Solicitors in response to Tribunals Service Directions

issued 23rdJuly 2010 and further directions of the

Tribunal in 2011.

Chris Busby PhD

Castle Cottage, Sea View Place

Aberystwyth, SY23 1DZ UK

Jan 2012


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despite being an airburst at the southern tip, entirely overshadowed Christmas Island.

And despite the fact that the ground level wind was slightly offshore at the time of thedetonation, the upper winds, where the cloud was, were in the opposite direction, towards

the island, so the cloud was over the island for several hours. Radioactive rain falling

from this cloud (and it did) will have dropped and blown back over the island. I employ

the measurements made by the tracking sampling Canberra aircraft (Sniff) anddiscussions I have had with their pilots and the Sniff Boss navigator Fl. Lt. Joe Pasquini.

From these data, and with the meteorological data obtained under the FoI, with the help

of my colleague Dai Williams I have reconstructed the Grapple Y mushroom cloud andits behaviour relative to the island. It is clear that the simple MoD assertion that there was

no radioactive exposure in the north of the island (where most of the veterans were)

because the wind was offshore is unsafe.I will try to make this report as short as I can to make the points.

2. The gisted secret reports

The reports which were kept secret were all reports of the results of measurements ofradionuclides in the fallout. If the case depends on fallout exposures, as I argue, then to

be refused access to the results of measurements, as I have argued above, seems a ratherbasic way of biasing the argument. There were 50 separate documents which relate to the

measurements of radionuclides in the fallout. None of this data has been made available.

The first gist gives a vague indication of what the document relates to, with nonumbers. For example, the gist for Document R02815 Post shot radiochemistry for G1

Short Granite is gisted to: Fission yields based on typical fission products such as Mo99,

Ba140, Cd115, and Sr89 gave 250kt, 759ky, 220kt for G1, G2 and G3 respectively. The

usual Pu and U isotopic ratios were measured plus three transformation products.

This is no use for me, as I want to see what the numbers are. Particularly I want to showthat the main component in the fallout was Uranium. For Grapple X I am told (JH0783)

radiochem: cloud fraction indicator results seem anomalous.So the radiochemical results are there, but I am not allowed to see them.

After a complaint to HH Judge Stubbs I received an Unclassified Gist of theradiochemistry results. In order to declassify the data from the various sets of

measurements, the table provided gave an upper limit of the alpha activity in Becquerels

per fission for U-238, U-235, U-234, U-240 and Pu-239. This is a rather strange way ofproviding the data, but fortunately I can deconstruct this table to obtain what I am looking

for, the proportion of U-238 in the fallout.

3. The relative quantities of Uranium-238 and other alpha emitters in the fallout

from the gist.

Table 1 gives the gisted results sent to me for Grapple 1 and Grapple Y. I also had the

same data for the other Christmas Island tests but will not investigate all of them here.

I choose to examine these to see what these figures show in terms of masses of material

in the fallout cloud and its composition.The yield of Grapple G1 and Grapple Y are given as 250kton and 3Mton respectively.


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We can employ the table to estimate the quantities of U-238, U-235 and Pu-239 in the

fallout on the basis that 1Mton yield is equivalent to 56kg of fissions of U-238.56kg of fissions is (56 x 1000)/ 238 Moles of U-238 or multiplying by Avogadros

constant of 6 E+23 is 1.4 E+26 fissioning atoms of U-238.

By similar arguments we can obtain the quantities of the other radionuclides in the fallout

samples at their limit given by the gist. The results for G1 are given in Table 2.

Table 1 Upper limits of alpha activity in Becquerels per fission supplied by Bevis Parker,

Nuclear Science Advisor, Strategic Technologies Document DCDS PERS-PCV-COMPLEGACY AHD

Nuclide Grapple G1 Grapple Y Half life s Specific activity

Bq/g

U-238 5.5 E-16 9.5 E-17 1.41 E +17 12,400

U-235 2.5 E-16 2.8 E-17 2.22 E +16 80,000

U-234 4.7 E-15 1.6 E-15 7.76 E+12 230 E +6

Pu-239 7.4 E-13 1.3 E-12 7.6 E+11 1.4 E +14

Table 2 Total Activity and Quantities in tonnes of alpha emitters represented by the

limiting levels given in the gisted document data shown in Table 1 for Grapple G1.

Values for Grapple Y can be obtained by the same process.

