Transcript
WZ: The social security agency the CPS has calculated that it has so far spent $US770 million on health care costs for people deemed to have radiation-induced illnesses. The CPS covers medical expenses as well as pension payments but it is struggling financially. It has now again asking for France to assume responsibility for problems caused by its tests. The demand to be reimbursed however is not new. The CPS asked in 2010 for $US240 million, a sum which rose to $US540 million in 2015.
DW: How many people have been affected?
WZ: According to the CPS, just over 9,500 people have been taken care of for cancers caused by the tests.
DW: Is this figure disputed?
WZ: In terms of who can claim a cancer being caused by the tests the numbers are disputed. This is borne out by people seeking compensation as cancer sufferers get regularly rebuffed. In fact, just about all applications submitted under the 2010 compensation law used to be thrown out, which prompted an amendment in 2017. With the change, the term negligible risk was removed. But this caused fresh problems.
DW: Like what?
WZ: The loosening of the criteria meant that in theory any cancer sufferer could lodge a claim and attribute it to fallout from the weapons tests. The change also meant that compensation applications which had earlier been rejected could be resubmitted. As a result of the change the French Compensation Commission saw most of its members quit because they were no longer needed to supply scientific expertise to determine the validity of claims. This in turn halted all the Commission's work.
DW: Is the Commission reconstituted?
WZ: Yes, it has been re-established and its head happens to be in Tahiti this week. What has also happened since is that a new minimum radiation exposure figure has been put back into the act which has caused a huge outcry. It was slipped back into the legislation because as it was argued it had to be aligned to the health act. What irked people in French Polynesia was that it was a local politician Lana Tetuanui who led the French commission behind the change. She defended herself, saying that without such criteria smokers who had been in Tahiti and now have cancer could claim it was due to the nuclear fallout.
DW: What have the implications of the latest change been?
WZ: Well, still more claims are recognised than earlier in this decade but French Polynesia's Economic, Social, Environmental and Cultural Council wants the law to be changed again to say that the defence ministry is responsible for the effects of the tests. This is a difficult undertaking because a French court has already ruled that the French state was not liable because there was no proof that the state was directly responsible for the damage. The payments made through the French compensation commission are defined as money given out of national solidarity and not because of any liability.
