Diggers cancer cluster claim
Joseph Catanzaro,
The West Australian
Updated
August 3, 2013, 2:50 am
Cancer claims: Sapper Luke Butler. Picture: Supplied
A device used by
Australian soldiers in Afghanistan to jam the detonation of roadside bombs has
been linked to a cluster of cancer among returning Diggers, with internal
documents revealing the Federal Government was aware of alleged problems as
early as 2008.
The Government's
claim last month it was not aware of multiple cases where the battlefield
device allegedly caused cancer has been exposed as false by the grieving widow
of an Australian soldier.
She released
documents yesterday showing the Veterans' Affairs Department was told of the
potential danger years earlier.
The revelation has
reignited a call from the Australian Medical Association for an investigation
into the link between the device and what it believes constitutes a cancer
cluster, and comes after Skye Butler provided The Weekend West with
documents her husband Sapper Luke Butler sent to Veterans' Affairs in 2008.
Obtained under
Freedom of Information laws, the documents show Spr Butler claimed the
bomb-jamming equipment he used in Afghanistan caused his brain tumour, which
killed him at age 27 in 2010.
Mrs Butler released
the dossier after Veterans' Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon spoke publicly in
June of his "surprise" when the family of another soldier,
28-year-old Kevin Dillon, claimed his fatal cancer was caused by the electronic
countermeasure device.
A lifesaving tool in
a war where insurgents frequently attack using roadside bombs, the mobile
version of the device can be worn on the soldier's back and uses high-power
radio transmitters to disrupt mobile phone signals that detonate bombs.
At the time, Mr
Snowdon said he believed Mr Dillon's case was the first where the device had
been linked to cancer, and "there is no evidence I am aware of the
equipment we use has given that outcome", and Veterans' Affairs had told
him it had no records linking cancer with the device.
Mrs Butler's
documents, held by Veterans' Affairs, showed it was aware of her husband's
claim five years earlier linking the ECM to his tumour.
A board of inquiry
assessing his compensation claim put in writing his assertion two soldiers he
worked with in the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment had "suffered similar
conditions".
AMA president Dr
Steve Hambleton revealed the group was aware of four cases where the
bomb-jamming device had allegedly been linked to cancer in returned soldiers.
It is believed this
makes between four and six cases where an ECM has been allegedly linked to
cancer.
Mrs Butler yesterday
spoke out to question how many cases the Government might not be admitting.
"They either
haven't looked (for the records) or they're lying about it," Mrs Butler
said. "It's really insulting to Luke. It's insulting to all
soldiers."
Besides
"high-frequency radio exposure", the compensation claim by Spr Butler
on September 1, 2008 put "exposure to foreign materials (fumes)"
during his service as an additional possible trigger that led to his malignant
neoplasm.
Last month, the
Australian Government Repatriation Medical Authority - an independent statutory
authority responsible to Mr Snowdon - gazetted its aim to investigate nerve
agents and oil-well smoke as factors in malignant neoplasm of the brain.
Dr Hambleton said the
ECM device worked on the microwave band, which should not be able to cause the
kind of tissue heating that damages DNA. But he said nothing could be ruled out
without an investigation.
"Theoretically
there is no risk," he said. "Even though there are a couple of other
cases, it doesn't necessarily mean a connection. But when you see clusters, you
do want to investigate."
A spokesperson for Mr
Snowdon said the minister's comments in June were based on advice from the
Repatriation Medical Authority and Defence, based on medical and scientific
evidence on ECM and cancer.
In June, Rear Admiral Robyn
Walker of Joint Health Command said about Mr Dillon's case: "I am not
aware, at this point, of any concerns raised about ECM." She did not
respond to questions yesterday but Defence maintained there "has been no
evidence of cancers attributed to the frequencies and equipment we use".
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/18319261/diggers-cancer-cluster-claim/
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