How Chernobyl myths became official
In 2006 I exposed the myth-making of an important, Swiss state-funded, UN sponsored website Chernobyl.info. As part of my work for the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster I’ve revisited the issue and discovered things have got worse.
I found that nearly a year ago the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) handed administrative control of the site to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Despite the UNDP claiming that the site’s material is “under review” it has yet to make any real changes.
The site’s claim to be impartial remains useless. Its own UN sponsors say the Chernobyl myth is the biggest hazard resulting from the disaster – yet Chernobyl.info does much to reinforce it. Indeed, the entire site produces the opposite effect to the myth-busting its own UN sponsors say is now crucial.
It matters because Chernobyl.info ranks high in Google searches and because it appears to be an authoritative source backed by credible institutions.
The myths and the facts
In the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster there was understandable uncertainty and controversy regarding the accident’s impact on the health of people living in the neighbourhood. But within months, let alone years, of the Chernobyl accident it was possible to produce sensible accounts of the real hazard it posed. (Here’s one area where the fairly optimistic experts admit they got it wrong at first: predictions of thyroid cancer, which implies they take the evidence where it leads.) Twenty five years on, there is no excuse for not helping people to understand the carefully-researched facts as we now have them.
It is a scandal that the whole world, let alone the five million people living in contaminated areas in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are still receiving alarmist messages about the threat that haunts them.
Take Ukraine. Chernobyl.info cites official sources as saying that 84 per cent of the three million Ukrainians exposed to radiation from Chernobyl are registered as sick. It is often said that these include one million children. This is bound to generate huge anxiety amongst children and their parents.
Indeed, in the Gomel region of Belarus people were told that there was an increase in leukaemia cases of about 50 per cent in both children and adults compared to the period before the disaster. Additionally, they were repeatedly informed that, as Chernobyl.info says, clusters of breast cancer had been increasing for ten years in the region, and that there was “a recognised and internationally collaborated” causal link to the accident.
Residents in affected territories were told that “internationally recognised epidemiological studies” showed major negative health consequences of the accident. They cited, for instance, the findings of bodies such as the Clinical Institute of Radiation Medicine and Endocrinology Research, in Minsk, Belarus, that discovered a 40% increase in cancer between 1990 and 2000 attributable to Chernobyl. Reports often hinted of much worse to come in later years.
The sources for such claims were seemingly respectable, and secured a mention in a European Union executive summary to an international conference in Kiev in 2001 (that’s not to be confused with an official endorsement, but understood as a report on another report’s findings).
Campaigners, aid groups, even bodies associated with UN agencies, all seemed to support, and perhaps initially believed, the claims.
It is true that Ukraine and Belarus registered many hundreds of thousands of unharmed people as victims of Chernobyl after 1986. This certainly seemed to reinforce the fears. However, in the early days, there was disaster relief money to be had. People classified as sick as a consequence of Chernobyl secured additional funding, winter fuel allowances, access to scarce health care, housing and other resources. Such benefits were invaluable after the Soviet Union collapsed. It was understandable opportunism. It wasn’t then in any local person’s interest to ask too many questions. Moreover, doctors felt obliged to help their impoverished patients by ticking the “right” boxes.
Since 2001 onwards, most of the local benefits have been withdrawn. That is partly because the apparent health issues were not real. It is also partly because the overheads became an unsustainable burdenon the national budgets of Ukraine and Belarus. The people were stuck with a flawed understanding of what was happening to them, but without the compensation.
No wonder that scientists found that the single worst consequence of the accident was a “paralyzing fatalism” among residents of affected areas caused by persistent myths and misperceptions about the threat of radiation.
As Louisa Vinton, Chernobyl focal point at the UNDP, said in 2005:
“Two decades after the Chernobyl accident, residents in the affected areas still lack the information they need to lead the healthy and productive lives that are possible. We are advising our partner governments that they must reach people with accurate information, not only about how to live safely in regions of low-level contamination, but also about leading healthy lifestyles and creating new livelihoods.”
The nonsense endures. Anyone visiting Chernobyl.info today will be told what Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, said in 2004:
“At least three million children in Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation require physical treatment (due to the Chernobyl accident). Not until 2016, at the earliest, will we know the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions.”
This quoted opinion remains in play on the website – without any explanation – despite official members of Kofi Annan’s specialist agencies having reached diametrically opposed conclusions.
The role of charities
It is perfectly understandable that charities sprang up and attracted international aid and assistance to help alleviate the consequences of the accident. Their original sympathy for the children, women and communities whose land was blighted by contamination cannot be doubted.
But, sometimes, good intentions can do more harm than good. This can particularly be the case when their sell-by date has passed.
Once in motion, however, it is difficult to halt an industry. This is particularly the case when the defining reason for its existence is good works and, perhaps, a narcissistic statement about the values of the people who conduct such work.
Caring about Chernobyl’s victims has become, for some, the personification of who they are and what they stand for. In these circumstances, it seems, people will cling to their world-view regardless of the evidence. More on that later; first let’s review the latest facts.
