The NHS in Scotland is attempting to conceal cancer statistics which could demonstrate the danger of radioactive contamination in the Solway Firth.

Children living near to the Dumfries and Galloway shoreline are twice as likely to develop leukaemia as those living further inland, according to new allegations by campaigners, due to the Irish Sea being used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste and weapons testing.

The NHS is appealing to the House of Lords to be allowed to keep detailed cancer statistics secret, after losing its case in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, in a move which is making freedom of information (FOI) history.

Sea pollution from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria and the firing of depleted uranium shells at a military range near Kirkcudbright could be linked to high leukaemia rates.

The Sunday Herald reported that campaigners from the Low Level Radiation Campaign and Green Audit have alleged that a NHS study has missed the link between cancer and the pollution.

The study disregarded evidence of the distorting effect of inland contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, it is claimed.

The harmful effects of depleted uranium shells have long been documented by the Celtic League.

A report on the Ministry of Defence's radioactive waste and management practices, published by the Department of the Environment in December 1997, warned that depleted uranium shells "remain on the sea bed where they will corrode with time to form an insoluble sludge composed of hydrated uranium oxide ... Unsuccessful attempts were made in 1993 to recover some of these shells in order to assess their corrosion state."

The new allegations come just weeks after the British governments 'body snatching' activities at Sellafield came to light. Such were the concerns over the potential effects of radiation that tissue from organs and bones were taken from 65 deceased workers at Sellafield and other nuclear plants between 1962 and 1991.

Further revelations highlighted that tests exposing humans to radioactive caesium, iodine, strontium and uranium were conducted by the nuclear industry despite doubts about their legal and ethical implications. It was even proposed that injecting plutonium into elderly people could help assess contamination risks.

The latest attempt to exempt the cancer statistics from freedom of information requests is part of the government's long-term trend of suppressing public questioning as it struggles to grapple with the harmful fallout of Britain's nuclear and munitions dustbin in the Irish Sea.

(This report compiled for Celtic News by Celia Moffatt)

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

10/06/07

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