Chernobyl: An Unbelievable Failure to Help
Rosalie Bertell, MD, PhD., GNSH
International Journal of Health Services
March 2008, Vol. 38(3), pp. 543-60.
Abstract:
The disaster at the Chernobyl power reactor near Kiev, which
began on 26 April 1986, at 1:21 AM, was one of the worst
industrial accidents ever suffered in the world. Yet the global
community, which is usually most generous in pouring out aid to a
stricken community, has been slow to understand the scope of this
disaster and to reach out to the most devastated people of
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. It is the purpose of this discussion
to probe the causes of the confusion of perception and failure of
response to the needs of these victims. Clearly the problem is
one of communication, and the true picture has not been well
communicated to concerned people of all countries and faiths.
Has the International Atomic Energy Agency betrayed the victims
of the Chernobyl disaster because of its plans to promote the
"peaceful atom" nuclear program in the developing world? Has the
World Health Organization failed to provide clear and reliable
health effect information and data on the extent of the suffering
and death resulting from this disaster? Are there other
historical problems or actors which are now seen to interfere
with reasonable handling of the late effects of a nuclear
disaster? Most importantly, what can be done to remedy this
tragic situation, both assisting those most hurt by the late
effects of Chernobyl, and preventing such injustice from
occurring in future? At this time of global crisis over climate
change, with the current promotion of nuclear energy as a
"solution", it is important to revisit the Chernobyl event and to
take a sober second look at the reality of the nuclear energy
experiment, and the management of its hazards.
Background:
Although I sent my Handbook for Calculating the Health Effects of
Exposure to Ionizing
Radiation [1]
to the Moscow Hospital 6, where
the worst exposed first responders were being treated, as soon as
I learned about the Chernobyl accident, my first trip to Kiev and
Chernobyl was in 1989, three years after the disaster,. None of
the pictures I took in 1989, within the 30 km. exclusion area or
near to the sarcophagus, turned out -- probably because the level
to radiation being emitted from the failed reactor #4 was still
too high.
I learned that the area around Chernobyl was once the cradle of
icon painting and I saw centuries old icons strewn on the floor
of the nearby new library. These medieval icons were now too
contaminated with radioactivity to handle. The apartment
buildings in Pripyat were abandoned, schools closed and
playground swings and slides stood idle. Even a forest had been
buried as radioactive waste. While a few physicians were alarmed
at the health problems they were seeing, most were telling people
that they did not have radiation sickness, and their worries were
merely radiophobia.
By my second visit in
1991, [2]
five years after the disaster, there
was no longer any talk of radiophobia, rather, the increased
illnesses among children and the cleanup workers had
become seriously disturbing. Dr. Maya Fomina, the physician who
led the emergency medical team at the disaster site in 1986, told
me that while about 33% of the clean-up workers were ill in 1987,
67% were ill by 1991 with a wide variety of chronic disorders.
These workers were between ages 18 and 30 at the time of the
disaster, and in prime health. Dr. Fomina had just lost a 22 year
old assistant, one of her best medical technicians, also a worker
in the emergency
tent. [3]
She commented softly: "I did not mean to
give a death sentence when I chose her!"
Children exposed to Chernobyl fallout were experiencing chronic
adult diseases of the respiratory and blood systems, gastritis,
nervous system diseases, cardiovascular diseases and other
diseases of internal organs. In general, in 1991, the level of
serious illness in children was about six to seven times above
normal, while serious illness in the clean-up workers was three
to four times above normal. Medical technicians brought in to
help in the emergency were not trained in identifying radiation
related blood changes, so they often missed the early symptoms of
developing physiological
abnormalities. [4]
There was little
over-all control of medical and environmental exposure records to
assist researchers who would later monitor the changes in health.
The numbers of victims was staggering: 650,000 workers were
directly involved in fighting the fire, assisting evacuees, and
cleaning-up. About 116,000 people had been evacuated from the 30
km. radius, which included the thriving city of Pripyat and more
than 70 other settlements. Additionally 77 administrative
districts in 12 regions of Ukraine, including more than 1500
villages, residential area and towns were heavily contaminated
with radioactive material. It is estimated that by 1991, about
200,000 people were still living in the high risk areas of
Ukraine, and many more were exposed to the nuclear fallout in
Belarus and
Russia. [5]
Yet internationally, there was little
outpouring of help and concern by the general public!
Thyroid Disease
Even in 1991 there was widespread concern in Ukraine about
150,000 people, including
60,000 children exposed to high levels of radiation to the
thyroid gland (2000 mSv for children and 5000 mSv for adults).
