• Medical consequences of the accident.
1. Stochastic radiation effects183
183 See notes 167 and 168 p.432
Buzunov.—On the first point about “stochastic effects”, instead of saying “we predict”, it should say “we are seeing an increase in the number of thyroid cancers among the liquidators of 1986, among those who were evacuated and among the inhabitants of the areas contaminated by radioactivity”. These materials were presented, they were sufficiently convincing, and no-one put up any objection. I do not understand why it has been cut.
Not accepted. The text of the resolution reads: “We predict an increase in thyroid cancer among the liquidators of 1986”.
2. Deterministic radiation effects
Buzunov—I would like to propose something on this point: “There are indications that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases increased”. But the fact is that other non-tumoural diseases have increased also.
Sushkevich.—What is your proposition?
Buzunov.—That’s why we need to add: “that cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases and other non-tumoural diseases have increased”.
Accepted: “There are indications that cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases and other non-tumoural184 diseases have increased”.
184 Illnesses described as somatic. There is an epidemic of these illnesses in the contaminated territories today.
3. Other health effects
An anonymous woman sitting next to Chris Busby speaks:
The anonymous woman.—I noticed at the end of the chapter on “other health effects” there is a list of the factors that could be correlated with a certain number of health effects, but curiously radiation is not included among these factors. It seems to me that one of the things that happened at Chernobyl was exactly this, there was an enormous amount of radiation. It would seem therefore unscientific not to include it as a possible cause of health effects, given that there is no proof that radiation was not the cause. Also, I would like to propose that we include “radiation” at the beginning of the list of possible factors causing these other health effects.
(There is a barely audible exchange away from the microphone between the woman and the chair. She asks to speak again, but this is refused)
Yablokov.—I am completely in agreement with what has just been said by our colleague delegate, who noticed the absence of radiation among the possible factors. I would like to propose the following formulation for the last paragraph. It reads “They are probably linked to a certain number of factors. I suggest: “Apart from radioactivity, they could be linked to other factors as well”. In other words, the word “radiation” should be mentioned here. Moreover, we have not discussed the matter of food. There has been no report on food in the control groups etc. There have been no reports on vitamins, no reports presented on the evacuations either. I would ask you to include without fail the word radiation in this final paragraph: “to radiation as well as to other factors”, it could be written like that. Thank you.
I. Likhtarev (ICRP, Ukraine).—(this portly scientist is standing against the wall near to the rostrum. He is wearing a headset and has a hand held microphone that refuses to work. This adds to his visible embarrassment, that he overcomes heroically in the end)—Firstly… firstly… I would object to the fact that… simply… . is it working? (People in the hall tell him to plug the microphone in. Someone helps him.) Is it plugged in? (The people in the hall can hear him but not the interpreters in their cabin. They tell him to give it a tap. He starts shaking it and hitting it with his fist.) Is it working? Yes? Firstly, we cannot include abstract… (The murmuring in the hall interrupts him. Perplexed, he regards the microphone as if it were a living creature) Abstractly, we cannot inc… (crackling) Have we got another one? ... (He is looking at the camera man’s microphone) Is this one working?… (Finally someone passes him another microphone. Two coughs to check for sound then off we go) Firstly, in general, I don’t agree that we should put the word “radiation” first… By itself, the presence of radiation does not in any way mean that there are medical consequences. That’s why like here… there are a huge number of problems associated with storage, in the 30 km zone, in the soil, it’s simply absurd. Secondly, if we had to include something, it should be radionuclides… Radiation is a common notion.
Not accepted. The word “radioactivity” does not appear in the list of factors causing illness apart from oncological diseases (in other words, somatic): “A number of factors linked to the accident at Chernobyl, including the deterioration in the socio-economic situation, continuing to live in the contaminated territories, insufficient food, lack of vitamins, the evacuation and psychological stress can have an influence on these effects”.
Yablokov.—I would like to comment more generally on Point 3 “Other health effects”. We seem to have a rather curious construction here in the resolution. We have stochastic effects, deterministic and then “others”. This is not possible. They are either stochastic, or they are deterministic, a third category does not exist. I propose that we take out the heading “other health effects” and include them in deterministic. Without changing anything else…They belong quite clearly in “deterministic”.
Likhtarev.—I am completely in agreement with Dr Yablokov about the fact that there are no effects at the moment that are not either stochastic or non-stoch… but others. But we do need to keep that category perhaps…in the sense that… in this chapter… because they are perhaps linked with the CA-TAS-TRO-PHE (he enunciates each syllable) of Chernobyl, and not with the radioactive component. Only in this sense.