Nuclide Bq in fallout Mass in fallout

U-238 7.75 E+10 6.25 tonnes

U-235 3.5 E+10 440kg

U-234 6.6 E+11 28.7kg

Pu-239 1.0 E+14 0.7g

What this calculation shows is that the fallout data confirm my argument that the main

material in the fallout was U-238, the principle component of the bombs. Clearly thequantities derived from the data are too large, but that is a consequence of the gist authors

attempt to cover up the real values by setting an outside limit. What my calculation

shows, and this is the important point, is that although the activity of the U-238 seems

lower than the other components, in fact the total quantity and proportion by mass is verymuch greater. This is because U-238 has a longer half life and is less radioactive than the

other components, the Caesiums and Strontiums. But there is a lot of it about. The results

show that the fallout is 99.9% Uranium, something which has never been mentioned by

the MoD or anyone else, and which has disappeared in the way in which fallout isdescribed, in terms of its main radioactive components.

I should make it clear that this calculation is the best I can do with the datasupplied in the gist and involves various assumptions. The original measurements will

have given the components in terms of Bq/kg, and this is what I should have liked to see.

However, perhaps the court may be permitted to see these and therefore obtain the realvalues for the activities of these alpha emitters which the court may then convert into

grams using the specific activity in Table 1.


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I will approach this differently below and show that there is other evidence which bears

on this which I have also employed in earlier tribunal cases, but which I can support withnew data from material released under the FoI.

4. The relative quantity of Uranium-238 in the fallout obtained from the beta

gamma ratios

In my first report and in several PAT reports I have employed the beta gamma ratio

measurements made by AE Oldbury in his 1964 report on the decontamination of theairfield at Christmas Island which was carried out finally by his team in 1963.

Fortunately, Oldbury has equipment which could measure beta radiation and gamma

radiation separately (1320 instrument) and thankfully he reported his data. I compared thebeta + gamma measurements he made on the aircraft washdown pad with the gamma

measurements in the same area to show that the beta gamma ratio was anomalous for

fallout which was 2 years old. The only explanation for the high beta gamma ratio was

that the fallout contained large quantities of U-238 and the beta radiation was from the

two fast beta emitter daughters Pa-234 and Th-234 (there is also the U-235 beta emitterdaughter Th-231). Here I address the ratio in fresh fallout since in the FoI reports there is

a second report by AE Oldbury which has a table showing the beta + gamma and puregamma measurements on fallout collected on the surfaces of aircraft. This is fresh fallout

and so we can examine the predicted and observed beta gamma ratios. The observations

are given in Table 3.The predicted beta gamma ratios can be obtained by examining each fallout

component. Graphs of megaton fusion weapons fallout are shown in Fig 1 taken from the

standard work Eisenbud and GesellEnvironmental Radioactivity (2000). I also look at U-235 fission weapons where the yields are slightly different. The beta and gamma decays

from each nuclide can be obtained from standard tables (e.g. in dAnnunziata ,1998Handbook of Radioactivity Ananlysis) and these are given in Table 4 for megaton and

Table 5 for U-235 fission explosion fresh fallout (after 10 days). I use fresh fallout here

because of the measurements made of beta plus gamma and pure gamma in material on

the surfaces of aircraft being decontaminated on Christmas Island, data given in thereport: SSCTD Technical Memorandum No 6/63 Operation DOMINIC Decontamination

Group Report AWRE SSCTD 6/63. This has a table at the back of filter paper smears

showing how useless the decontamination was, since many surfaces were stillcontaminated.

It is clear from the examination of the betas and gammas from the megaton fallout

after 10 days and the fission fallout after 4 days that the theoretical expected values liebetween 1.1 and 1.6. This is what should have been measured by Oldbury on the aircraft.

However what he measured was a beta gamma ratio as high as 128 and for the high

contamination aircraft the mean beta gamma ratio was 49 with Standard deviation of 37.If we subtract the expected value, we see that there is some major component of the

fallout which is a beta emitter. As I pointed out in my first report, this can only be U-238

daughters (and the U-235 daughter Th-231). To make this quite clear, for the aircraft

smear result of 144000 beta plus gamma counts, and a gamma count of 3200 we wouldexpect with a theoretical beta gamma ratio of 1.5 only 4800 betas. But we observe

139200 betas. If we assume these are from the two U-238 daughters it means that the U-


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Fig 1 Principle components of Megaton weapons (Eisenbud and Gesell, 2000)


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Table 4 Beta and gamma components of fresh fallout constituents from megaton test

after 10 days. Gamma energy is approximately normalized to 600kev. Data fromdAnnunziata 1998 for fallout from Eisenbud and Gesell 2000.

Beta emitter

nuclide

% in fallout

BETA

Gamma photon %

ratio

Total gamma

GAMMALa-140 11 200 22

Ba-140 10 25 2.5

I-131 7 90 6.3

Ce-141 5 48 2.5

Zr-95 3 100 3

Sr-89 2 0 0

Nb-95 0.6 100 0.6

Ce-144 0.8 11 0.08

Ru-106 0.3 0 0

Rh-106 0.3 30 0.09

Pr-144 0.6 0 0Pm-147 0.05 0 0

Cs-137 0.03 85 0.02

Sr-90 0.02 0 0

Y-90 0.02 0 0

All 40.82 37.09

Beta gamma ratio = 1.1

Table 5 Beta and gamma components in 4 day old fallout from U-235 fission.