This problem was not discussed or admitted internationally until
the release of a paper in the British Journal
Nature [6]
and the
World Health Organization (WHO) call for help to aid child
thyroid cancer victims in 1999. Dr. Keith F. Baverstock, Head of
the Department for Radiation and Health at the European Office of
WHO in Rome, has testified that the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) experts knew of at least twenty cases of rare
childhood thyroid illness in Ukraine by
1990. [8]
Dr. Keith F. Baverstock visited the Gomel Region of Belarus,
which had received significant fall out from Chernobyl, and noted
the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer especially in very young
children. Even in major European or American cities, one rarely
saw more than one or two cases in a year, and on his visit to a
hospital in Minsk he saw 11 such cases in one day. Baverstock
stressed the problem of the very close dependency of the people
of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia on their environment:
"(T)hey
depend on the earth to grow things and feed themselves and their
animals, on the rivers and lakes for fish and water, and on the
forest for its fruits of berries and
mushrooms." [9]
The International Chernobyl Project
In 1989, the former Soviet Union, its credibility shattered
because of its non-handling of the Chernobyl disaster, invited
the IAEA to review the health impacts. In 1991 the IAEA reported
that no health problems in the victims of Chernobyl could be
linked to radiation! This 1991 report on health was chaired by
Professor Fred Mettler, Jr., Director of the Medical Expert Group
of the IAEA International Chernobyl Project. Dr. Mettler, Jr.,
MD, was Chair of the Department of Radiology, at the University
of New Mexico, School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, USA. On
April 24, 2006, the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl
disaster, Dr. Zenon Matkiwsky gave the following rebuttle of Dr.
Mettler's 1991 report:
"In July 1992, I took part in a U.S.
Congressional Hearing and I listened to the
testimoney of Dr. Fred Mettler, Jr., Director of the IAEA heath
study, as he testified before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee. Dr.
Mettler assured Senator Joseph Lieberman that his organization
had conducted the most comprehensive investigation possible on
the Chernobyl survivors and that the IAEA had found no evidence
of perceptible increase in thyroid cancer in children."
Dr. Matkiwsky continuted:
"Had he [Dr. Mettler, Jr.] bothered to
visit the Institutes of Endocrinology in Minsk or Kiev, or had he
visited any of the regional children's hospitals in Chernibiv, or
Gomel or Zhytomyr, he would have found ample evidence that
children were being stricken with an extremely rare form of
cancer at alarming
rates." [10]
Dr. Fred Mettler, Jr., ICRP and UNSCEAR
In both the British Journal
Nature [11]
and Report of the World
Health Organization
(WHO), [12]
Dr. Keith Baverstock quickly
validated the Belarus and Ukraine research documenting the then
30-fold increase in thyroid cancer, and discrediting the IAEA
report of Dr. Mettler. Yet the latter researcher was rewarded
with a position on the Main Committee (now called The Commission)
of the International Commission on Radiological Protection
(ICRP). Dr. Mettler was also chosen as the U.S. representative on
the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation (UNSCEAR). These inter-agency connections are important
for understanding the strange silence on the suffering of those
exposed to Chernobyl fallout.
UNSCEAR, in 1955 and IAEA, in 1957, were set up by the United
Nations (UN) in response to the U.S. President Eisenhower's
Peaceful Energy talk at the UN, in
1953. [13]
The IAEA was mandated to perform two tasks -- to assist countries
in harnessing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to carry
out inspections to ensure that any assistance a country received
from another was used exclusively for peaceful purposes and not
diverted to developing any nuclear weapon. UNSCEAR was to report
on the adequacy of
the regulation of ionizing radiation and its effects on health.
IAEA subsequently took its radiation protection recommendations
directly from ICRP (rather than WHO), therefore persons from the
Commission who also sit on UNSCEAR both make the rules and judge
their adequacy. Dr. Fred Mettler, Jr. is not the only person to
sit on the Commission and also sit on UNSCEAR. This dual role is
commonplace and clearly a conflict of interest.
Other Internationally Sponsored Chernobyl Research
Japan provided $20 million to WHO in 1990 to gather data and
address the thyroid **disease problems, blood diseases and brain
damage in utero. Funds for this project ran out in 1995. In 1992
the International Thyroid Project was launched by WHO and the
European Union (EU). It soon folded, as did projects initiated by
the G7, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD).
