Transcript
A French child psychiatrist has told the paper Le Parisien that during his time in Tahiti he treated 271 children for pervasive developmental disorders. Dr Christian Sueur said 69 of them had developed disorders or intellectual disabilities, which he attributed to genetic mutations. For the test veterans' organisation Moruroa e tatou, the revelations are nothing new. Its head Roland Oldham says the signs are worrying.
"I have been to Tureia where you have in one family you have 7 to 9 people having cancer in the same family in three generations - the grand-parents, the parents and the children."
Dr Sueur, who had been in charge of child psychiatry at the Tahiti hospital until the end last year, says it has been established that a quarter of the children who were on Tureia during the 1971 blast now have thyroid cancer. He told French TV that care on small atolls near Moruroa is poor.
"In this area in the south of the Tuamotus, the public health service of French Polynesia shows little interest and doesn't even go to some atolls, so there are just military doctors."
His study, which has now been published in its entirety online, likens the situation for French Polynesia's victims to those of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Yolande Vernaudon, who is the new head of the French Polynesian commission looking at the test legacy, was dismissive of the report in an interview with Tahiti's Radio1.
"No, this is not a scientific document in in its proper sense. It is a report of a doctor, of a psychiatrist who dealt with sick people as it was his job."
Roland Oldham says the official response to date has been insulting to both his organisation and the experts who have been on the case.
He says too many are stuck in what he calls a colonial mindset.
"This situation has not changed and in fact this policy of hiding the truth, not only from the French government but our own government."
Father Auguste Uebe-Carlson of Association 193, which assists test victims trying to get compensation for radiation-induced illnesses, told local media that the lack of response is no surprise.
"In this country there is an omerta, a code of silence and fear of the French state which is still highly present."
Dr Sueur has seen troubled and deformed children and is trying to establish the reasons for their condition.
"It's important that studies are being carried out by independent people, by doctors, researchers, epidemiologists, geneticists who could come from France or even from abroad to guarantee independence in this kind of matters."
The debate coincides with a visit of the French overseas minister Annick Girardin who is this week due to launch a committee to set up an archive on the legacy of the French nuclear weapons tests.