Sushkevich.—I think perhaps we could adopt this; there is the proposal to call it the “catastrophe”, precisely because these are the effects that are linked to the notion of catastrophe.
Likhtarev.—Absolutely. That’s right. Effects linked to the CATASTROPHE but not necessarily with a radioactive component.
Not accepted: The word “catastrophe” does not appear in the text of the final resolution. It was superfluous, because the word “radiation” does not appear in the list of factors either. So, according to this resolution, neither the catastrophe nor the radiation explains the health problems that have hit the contaminated territories of Chernobyl. Quite simply, a list is made up and no-one does anything about it, neither in 2001 nor in 2006… nor in 2015 and...
Adopted text:
“3. Other health effects
Fifteen years after the accident other health effects have appeared. In the main these are neuropsychiatric and cardiovascular illnesses, but other illnesses have also appeared:
- deterioration of health among the liquidators;
- increase in invalidity among the liquidators;
- a decrease in birth rate;
- deterioration in the health of new born babies;
- increase in complications during pregnancy;
- illness in young children”.
A blonde woman who appears upset.—Mr President, information has been presented to this conference that indicates a deterioration in children’s health linked, among other things, to the radiation factor. We have shown that there are alterations in health following irradiation to the thyroid gland above the threshold, and alterations following irradiation in utero of children… (Dr Nakajima—who is presiding at the end of this session interrupts her). Excuse me. I put my hand up at least twenty minutes ago…
Solange Fernex.—At the top of Page 4, we have “chronic low dose exposure to long lived radionuclides”. I would like to add the word “incorporated radionuclides”. I would like to emphasise that we must always insist on the fact that it is incorporated through food, as we heard in Professor Nesterenko’s presentation.
Not accepted.
Chris Busby.—I would make the point that the European Parliament recently passed a resolution asking for a reassessmen
t of the dose risk model because of low dose effects which emerged after the Chernobyl accident in the countries that I mentioned earlier and I mentioned in my paper and I feel that this conference should call for re-examination of the dose risk models […] now there is a very great deal of evidence in the last ten years and certainly evidence that has been presented at this conference and by us and by other workers that very low doses of radiation have a significantly high effect, a proportionately higher effect and this calls into question the whole radiation risk model, and I do not think attention should be focused only on the groups that were significantly exposed to radiation because if such is the case then many radiation effects from Chernobyl will be entirely missed.
Nakajima.—Yes, you will remember that in 1996 or 1997, WHO and the IAEA held a meeting in Seville, in Spain, and we determined definition of low dose ionising radiation… the minimal level of risk from а radiation at low doses. We already have a clear recommendation. So I think that your statement is correct and it should be included in a more precise way.
Busby.—Alright, well if we can recommend as a conference that more research should go into the evaluation of the effects of very low doses.
Nakajima.—So, this is an additional sentence.
Not accepted. On page 137 of the “Recommendations” of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR)185, coordinated by Chris Busby—among the fifteen papers and publications about Chernobyl used as a basis to study the effects of the accident—there is this reference: “WHO 2001, Kiev Conference. “The final resolution of the conference recommends a re-evaluation of the risk models”. Professor Busby and the ECRR trusted the word and honour of the honorary president of the conference, Hiroshi Nakajima, who gave his assurance at the plenary session that this formulation would be included in the final resolution. It was recorded on film.
185 ECRR, Ed. Green Audit, 2003. ISBN:1 897761 24 4, page 110
Adhering to the line maintained by the three UN agencies, the resolution does not mention the new scientific data presented at the conference about the effect of caesium 137 incorporated at low doses in the human organism.
The IAEA, UNSCEAR and WHO, who do not study the effects of internal contamination by incorporated radionuclides, cannot explain the unexpected increase in somatic illness from which the contaminated population are suffering.
Contrary to the promise made at the assembly, the proceedings from the Kiev conference have never been published. There are many words in our language to describe the different ways in which people were duped at Kiev: mystification, pretence, obfuscation, deception, fraud, faking, faithlessness, massaging of the facts, lying by omission, trickery, betrayal, arrogance, contempt...
Finally, I must return to Alla Tipiakova’s appeal186. “I am calling on the whole world, I am speaking to all kind people. You must help us…We no longer believe that our children will be safe here. We think no-one is interested in us”.