A better class of work
For more than two years (2003 – 2005), eight specialized agencies of the UN family studied all the evidence relating to the health affects of the disaster in the designated affected areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. This was an unprecedented study by hundreds of scientific experts in the fields of oncology, radiation and environmental protection.
The bodies doing the research were among the most respected in the world. They included the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and the World Bank. The governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine also participated and endorsed the report.
The Chernobyl Forum
The scientists, after reviewing all the existing evidence from all credible sources, came to what was for some a startling set of conclusions in their landmark Chernobyl Forum Report 2005. Though most of the report’s conclusions were already apparent to experts – working together as part of the IAEA’s International Chernobyl Project – as early as 1991 and more so by 2001. The 2005 report found:
* Fewer than 50 deaths directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.
* No profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas.
* No widespread radiation contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, with the exception of a few restricted areas.
* About 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children and adolescents at the time of the accident, of which at least nine children died; however the survival rate among such cancer victims, judging from experience in Belarus, has been almost 99%.
* No evidence or likelihood of decreased fertility among the affected population has been found, nor has there been any evidence of increases in congenital malformations that can be attributed to radiation exposure.
* Other than thyroid cancer there were no other increases in cancer rates attributable to the accident in the directly affected regions.
In conclusion, the three-volume, 600-page Chernobyl Forum report said that up to 4,000 people may eventually die (note: Chernobyl.info reports this as “will die”) as a long-term consequence of the 1986 accident from radiation induced diseases. However, the authors were at pains to state this is an upper limit. They said we will never know for sure if the death toll gets any where near that mark because statistically it is insignificant when set against the normal background levels of cancer. The report stated:
“Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed at a young age, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the most affected populations. There was, however, an increase in psychological problems among the affected population, compounded economic depression that followed the break up of the Soviet Union.“
The report’s Chairman, Dr. Burton Bennett, added:
“… we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas [Ukraine, Belarus and Russia], nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, within a few exceptional, restricted areas.”
It is also worth noting that the restricted zones are increasingly being de-restricted by the Ukrainian and Belarusian authorities. Farming has officially resumed in areas it was once thought would be abandoned for centuries. Chernobyl itself is becoming a bit of a theme park and tourist destination. Moreover, the Chernobyl Forum reported:
“… because the doses were so low, there was no evidence of any effect on the number of stillbirths, adverse pregnancy outcomes, delivery complications or overall health of children. A modest but steady increase in reported congenital malformations in both contaminated and uncontaminated areas of Belarus appears related to better reporting, not radiation.”
There are huge disagreements
The discrepancy between the myths and what the Chernobyl Forum described could hardly be greater.
The Chernobyl Forum says, for instance, that most of the land in the affected regions is returnable to normal use and the biggest single health impact is psychological. Much of the material on Chernobyl.info implies or says that these areas remain hazardous and people are suffering severe medical effects.
So this can’t be brushed aside – the “refuseniks” need challenging. There is a case (the Chernobyl Forum’s) that the biggest problem is anxiety brought on misinformation. There is another case (equally aired on Chernobyl.info) that there is a cover-up of the human health effects of Chernobyl and that to deny these real effects is misinformation.
Though, admittedly, for all sort of contradictory reasons, it initially suited many stakeholders – governments, journalists, and campaigners – to inflate the consequences of Chernobyl, as Richard D North’s useful briefing highlights.
The problem is one of evidence-handling
It hasn’t required creative thinking to keep the Chernobyl horror story alive. All it has required is that people throw away ordinary rules of editing and publishing.
Chernobyl.info treats all claims about the affects of the Chernobyl accident as having equal weight. Moreover it uses old and discredited claims about the accident to dispute the findings of new scientific investigation. It does so even when, as in the case of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and UN bodies, the makers of the original claims have moved on.
Hence Chernobyl.info says:
“Some facts about Chernobyl are uncertain or disputed. In such cases we follow our principles by presenting the different interpretations, and citing the sources. Chernobyl.info thus lives up to its stated goal of providing independent and impartial information.
“It is vital that aid and cooperation projects for Chernobyl should not depend on whether everyone is in agreement on a particular fact.”
But impartiality isn’t quite enough….
The difficulty here is that a normally-busy, normally-informed person taking an interest in Chernobyl and going to this site has no way of establishing where the truth – or where the merits of argument and evidence – lies between the opposing claims.
An information project needs to offer some way for its users to navigate between alternative viewpoints. It is not good enough to lay out the competing claims, and their sources, and think people can devote the kind of time involved to checking it all out from first principles.
But Chernobyl.info studiously avoids being useful. Note the site’s citations of two main kinds of scepticism about the Chernobyl Forum’s conclusions:
“The report, which acknowledges only hard-and-fast scientific findings, has been severely criticised by independent Chernobyl experts, environmental organisations and Chernobyl relief organisations, who claim that it plays down the impact of the disaster and goes in the face of earlier studies. Some of its statements, moreover, are provably false.”
Its examples of these supposed falsities were examined in the Chernobyl Forum’s report and found wanting.
In passing, one wonders what other than “hard and fast scientific findings” are of real interest, and who Chernobyl.info – or its editors at SDC and now UNDP – consider to be “independent Chernobyl experts”. I assume they mean: partisan anti-nuclear, environmental and Chernobyl relief organisations.