Beta emitter

nuclide

% in fallout

BETA

Gamma photon %

ratio

Total gamma

GAMMA

Mo-99 13 16 2.08

Ce-143 8 100 8

I-132 8 200 16

Te-132 8 90 7.2

La-140 5 200 10

Ba-140 6 25 1.25

I-131 5 90 4.5

Pr-143 5 0 0

I-133 5 90 4.5

Ce-141 3 48 1.5

Nd-147 3 13 0.3

Nb-97 3 98 3

Pm-149 3 0 0

Rh-105 2 19 0.4

Zr-95 1 100 1


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Y-91 1 0 0

Sr-89 1 0 0

Ru-103 .5 90 0.45

Rh-103 .5 0 0

All 93 60.58

Beta/gamma ratio = 1.53

5. Christmas Island and fallout: Grapple Y revisited

The documents released under the FoI request enabled me to re-examine the arguments Iadvanced in the supplementary report I wrote with Dai Williams and which is part of my

earlier arguments. What we did was to employ the NOAA HYSPLIT computer program

to examine the wind directions and the likely contamination plumes from the ground zeropositions on the days of the tests. What I did not realize then, but now see, is that these

calculations are of little utility in examining the contamination from weapons whose

energy is far greater than any weather energy, and which dominated the direction offallout dispersion. There are three main points I will make which follow from the FoIpapers.

1. Although the lower winds were supposed to be offshore, and for Grapple Y weresouth east, blowing along the coast, the upper winds were westerly and blew backacross the island. Since the plume and fireball were mostly in the upper

atmosphere, the total fallout cloud passed across the island in the easterly

direction. Fallout from this will have eventually reached sea level where it willhave been carried back over the island again by the lower winds.

2. There was considerable heavy rain caused by well-described processes involvingthe drawing of moist tropical sea level air (and sea water for Grapple Y which

explodes close to the sea owing to fuse problems) into the cold upper atmosphere)3. The measurements made by the Canberra aircraft sent to collect samples enable

me to show that the cloud of fallout debris was roughly 88 km in diameter and

thus overshadowed the island (which is about 15km by 30km) by a significantamount. So whichever way the wind was blowing, the fallout cloud was above all

parts of the island for several hours.

5.1 The lower and upper winds

One FoI document is a letter from P Graystone, Senior Meteorological Officer HQRAFChristmas Island, to various individuals on 2

ndMay 1958 which tabulates met data from

Christmas Island immediately before Grapple Y. I show Heights in feet, TemperatureWind speed and direction at 1900GMT on 28th

April 1958 in Table 6


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Table 6 Metereological data. Christmas Island on 1900h 28 April 1958. Tropopause in

bold.

Height 1000ft Temp deg C Relative

humidity

Wind Dir Wind speed

knots

Sea level 30 80 160 81 24 80 130 9

2 23 80 130 10

3 21 85 130 12

4 19 85 130 12

5 17 85 140 12

6 15 85 130 13

7 15 85 130 14

8 13 75 120 16

9 12 70 120 16

10 10 50 120 17

15 1 50 080 1620 -7 60 040 19

25 -16 25 080 10

30 -27 20 080 18

35 -38 20 080 22

40 -51 25 030 23

45 -63 240 04

46 -65 210 03

50 -73 270 11

55 -79 280 17

60 -77 330 10

65 -69 230 14

70 -61 330 20

75 -57 100 12

80 -49 090 40

From this I conclude that since the fallout cloud developed within 10 minutes, the stem

only was in the lower airstream whereas the main cloud was at a level where the windwas blowing it slightly to the East back over the island. The high humidity shown by the

balloon sonde data in Table 6 supports the many eyewitness accounts of heavy rain, a

phenomenon well known to be associated with nuclear weapons (see e.g. Glasstone 1962)and which follows from the drawing up of moist tropical air into the higher and cooler

atmosphere. The sample collection (Sniff) Canberras reported rain at unusual altitudes

and this was confirmed in a conversation I had with Joe Pasquini the navigator of thecontrol Canberra Sniff Boss. Another veteran described to me very heavy rain on the


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island which was accompanied by falling fishes. This rain will have been full of uranium

particulates and other fallout material, and we know from FoI reports that it was collectedand analysed, though no results have been released.