Part of the difficulty with these projects was that, unlike the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki research, there was only limited funding
for Chernobyl research (at least $200 million had been poured
into the atomic bomb research from September 1945
on). [14]
Another
difficulty was that governments controlled the scientists
selected to work on the project. Failure could also be assigned
to the fact that only the medical radiology and nuclear industry
were willing and ready to undertake the research due to the
restriction of all things radioactive or nuclear to nuclear
physics, nuclear engineering, medical physics or health physics
in the national agencies and universities. These three problems
were intertwined, since the nuclear research "experts" were
nuclear workers or medical physicists who were sent by their
countries. These same countries were the founders of the
projects. The need for occupational, community and public health
professionals, epidemiologists, oncologists, pediatricians, etc.,
was not comprehended.
The U.S., Japan, the Netherlands and Germany were willing to fund
short term studies of thyroid cancer, but local Ukrainian
concerns about breast cancer and genetic irregularities were not
addressed. There was no concerted long term research plan.
Moreover, Russia declared its radioactive zone "clean" despite
high radiation readings in many populated
areas, and in Belarus, the government tried to lure farmers back
into the radiation zones with tax breaks. The Ukrainian
government began to invest in new Russian nuclear reactors,
ignoring the calls for more
research. [15]
At the Bryansk diagnostic
center Russia's chief geneticist Nikolai Rivkind said:
"The Chernobyl experience -- tragic as it is -- should be a goldmine for
world science. We've got maybe two years at most left to get it
organized. I'm losing
hope!" [16]
It is important to look at the underlying structure of the
responsible international agencies which failed to organize
medical help as well as scientific data after the Chernobyl
disaster in order to come to constructive suggestions for the
alleviating the present suffering and future practice.
Founding of the International Commission on Radiological
Protection
In order to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the IAEA
was asked by the U.N. to recommend appropriate guidelines for
the protection of workers and the general public from nuclear
related activities. One should recall that atmospheric nuclear
weapon testing, at the time of the IAEA mandate in 1957, involved
the U.S., U.K. and former U.S.S.R.. The US began testing at the
pacific atoll of Bikini in 1946, and the first Russian nuclear
test was in 1949. The UK began testing in Australia in 1952.
As can be easily gleaned from the published proceedings of a
meeting on the "Biological Hazards of Atomic Energy", held on
London, England in October
1950, [17]
the nuclear physicists from
the Manhattan Project had foreseen the problem of nuclear fallout
over the entire northern hemisphere due to atmospheric nuclear
testing. Through a series of meetings held between 1946 and 1950,
they had agreed on a common regime of radiation protection. These
physicists had decided that nuclear radiation would only be held
accountable for: 1) cancer deaths, and 2) serious genetic disease
in live born offspring. These are the usual "detriments" counted
even today after radiation exposure, although the industry
sometimes includes "in utero" mental retardation.
Counter to most people's supposition, no general screening of the
illnesses of the Japanese victims had taken place prior to this
decision in 1950. In fact, Japan's National Census of 1950 was
used to identify 284,000 A-bomb survivors throughout Japan, of
which about 195,000 were still living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
According to ABCC documents, all eligible persons who were within
2.5 km of the A bomb's hypocenter at the time of bombing were
included, plus about 20% of those more distally exposed. This
latter selection was made at random, within restraints as to age,
sex and city, which ensured comparability with those within 2.0
km at the time of bombing. The researchers also had over 26,000
people, identified as "not in the city", who were located farther
than ten km. from the hypocenter. The first tentative dosimetry
was not available until 1957.
The atomic bomb research has never made any correction for the
"healthy survivor" effect. Those who endured the blast, thermal
effects and radiation of the atomic bomb, plus the social
upheaval, hospital destruction, contaminated food and water, lack
of health care professionals and medicines, were those most
healthy in 1945 and still alive in 1950.
After this 1950 meeting in London, where even the details of the
Standard Man were explained, this committee of nuclear physicists
went to the already established committee of the International
Radiology Society, which was setting protective standards for
radiation exposure of medical radiologists, and asked to join
them and form the International Commission on Radiological
Protection (ICRP). Since then, physicists have made up about 51%
of the members of the Commission of thirteen, which makes all of
the radiation protection recommendations used in most
countries. [18]
The ICRP has since broken its tie to the International Society of
Radiology, and is considered a self-appointed and
self-perpetuating Non-Governmental Organization of physicists,
medical regulators of nuclear nations, radiologists and others
who use radiation in their work. One becomes a "member" of ICRP
by being proposed by a present member and accepted by the
executive committee. No professional society, or
even the WHO, can put a person on the ICRP main Commission.
