Veterans groups sued the Defense Department on Tuesday in an effort to obtain disability benefits for airmen who say they were exposed to radiation while responding to a 1966 accident involving U.S. hydrogen bombs in Spain. A Defense Department spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation. The department has failed to respond to requests for the records, according to the lawsuit. Although the Defense Department collected urine samples from the airmen, it never shared the results with most of them, the suit says. The Defense Department also has maintained that the airmen's radiation exposure was too low to have triggered diseases, despite many urine samples showing dangerously high exposure levels, the lawsuit says.

Source: ABC News October 03, 2017 16:23 UTC