186 See Part One, Chapter 1, p. 6.
Chapter III
THREE MASTERS OF THE SUBJECT
The following text is the response of three academics from the three countries most badly affected by the policy of trivialising the Chernobyl disaster. It is a rational analysis of the methodological errors and the inadequacy of the international assistance given to the contaminated population. It is also, and most importantly, a programme of possible concrete action to tackle the real problems that the international scientific community continues, obstinately, to ignore. Two of the three authors, Nesterenko and Yablokov, have already been introduced. D.M. Grodzinski, a biologist, and member of the Academy of Sciences in Kiev, is president of the National Commission on Radiological Protection in Ukraine. He opposes the policy of concealing the health consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
D.M. GRODZINSKI (UKRAINE), V.B. NESTERENKO (BELARUS),
A.V. YABLOKOV (RUSSIA)
(NOTES IN THE MARGIN OF THE 2002 UN REPORT)
In July-August 2001, six experts from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were asked by a number of different UN organisations to collect “useful and reliable information about the humanitarian consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station”. Based on “a rigorous scientific analysis of the factual data”, obtained through observation and from material provided by the local authorities in the contaminated territories, these representatives of Goscomhydromet and from the Chernobyl Committee from Belarus, the Ministry for Emergency Situations, Centre for Radiological Medicine, the Institute of Sociology and the High Chamber of Ukraine, as well as the NGO Taifun and two scientific establishments of the Russian Academy of Sciences, that do not appear on the official list of academic establishments (a so-called “laboratory of ecological and medical dosimetry” and the Institute of Nuclear Safety of the Russian Academy of Sciences), produced a series of recommendations for the international community and the governments of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia concerning problems linked to the consequences of the disaster at Chernobyl. They made use of the reports from national programmes on Chernobyl (the materials already quoted of Goscom-tchernobyl and from the Ministry of Education in Belarus, from the Ministry for Emergency Situations of Ukraine and the Russian report on water quality in the Bryansk region) and from the analysis of “scientific articles, legislative measures, and other publications”. The UN experts produced a report, published in book form in English and in Russian, and entitled Humanitarian Consequences of the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, which was solemnly presented to the media and the public in February 2002 in New York, Minsk, Kiev and Moscow.
There are two diametrically opposed views about Chernobyl. These two positions are reflected within the structure of the UN; on the one hand, UNSCEAR, the IAEA and WHO claim with one voice that apart from 1,800 thyroid cancers caused by irradiation during childhood and the death of a few dozen liquidators, there have been no other consequences due to radiation from Chernobyl that can be established with any certainty. On the other hand, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, wrote in 2000 in the preface of a publication from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OCHA that: “The exact number of (victims) may never be known. But three million children require physical treatment, and not until 2016, at the earliest, will we know the true number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions […] Their adulthood—now fast approaching—is likely to be blighted […] Many will die prematurely. Are we to let them live and die […]?”
The 2002 UN report is an attempt to reconcile these two points of view: thus we find among the organisations that financed it, WHO, known for its sympathies with the nuclear industry, but also the UN children’s foundation (UNICEF), the UN development programme UNDP, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The Chernobyl tragedy has affected millions of people. It is an event of global significance that testifies to the adventurism of the promoters of the nuclear industry, but also to cowardice and heroism, suffering and solidarity among the earth’s inhabitants. Chernobyl continues to pose a number of problems to humanity but this is the most pressing: what can be done to reduce the human suffering and to normalise life in the contaminated territories? The economic scale of the problem is proportional to the human disaster: tens of billions of dollars have already been spent but future expenses will be even larger.
The UN report quite rightly talks of the importance of effective international aid; there is no doubt that the measures proposed will help to consolidate the efforts of the international community. We completely agree with the authors of the report when they say that it is “necessary to have complete, truthful and precise information about the consequences of the accident” and that all arguments must undergo scrutiny by “detailed and honest expertise”. But careful reading of the report leads us to conclude that the UN report itself is lacking in truth, and that the information contained within it is neither complete nor
objective.
The report claims for example that the radioactive fallout “will continue to have an effect on the rural population for decades”. This is not true. Contamination by caesium and strontium, even though it will be become weaker over time, will continue to have an effect over hundreds of years (ten half lives), and as for those territories contaminated by plutonium and americium, they will remain a danger for ever, for several millennia. Remember also that even after the reduction in radioactivity due to the natural transformation of radionuclides, the contamination of people may not decrease and, as experience has shown, may even increase: this is exactly what we are seeing everywhere today in the areas contaminated by Chernobyl.
It is also incorrect to claim that the risks linked to the initial impact of the radioactivity “have already manifested themselves”. We know that radiation causes a transformation of the genetic material (mutations) and that these genetic changes are hereditary. For this reason alone, the radiological shock of Chernobyl will unfortunately make itself felt for many generations to come. Also, we know that radio-induced cancers do not appear straight away: breast and lung cancer appear after twenty years, cancer of the colon after thirty years. Therefore, the risks for those who received the first radiological shock in 1986 will not manifest themselves until after 2016.
The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag Page 62