As previously noted, when faced with recommending radiation
protection standards, the newly formed IAEA turned to the ICRP
rather than WHO for advice. No one seems to have questioned the
selection of fatal cancer and serious genetic disease in live
born offspring as inappropriately limited concerns for a major
radiological disaster. Imagine only being concerned about the
deaths after the Seveso dioxin crisis, the Bhopal Union Carbide
disaster, the Asian tsunami or the Katrina hurricane! This
restriction was clearly inappropriate for thyroid cancer in the
Chernobyl fallout area. According to the International Commission
on Radiological
Protection, [19]
only about 5% of thyroid cancers are fatal.
UNSCEAR's mandate in the United Nations system is to assess and
report on the nuclear industry's levels of pollution and the
environmental and health effects of exposure to ionizing
radiation. Governments and organizations throughout the world
rely on UNSCEAR estimates as the scientific basis for evaluating
radiation risk and for establishing protective measures.
Generally, since all nations, with the exception of the US,
accept the IAEA/ICRP recommendations for radiation protection of
workers and the general public, UNSCEAR can be thought of as the
check on the acceptability of these recommendations.
As was previously noted, Dr. Mettler, Jr., leading the Health
Investigation after Chernobyl for IAEA in 1991, was subsequently
appointed to the main Commission of ICRP, and also to the health
effects evaluation committee of UNSCEAR. This is a major conflict
of interest because of the agency mandates. One might argue that
the two positions, namely in ICRP and UNSCEAR followed and did
not cause Mettler's deemed "successful" investigation of the
aftermath of Chernobyl, which exonerated nuclear radiation from
causing harm. The appointments were more **likely a pay back.
Mettler's findings were obviously not influenced by his position
on these two UN agencies, which post-date his report. However,
when one understands that most
professional information used in medical school text books and
health physics programs has been provided by the ICRP since 1957,
and Dr. Mettler, Jr., first obtained a B.A. Degree in
mathematics at Columbia University and then received his M.D.
from Thomas Jefferson University in
1970, [21]
the failure to report
early cancers becomes clear.
Dr. Mettler learned well that solid cancers without a ten year
latency period did not "count" as radiation-related under ICRP
latency models. [20]
Therefore the Chernobyl thyroid cancers were
seen, but not reported as radiogenic, since they were within five
years of a disaster! The nuclear industry has a monopoly on
radiation and human health scientific information, and its
dissemination through the Universities into nuclear reactor
facilities, hospital radiology laboratories and UN organizations.
This poses a further serious problem. Normally, one believes the
evidence at hand, rather than the theory! If one has been taught
theory as fact, the situation becomes more complicated. ICRP has
created an artificial "consensus" on the health effects of
radiation.
Setting Radiation Protection Standards
The next logical question is: why would the serious health
effects of radiation, such as **non-fatal cancers, (including
thyroid, breast and skin), non-cancer somatic effects and
teratogenic effects of radiation be discounted and ignored? It is
my opinion that this administrative decision made by the
physicists of the Manhattan Project was meant as a safeguard
against possible objections to the northern hemispheric nuclear
fallout. Clearly cancer was a better marker of exposure than
skin burn, a marker used prior to 1950 by the Radiologists.
However, by 1950 there was widespread concern for radiogenic
cancer whether fatal or not, for all genetic disease (including
that which caused spontaneous abortion, still birth and
"non-serious" genetic diseases) and for teratogenic diseases and
malformations.
At the time atmospheric nuclear testing began, 1946, the U.S.,
U.K. and Canada, had different radiation protection standards.
The 1950 compromise was their answer to any future objections or
legal actions. Since it is generally admitted that cancer is
caused by just one errant mutated
cell, [22]
there is no dose of radiation
which does not have the probability, however small, of causing a
critical mutation which develops into a fatal cancer. The
Hiroshima and Nagasaki health studies were so focused on cancer
fatalities, that the serious non-fatal breast, thyroid and skin
cancers caused by the atomic bombs were not reported by the
Radiation Effects Research (RERF, subsequent name of the Atomic
Bomb Casualty Commission- ABCC) until
1994. [23]
The teratogenic effects of radiation were well known in 1950, and
in 1946, Hermann Muller had received the Nobel Prize for pointing
out the genetic effects of radiation.
"Thus the influence of
atomic energy on the human genotype is slightly to increase: (1)
miscarriages and still births, (2) heritable diseases among a
proportion of the surviving progeny of those subject to the
radiation, and (3) that of familial disease here and there in
remote posterity. . . . The genetic effect of atomic energy will
be wholly bad because it will slightly increase the sum of misery
and wastage against which the race must battle; but it will not
in the long term, hamper the course of human progress in the
wider sense of that
experience." [24]
Thus the radiation protection standards proposed by the Manhattan
Project physicists and later by ICRP and IAEA have been, from the
start, a trade-off between the "benefits" sought by the
professional users of ionizing radiation, not least of which were
the bomb makers, and the "risk" to life and health of workers and
the public.
