Medical checks for veterans of bomb tests

Some of the New Zealand servicemen who witnessed British nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1957 and 1958 are about to undergo blood tests to determine the damage done to them.

Nuclear Test Veterans Association chairman Roy Sefton said plans were in place to conduct research on 30 veterans, which would include blood samples.

The research would be financed from a $200,000 grant from the Government.

Financial assistance would also come from the New Zealand Cancer Society and Royal Society, he said.

The tests come as Dundee University research fellow Professor Sue Rabbitt Roff, who unearthed documents about British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the South Australian desert in 1956, called on the Australian Government to widen its inquiries into the health of test veterans and their children.

- NZPA