Porton Down experiments - COMPENSATION AT LAST?

The MOD are cosidering paying £3,000,000 in compensation to 'victims' of Porton Down who were 'lied' to testing nerve gas. They were told it was research into the common cold.

Cant see it happening myself - but do the guys who were volunteers deserve it?

In my opinion , YES they do. They were tricked, and got all f**ked up.

Your opinion.....

 

I believe its only for a sarin test in the 50s in which one man died. The offer is for £8000 only IF they all agree to that.

Get claims direct on to it, its a fucking disgrace again by MOD, when you look at the compensation culture now.

 

Will the Nuclear vet's be next? :thumright:

 

One one hand it does look like a scam to both minimise the payout by the MOD and put the whole episode to bed for good, though the good thing is that it also includes an admission of guilt

 

They mentioned on the Today programme that many of these guys were given sarin doses under the guise of cold remedy. I recall similar invitations to test "cold remedies" much later than that! All for a a few sheckles...

 

I remember back in 1981/2 adverts for a "2 week holiday at Porton Down testing cold cures. Candidates need to be aged 18 - 40 yrs of age in good health. You will be paid a weekly amount (about £25) for testing common cold remedies" These adverts were in the 'Job Centres' around Portsmouth and I was tempted being a young naieve guy, but my father told me what Porton Down had done in the past and left me to make a decision. I didnt apply for the 'job'!!

 

Fly Past, I think there was also extra leave involved as part of the inducement.(?)
I tried a couple of times, but couldn't be spared! Hows that for luck?
They, the volunteers, deserve all they can get, as do the those who didn't, who involved in the nuclear tests.
RoofRat

 

I was on about members of the unemployed doing the tests too. I was a young unemployed jobseeker then. Looking for a start in life - offered a 2 week 'vacation' at Porton down.

I believe that £8000 is far short of what they shoud get. and the nuke vets too should be compensated too. They were all used as Guinea Pigs.
Joseph Mengele would have been proud of what Porton Down 'achieved' too. :threaten: :rambo:

 

I regret to say that although I was told about the dubious nature of Porton Down's 'doing your bit for medicine' common cold research by my Leading Observer in the Royal Observer Corps (legal status: uniformed civvies in peacetime/subject to RAF law in war emergency) I volunteered at the age of 18 in 1981 and visited PD in 1982. The allowance represented a lot to me at the time as I was unemployed. When I tried getting my medical records off the MOD in 1993 they told me they were classified. When I applied to get them some 10 years later I was told that Porton Down never tried to recruit civvies and that anyway they had no medical records for ROC bods.

Fly_past, I'm glad you have mentioned their attempts to recruit civvies. You might like to know that they insist they only ever sought to recruit Regular Servicemen!!! The problem is, of course, that the orders have not survived proving their deceit.

All I remember that happened to me is being injected with a straw coloured liquid and waking up in the sick bay! Mind you I was scared of needles at that age! Must have injected neat whisky into me! :lol:

The compensation the MOD is offering is £8300 per victim, I recall, but only if everybody accepts it. As I'm not applying for any compensation however I feel no obligation to keeping my mouth shut. There should be a proper investigation by the International Criminal Court and those responsible for allowing these experiments to take place should, upon indictment, face 30 years imprisonment. Although I'm normally very liberal in my punitive attitudes towards offenders, I draw a line with crimes against humanity on this scale.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/7192982.stm

 

Possibly but £4,000 is the sum being bandied about. Same global figure as the Common Cold Guinea Pigs but more veterans to share it among. The Nuclear Vets are mounting a Class Action so the matter will become Sub Judice.

 

21_Man I concur. Then again in Matthews the courts ruled that he should have foreseen the dangers of asbestos exposure in boiler room lagging in the RN and could have always refused to work with asbestos. Where do these judges get such ideas from!

 

Thingy,

I think that you will find that Wiltshire Constabulary conducted an investigation into the recruitment and subsequent treatment of the "volunteers" at PD. I am not fully aware of the outcome of said investigation, but feel certain that the BBC reported on it a couple of years ago.

 

They certainly did. I was in contact with the Superintendent in charge and was able to point him in the right direction to obtain copies of the Royal Naval Notices asking for volunteers to participate in Common Cold Cure experiments. Better food of good quality-nothing much to do all day after you'd had your nerve-gas vaccination A few wxtra bob in your pay packet and bad health for the rest of your life.

 

This is where Stawart lets himself down. They're not called Royal Naval Notices.

 

To be fair to PD, I did volunteer... but for Common Cold research! :angry4:

I followed the investigation but PD have always insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that they only recruited regulars. The notice for volunteers came round in the weekly ROC orders, but conveniently not a single copy has survived. They only tried to recruit us presumably (I'm saying this with hindsight) because they were having problems recruiting regulars. Barstewards.

 

I remember reading A F Os (Pussers not Egyptian) in the late 50s early 60s looking for common cold volunteers for an extra 2/6 (12.5p) per week. I toyed with the idea. Glad I didn't, I glow in the dark anyway! :w00t:

 

Stalwart understands only too well that when the details were extracted from Admiralty Fleet Orders and published in Daily Orders or as separate notices they were Royal Navy Notices and Pt. 2 Orders and army notices if they were army.

 

Glowing in the dark? Is that a euphemism for reading Egyptian AFO's . Well fkuc my Bints ctun