5.2 The size and position of the fallout cloud

There was a very valuable document among the FoI bundle. This was a letter to Mr GC

Scorgie from Wing Commander AW Eyre RAF/AWRE/S1334 dated 21st

May 1958 and

titledGrapple Y Sampling Canberra Data. It describes the gamma readings, headings andairspeeds of the 5 Canberra sampling aircraft together with their altitude and other data. I

have discussed these data with the navigator of Sniff Boss, Joe Pasquini, have obtained

valuable first-hand information from him and also obtained information from anotherpilot who is still alive Chris Donne. Eric Denson on Sniff 2 flew though the high altitude

high radiation area and died of cancer. The gamma measurements are recorded on the

various headings and from the speed of the aircraft (given as Mach 0.74) the location of

the high radiation areas define the size of the fallout cloud. This has been reduced to a

diagram by my colleague Dai Williams and it shows the extent and position of the highradiation areas up to H + 139 mins compared with the position of Christmas Island. I

show this in Fig 2. The external blue perimeter drawn in (by me) shows the positionwhere the gamma readings began to be recorded. However Pasquini says that the gamma

measurements began to climb at least 30 seconds before this point was reached. The

diameter of the cloud dependent on altitude but at the highest point the aircraft reached(Densons Sniff 2) was 6 minutes in diameter at Mach 0.74. This puts the diameter at

approximately 88km, although there is some slight uncertainty for two reasons. The first

is that the aircraft lost height as rapidly as possible to get out of the area so the finalreadings were not taken (Chris Donne says his navigator shoutedfor Christs sakelets get

out of this or something similar). The second is that apparently the pitot head machsystems ran out of steam at these near stratospheric altitudes and so the recorded speeds

were based on the fact that the aircraft had been travelling at these speeds. It is of interest

that the record in the FoI actually referred to light rain but Fl.Lt. Pasquini in Sniff Boss

recalls very heavy rain which was extremely unusual at the very high altitude the aircraftwere flying, close to the tropopause between 45,000 and 55,000 feet. As an example of

these data I give the radiation measurements recorded by Sniff One, third run, on a course

of 240 at a height of 54,000 feet in Table 7.

Table 7 Radiation exposure rates R/h recorded by Sniff 1 3rd

Run; H + 79.5 minutes;

Course 240; Height 54,000ft. (1 R/h = 100mSv/h) Dose rates in Sniff 2 were as high as280R/h (2.8 Sv/h)

Time of entering at Mach 0.74 = H+79.5

Time of leaving = H+85Duration in cloud with high gamma readings below recorded = 5.5minutes

R/h

1.5, 2.5, 3.1, 4.5, 5.5, 7.5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 17, 16, 19, 19, 20, 21, 20, 20, 19, 18, 19, 13

aircraft exited; no more measurements taken. .


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Fig 2. The size and position of the fallout cloud after GrappleY as shown by the 4 cloud

sampling Canberras together with their track directions and the times of their runs (DaiWilliams). Note the northern displacement of the stem and eastern displacement of the

head are not shown.


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6. The sticky paper measurements of fallout

One interesting document released under the FoI draws attention to the way in which

measurements of fallout were made (I subsume rainout under this heading of fallout).

A memo by Maj.WG McDougall written from AWRE Aldermaston 14 Feb 1948

outlines required operation of fallout collection on Christmas Island (Veterans July2008157654) is titles Air Water and Sticky Paper samplings. It states: Sticky paper is

adversely affected by rain and should be taken in under cover when rain is falling.

We assume that either this was carried out or wasnt. If it was, then no radionuclides inthe rain will have been collected on the filters. If it was not, then the filters will have had

the fallout washed off them. Since the MoD depend to a great extent on the sticky filter

data to argue their position that there was no fallout in areas where the veterans werestationed, this paper largely withdraws that evidence as unsafe.

7. Uranium and health

Since I wrote the first report, I have completed with colleagues a study of the Fallujahpopulations and have shown, by the use of hair analysis of the parents of children with

congenital malformations, that he cause is exposure to Uranium nanoparticles fromweapons (Alaani et al 2011). This new evidence is very relevant to the veteran case since

the veterans also have significantly high rates of congenital conditions in their children

and grandchildren as I have shown in my 2007 study of the British Nuclear test VeteranAssociation children (Busby et al 2007). Uranium causes these conditions and also

chromosome aberrations. The new evidence on uranium effects is reviewed in the ECRR

report on Uranium which may be downloaded from www.euradcom.org

7. Conclusions

These FoI and gisted secret documents support the arguments I advanced in my earlier

reports on this case.

C. Busby

11/Jan 2012

References

Alaani Samira, Tafash Muhammed, Busby Christopher, Hamdan Malak and Blaurock-Busch

Eleonore (2011) Uranium and other contaminants in hair from the parents of children with

congenital anomalies in Fallujah, IraqConflict and Health 2011, 5:15 doi:10.1186/1752-1505-5-15

LAnnunziata MF (1998) Handbook of Radioactivity Analysis San Diego: Academic

Press

Eisenbud M and Gesell T (1997) Environmental Radioactivity San Diego: Academic

Press
http://www.euradcom.org/http://www.euradcom.org/http://www.euradcom.org/

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