Changes in Radiation Protection after Chernobyl
The general maximum permissible radiation exposure limits for
nuclear workers and for the general public remained at the 1950
recommended level until 1990. In 1990, after a petition from more
than seven hundred scientists, physicians and Nobel Prize
laureates, and after a reanalysis of the doses at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki demanded by the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory
workers, [25]
the atomic bomb cancer death rates were adjusted
upward, and the maximum permissible doses recommended by the ICRP
for the public were lowered by
80%. [26]
Changing of dose basically affects the dose-response estimates of
any study, especially when the dose change is not homogeneous, as
were the dose changes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1986. It
becomes suspicious in that fatal cancer risk estimates are open
to manipulation. During the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. and Japanese
scientists created the dosimetry systems T57D and T65D. By 1986,
a total change in dosimetry was undertaken, reducing the neutron
component and introducing extensive shielding information, to
produce DS86.
Since DS86, considerably study of the neutron
activation products, 36 Cl, 152 Eu, 32 P, and 63 Ni, have lead to
a fourth new dosimetry, DS02, with refined shielding estimate,
and changes both in the locations of the epicenters and the yield
of the bombs. Studies based on the DS02 dosimetry will now
replace all previous research
findings. [27]
All atomic bomb
research dating prior to 2002 is now inadmissible science.
This post-Chernobyl ICRP document also introduced a new section
giving specific instruction on:
-
"The basis of intervention in public exposure.
-
Situations in which remedial action may be needed.
-
Accidents and emergencies."
ICRP proposed that after a nuclear accident, the contaminated
state of the environment becomes the "norm", and a risks vs
benefits study must be undertaken before any clean-up is
justified. [28]
Levels of radiation exposure from nuclear activities
which were too high to be permitted before Chernobyl became the
"norm" after Chernobyl. A strong legal case had to be made for
clean-up, and this was not generally realized by physicians and
their patients in the severely affected areas. The Chernobyl
victims were the first to feel the brunt of this new attack on
human health, and the effort to hide or minimize the suffering of
the people. [29], [30]
Since the ICRP methodology and radiation risks depend heavily on
the Atomic Bomb Research, which looked at the effects of high
radiation doses delivered at a fast rate
from an external (to the body) source, it fails to address
chronic low dose internal radioactive contamination. There is
currently a scientific dispute about the acceptability of the
ICRP methodology for assessing internal dose, especially from
ceramic aerosol nuclear fuel particles, and for certain internal
radionuclides which bind to DNA as articulated by the
ECRR 2003
(European Committee on Radiation
Risk). [31]
This critique was
accepted by the radiation
protection committee in
France. [32]
The ceramic particles do not spread homogeneously in internal organs,
as is assumed by ICRP methodology, since they do not dissolve
readily in body fluid. They are formed in the high temperature
uranium fire (3,000 to 6,000 degrees Centigrade) such as occurred
in the Chernobyl disaster when the uranium fuel burned out of
control. [33]
The IAEA Report of 2005 and UNSCEAR 2000 analysis ignored these
considerations. When the international scientific critics of
ICRP methodology develop an internationally acceptable
alternative, and when the UNSCEAR data gaps are filled, we may be
able to adjust this estimate of Chernobyl deaths and severe
injuries accordingly. However, the inadequate record-keeping in
this high-technology age will always be seen as an attempt to
cover-up the true effects of the Chernobyl disaster. Clearly, the
true damage to health attributable to the Chernobyl disaster has
been hidden from the general public through poor and incomplete
scientific investigation, obfuscation and poor recording of data
and outright lying.
UNSCEAR 2000
The UNSCEAR 2000
Report [34]
of the Chernobyl disaster exposure via
the food web mentioned only cesium contamination of food, and
only for those living in the local cesium contaminated areas.
Most experts consider air, water and food to be the greatest
sources of internal radionuclide contamination for most people
after a nuclear accident. As is well known, contaminated fresh
produce and milk were mixed with relatively uncontaminated
batches so as to spread the radioactivity over the larger former
USSR regional population. Whether or not the exported
contamination was subtracted from the local dose and added to the
regional dose was not indicated. Internal contamination, in
the cesium contaminated areas, in UNSCEAR 2000, was based on
annual consumption only of milk and potatoes, although UNSCEAR
admitted the majority of the pollution was in the milk, meat,
potatoes and mushrooms. Other radionuclides were inhaled and
consumed, but not reported. All of these omissions and over
simplifications of reality were passively condoned by IAEA. The
WHO remained silent on these disputes.
