Germany Investigates Soldiers' Radiation Exposure
June 25, 2004
The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (GfS) has confirmed that it is looking into claims of German army soldiers who had allegedly been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
The mass-circulation Bild reported on Thursday that up to 50,000 Bundeswehr soldiers could have been harmed through cancer-causing levels of radiation that emanated from fluorescent paints used in military hardware from the 1960s to the late 1980s.
GfS head Wolfram König said 50,000 soldiers were mobilized during the time that the paint was in use. But only a small fraction of them had been exposed to risks, namely those given the task of applying the paint or scraping it off.
"You have to distinguish between soldiers who were only occasionally in contact with those paints and were only exposed a little to radiation and workers who were handling the paints every day while dealing with military hardware," said König. "We are currently trying to find links between cases of cancer and exposure to the paints, and as in previous incidents, there will be a rather generous attitude towards compensation."
Officials allegedly knew about the danger
According to Bild, information it obtained from a group called the Federation for the Support of Victims of Radioactivity showed that the fluorescent paints contained a considerable amount of the cancer-causing Radium 226. They were primarily used in tanks, aircraft and radar installations.
The report also said that German army officials had known about the dangerous paints already in the 1960s, but failed to replace them until the late 1980s.
The German Defense Ministry said on Thursday that claims for damages were filed against the Bundeswehr, but refused to confirm the total number of 50,000 cases.
The new set of claims comes in the wake of previous litigation against the Bundeswehr, involving soldiers who were allegedly exposed to dangerous radiation levels from improperly shielded radar installations. Some of them had contracted cancer and have already received compensation.