With respect, there is a lot of completely unsubstantiated nonsense in many of the highly tragic photos and statements above.
Yes, serious mistakes were made in both the early nuclear weapons trials and in Vietnam. But just as there was virtually NO RESIDUAL RADIATION AFTER HIROSHIMA (because all the terrible damage and deaths were caused by an air burst so that ground material wasn't generally contaminated) there is very little evidence of injury and death from the British nuclear tests in Australia. There were silly mistakes made, and great disruption to a small number of aboriginal peoples lives over the longer term, but the residual effects on those involved and nearby were really no greater than would be seen in a similar control population group nowhere near these two cited examples.
I had Air Force friends who flew through the post-burst nuclear cloud with no apparent ill-effect.
Cancer and congenital deformities continue to be a terrible fact of life generations later, and I don't see SCIENTIFIC evidence to the contrary.
I know the above will enrage those who prefer to believe the contrary, but it's just too easy to post emotive ly misleading anecdotal material.
Just to really 'prod the tiger' I challenge opponents to read the very detailed independent scientific UN report produced decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Almost all who died subsequently (
From radiation caused illnesses (less than 100, as I recall) were those directly exposed inside the plant at the time and just afterward. Thousands did die later, but this was from alcoholism and stress-related illnesses as a result of their loss of jobs, homes and way of life, etc. - not directly from radiation-related causes.