The Nuclear Reactor Business
In order to understand to some extent the motivation behind this
strange insensitivity to human distress, one needs to look
closely at the mandate of the IAEA to "promote peaceful nuclear
technology" and the history of this civilian technology:
-
On June 27, 1954, the USSR's Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant
became the world's first nuclear power plant to
generate electricity for a power grid, and produced
around 5 megawatts electric
power. [35]
-
In 1955 the United Nations' "First Geneva Conference", then
the world's largest gathering of scientists and engineers,
met to explore the technology.
-
In 1957 EURATOM was launched alongside the European Economic
Community (the latter is now the European Union). The same year
also saw the launch of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). [36]
-
The world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder
Hall in Sellafield, England was opened in 1956 with an
initial capacity of 50 MW (later 200
MW). [37]
-
The first commercial nuclear generator to become operational
in the United States was the Shippingport Reactor,
Pennsylvania, December,
1957. [38]
By 1974 nuclear power was a failed technology in the US.
New requests for nuclear power plants almost came to halt even
before the Three Mile Island accident, but after it occurred, all
nuclear power plants on order were cancelled. The U. S. cancelled
124 nuclear power reactors since 1974, more than all of the
plants then in operation. In New York State, the Long Island
Lighting Company (LILCo) gave up on its already completed $5.5
billion Shorham nuclear reactor in 1989 and spent another $186
million to dismantle it. The problem? LILCo could not get
approval for an evacuation plan in case of an
accident. Similarly, Western Europe became disenchanted with
nuclear power after Chernobyl.
At the same time, in Asia, interest in nuclear power was
increasing. Between 1986 and 1996, twenty economically developing
countries each received more than six million dollars in nuclear
technical cooperation, and 31 other economically developing
countries received less than one million dollars in technical aid
from IAEA. The leading beneficiaries of IAEA assistance were:
Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Pakistan, Mexico and Romania.
Two countries, Poland and Egypt, cancelled their nuclear reactor
plans after Chernobyl. It is clear that this nuclear energy
movement in Eastern Europe and Asia was economically important to
the developed countries who were supplying the reactors and the
technical assistance. [39]
In 1989-90, two Divisions of the IAEA Department of Technical
Cooperation were developed. One dealt with putting together
programs for each economically developing country in Africa, East
Asia and the Pacific, West Asia, Latin America, Eastern and
Western Europe. The second new Division arranged for delivery of
various services, experts, fellows, equipment and training
courses.
This major effort toward carrying out its U.N. mandate to promote
"peaceful uses of nuclear energy" appears to have overshadowed
IAEA responsibility for assisting the survival and recovery of
the Chernobyl devastated people and land. This reality, alone, is
strong reason for legal withdrawal of the IAEA conflicted mandate
to report on the health of the people after a nuclear disaster as
well as to promote the nuclear technology!
The United Nations, IAEA and WHO
The IAEA mandate, on radiation related health research, reporting
and assistance, after a nuclear disaster needs to be transferred
to WHO where it properly belongs. This transfer would of course,
mean strengthening the ability of WHO to deal with radiation
health problems and also removing the mandate of IAEA to promote
nuclear energy. WHO is
currently lacking in the personnel with the scientific background
needed to carry out this mandate because of the historical
secrets connected with this technology and the IAEA/ICRP monopoly
on "leading" radiation research.
In 1957, a Memo of Understanding was drawn up between the IAEA
and United Nations. One article of this memo is especially
contentious:
Article II states:
". . . if divulging information
may constitute `a violation of the confidence of any of its
(IAEA's) Members or anyone from whom it shall have received such
information,' then such information can be safeguarded as
confidential."
Even within a country the nuclear industry appears
to not share data. It seems that the Chernobyl disaster was
foreshadowed by a similar less serious accident in a reactor near
St. Petersburg. The IAEA, in 1999, expressed concern about the
undo secrecy within the industry:
"Some countries without
experience in the operation of nuclear power plants have
expressed interest in undertaking the construction and operation
of such facilities. . . . With the completion of these five
[safety] tasks -- greater sharing of relevant operating
experience, enhanced reliance on common standards, worldwide
encouragement of safety culture, enhancement of the Convention on
Nuclear Safety, and establishment of multinational design review
-- the global safety regime could be significantly improved.
These are not revolutionary changes; they build on both the
current international cooperative efforts and the national
systems that have served us well. But they will help to ensure
that nuclear technology can continue to be harnessed for the
benefit of all
humankind." [40]
On 28 May 1959,
the
IAEA made an agreement on protocol with the WHO,
which contains the following clauses:
ARTICLE I:
-
In particular, and in accordance with the Constitution of the World
Health Organization and the Statute of the International Atomic
Energy Agency and its
agreement with the United Nations together with the exchange of
letters related thereto, and taking into account the respective
coordinating responsibilities of both organizations, it is
recognized by the World Health Organization that the
International Atomic Energy Agency has the primary responsibility
for encouraging, assisting and coordinating research and
development and practical application of atomic energy for
peaceful uses throughout the world without prejudice to the right
of the World Health Organization to concern itself with
promoting, developing, assisting and coordinating international
health work, including research, in all its aspects.
-
Whenever
either organization proposes to initiate a program or activity on
a subject in which the other organization has or may have a
substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other
with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual
agreement. [41]
The interpretation of this document (in addition to the USSR
invitation) has led to IAEA being the lead agency at Chernobyl in
research on the health effects of exposure to nuclear debris.
The WHO was "allowed" to study health care of the victims, for
example dealing with their psychological stress. While WHO may
send a representative to IAEA meetings of mutual interest, that
representative may not vote.
The difference in actual power of these two agencies, IAEA and
WHO, although they are "equal" agencies on paper, is great. The
IAEA, because it deals with nuclear weapons proliferation,
reports directly to the U.N. Security Council. The WHO reports to
ECOSOC (The U.N. Economic and Social Council), which in turn
reports to the U.N. General Assembly. The voice of the WHO is
blunted by this procedural custom. The remedy appears to be to
limit the IAEA to questions of nuclear proliferation and remove
its mandate to promote nuclear power and other peaceful uses of
atomic energy. It would also be helpful to recognize WHO, which
speaks for health and environmental security, and invite it to
report directly to the Security Council. There is an encouraging
movement in Europe to establish an
International
Renewable Energy
Agency. [42]
Summary
How could this beaurocratic problem have had such a great impact
on health reports and international public concern for the
Chernobyl victims? How could there be so many misconceptions in
the minds of ordinarily generous people about the true situation
in the nuclear devasted areas?
Although Dr. Baverstock and an independent investigation by the
BBC confirmed that IAEA "experts" were in possiession of all of
the revelant facts about thyroid cancer prior to Dr. Mattler's
1991 Report on Chernobyl, the text was not a direct lie. The
report states:
-
"The official data that were examined did not indicate a
marked increase in the incidence of leukemia or cancer."
-
"Reported adverse health effects attributed to radiation were
not substantiated either by those local studies that were
adequately performed or by the studies under the Project."
-
"The children were examined and found to be generally healthy."
Without information on "official data" available to the team;
what data was "examined"; the meaning of "marked increase" and
"adequately performed" research; or an examination of the Project
protocol, these statements are useless and misleading. Saying the
children were generally healthy does not mean that some did not
have serious and unusual cancers. These misleading statements are
made by those financially depending on nuclear activities, and
also by those who believe that the public should not be
pannicked! There are times when they should become alarmed and
should speak up about their situation! Life and health of people
and the environment take priority over the survival of an
industry, even a weapon industry. Fear of public panic was
likely used to sooth the conscience of those promoting nuclear
reactors and nuclear weapons while ignoring the plight of the
radiation victims.
For a long time IAEA maintained that there were only 30 worker
deaths at Chernobyl, and although there were 6.7 million people
exposed to the nuclear fallout, there was only a ten-fold
increase in thyroid cancer among children (adult cases were not
emphasized). Thyroid cancer was not fatal in most cases and,
IAEA maintained it could have been avoided had potassium iodide
tablets been available. At 1:21 AM, waking everyone up and
distributing pills to them, while, at the same time fighting a
catostrophic accident is an impossible scenario!
Failing to obtain a consensus on their 1991 or 1996 reports, and
in anticipation of the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl
disaster, IAEA admitted in September of 2005, to the death of 50
emergency workers and 4,000 deaths from radiation induced cancers
or leukemia. While the IAEA Report of September 2005 listed WHO
as a collaborater, the report was disputed by a WHO employee:
"Zhanat Carr, a radiation scientist with the WHO in Geneva, says
the 5,000 deaths were omitted because the report was a `political
communication tool'. `Scientifically, it may not be the best
approach,' she admitted to New Scientist. She also accepts
that the WHO estimates did not include predicted cancers outside
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The health impact in other countries
will be `negligible', she says, adding that there is no
epidemiological research showing otherwise. The WHO `has no
reasons to deliberately mislead anyone', she insists. 'WHO's
position is independent, free from political issues, and based on
scientific evidence of the highest quality.' The IAEA refused to
comment." [43]
There are other limitations to the 2005 "study": IAEA omitted
any effect which might be attributed to the burning uranium fuel,
which would have included ceramic uranium oxide nano-particle
inhalation. IAEA focused on deaths either from verified high
doses of radiation or cancer, omitting the unverified exposed
people; the years of hospitalization, medication and suffering
attendant on thyroid, breast and skin cancers; and effects in all
European countries which had not undertaken epidemiological
studies of the nuclear fallout effects on their population. It
also omitted future cancers which will develop under the chronic
exposure which continues even
today. [44], [45]
The Report omitted the
non-cancer illnesses, for example heart disease and autoimmune diseases,
which are radiation caused, and the stress caused by illness,
inability to work, loss of property, orchards and farm animals,
and evacuation. It omitted the pain of having malformed or
diseased children and reproductive
loss. [46], [47]
With respect to
the hundreds of radionuclides emitted, IAEA dealt only with two:
137 Cs and 131 I.
I would highly recommend that the petition of the Ukrainian
Physicians (Appendix I) and the international petition for the
WHO to separate itself from dependency on the IAEA (Appendix II)
become the beacons for a global movement to restore health
reporting to the health professionals! The reader can copy these
petitions and send them to their own Minister of Health, the
IAEA, WHO and/or the UN.
There are other areas of health research which have been
transferred to physicists because of the need for a background in
physics to identify the hazard, for example, electromagnetic
radiation of all frequencies, cordless technology, cell phones
and masts, iPods and laser technology. Before we add more
hazardous technology to the civilian body burden, I would
strongly recommend that physicians and medical researchers become
deeply involved in understanding the subtle impact of these
already existing technologies on the nervous and immune systems
of humans. These problems are urgent. The world cannot afford to
turn over responsibility for human survival to military and
commercial interests.
I would estimate roughly one to two million premature deaths will
eventually be attributable to the Chernobyl
disaster. [48] This
estimate is conservative for several reasons, some have already
been discussed, others include the failure of the radiation
investigation by IAEA and UNSCEAR to document the radionuclide
variety and the extent of radiation contamination of air, water,
food and drink at Chernobyl. Moreover because of the use of
faulty ICRP methodology and the absence of a comprehensive
scientific examination of all deaths among emergency or rescue
workers, and disaster witnesses the IAEA number is erroneous.
Data was sketchy and incomplete on all other exposed
populations. [49], [50]
The UNSCEAR researchers appear to have relied on eliminating all
cancers occurring in the first ten years after the accident, and
they reported a rough estimate of deaths, using a minimal risk
factor reduced by a DDRF (Dose and Dose-Rate Reduction Factor)
for estimating cancer deaths in the areas where they admitted
contamination of land, milk and potatoes. It is well known that
radiation, through its mutation ability, can accelerate the
development of any cancers present in the population at the time
of the disaster. Many early, uncounted cancers may fit into this
category [51]
Conclusions and Recommendations
Many people are mystified that three UN Agencies (IAEA, WHO and
UNEP) appear to be agreeing on the minimal damage done to the
people directly affected by Chernobyl and other low dose
radiation exposures. I think this is a failure to understand the
profound influence wielded by ICRP which dictates not only what
should be of concern to UN Agencies, but also provides the
methodology which must be used in order to determine both the
dose of ionizing radiation received by the victims and the risk
posed by that
dose. [52]
All of the U.N. Agencies use these same
protocols, methodologies and risk estimates -- hence there are no
independent assessments. Reform of the UN must assure
independence of its agencies.
Numerous independent scientists and physicians have challenged
the ICRP "system" for under-estimating radiation dose and risk,
especially that for internal
exposures, [53], [54], [55], [56]
and while
it is broadly admitted to be an underestimate of harm there is no
widely accepted methodology to replace it. This is the direct
result of the constrained and secretive science practiced since
the early 1940's and 1950's with respect to nuclear technology.
It is a disgrace in the 21st century!
The time has come to replace closed science with open science,
self-perpetuating committees with professional societies
accountable to their peers, and monopolized areas of research
with properly funded transparent scientific research. While
physics is needed to identify and quantify the strength and
nature of a radiation source, physicians with
expertise in epidemiology, toxicology, oncology, pediatrics and
community health should describe the injury caused by it, and the
ramifications of the exposure for the public health. The need is
urgent for UN reform in this important area on which the survival
of the human species and the environment may well depend.
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Copyright © 2008
Rosalie Bertell
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.
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