Does Chernobyl.info mean that such people were independent of international bodies such as the eight UN organisations, the World Bank and leading scientific experts from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia? Does “severely criticised” mean the same as “seriously criticised”, or merely mean “strongly”, or “ardently” criticised?
The scandal of Swiss government and UN involvement
It was at least very odd that the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an arm of the Swiss Foreign Ministry, appeared to still dispute the evidence compiled by the international community as late as 2010. This sort of material might not matter if Chernobyl.info was an independent site run by activists; but it isn’t.
The difficulty seems likely to be that Chernobyl.info’s editors believe that their duty is to the passion, commitment and anxiety of people who are affected or worried by Chernobyl.
The problem seems to be a sort of multiculturalism. Chernobyl.info’s view seems to be that the UN and all its experts, including UNDP’s own scientific advisers, have an opinion based on rigorous investigation, but it is no more valuable than those of people who dispute it. Indeed, it seems fair to give special weight to “local” or “regional” “communities” and non-governmental organisations who may be under-resourced.
It is worth noting that the UN bodies themselves seem schizophrenic. On the one hand they seem to want to be honest to the facts in the Chernobyl Forum report. On the other, they want to appear friendly toward the anti-nuclear campaigners and local groups who dispute it – even when their own governments don’t.
This anomaly is probably explained by the fact that UN bodies, such as UNDP, have traditionally welcomed any well-funded projects which can be thought to help people living in what are undisputedly deprived regions.
All that would be acceptable were it not for the fact that it is the myth itself which is doing so much more harm than the radiation.
In short, Chernobyl.info seems to have been hijacked by people who have a particular emotional response to the Chernobyl accident. They appear determined not to let go of their existing work no matter what evidence is produced to undermine their pre-judged conclusions.
If UNDP does in future follow the site’s mission statement, it is unlikely that Chernobyl.info will stay as it is. The site’s stated aims are perfectly legitimate:
“…[to] provide a sound basis for the evaluation of measures aimed at dealing with the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
“The most important target audience worldwide comprises decision-makers, at all levels, who are concerned with the consequences of Chernobyl. The provision of information for decision-makers should help to promote the funding of targeted and useful measures.”
But Chernobyl.info does the opposite. Instead it impartially provides material whether it deserves the word “information” or not.
[…] was an horrific disaster, it was no where near as bad as the doom-mongers claimed – see here here […]
Please note that since I wrote this critical piece, http://www.chernobyl.info has had a complete makeover. The SDC nonsense that dominated web searches on Chernobyl for many years has finally, and rightly, been discarded. While the new site remains work in progress, my impression of the redesign and the new content’s direction is very positive indeed. Better late than never.
Dear author, I translated myself some interesting text – as a direct repsonse to YOU
The main way in which the “radiation protection industry” has succeeded in hugely underrating the ill-health caused by nuclear power is by insisting on a group of extremely restrictive definitions as to what qualifies as a radiation-caused illness statistic. For example, under IAEA’s criteria:
> If a radiation-caused cancer is not fatal, it is not counted in the IAEA’s figures
> If a cancer is initiated by another carcenogen, but accelerated or promoted by exposure to radiation, it is not counted.
> If an auto-immune disease or any non-cancer is caused by radiation, it is not counted.
> Radiation-damaged embryos or foetuses which result in miscarriage or stillbirth do not count
> A congenitally blind, deaf or malformed child whose illnesses are are radiation-related are not included in the figures because this is not genetic damage, but rather is teratogenic, and will not be passed on later to the child’s offspring.
> Causing the genetic predisposition to breast cancer or heart disease does not count since it is not a “serious genetic disease” in the Mendelian sense.
> Even if radiation causes a fatal cancer or serious genetic disease in a live born infant, it is discounted if the estimated radiation dose is below 100 mSv [mSv= millisievert, a measurement of radiation exposure. One hundred millsievert is the equivalent in radiation of about 100 X-Rays].
> Even if radiation causes a lung cancer, it does not count if the person smokes — in fact whenever there is a possibility of another cause, radiation cannot be blamed.
> If all else fails, it is possible to claim that radiation below some designated dose does not cause cancer, and then average over the whole body the radiation dose which has actually been received by one part of the body or even organ, as for instance when radio-iodine concentrates in the thyroid. This arbitrary dilution of the dose will ensure that the 100 mSv cut-off point is nowhere near reached. It is a technique used to dismiss the sickness of Gulf War veterans who inhaled small particles of ceramic uranium which stayed in their lungs for more than two years, and in their bodies for more than eight years, irradiating and damaging cells in a particular part of the body.
1927 Herman J Mueller discovered in 1927 (!) the following: ARTIFICIAL TRANSMUTATION OF THE GENE by radiation – he got the The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946 for this! http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/holdings/m/hjm-1927a.pdf
Teratological effects and mutations through radiation – ignored by IAEA, OECD, ICRP, UNSCEAR, SCIENCE – proven by Étienne Wolff in the 1930ies: http://books.google.com/books/about/Th%C3%A8ses_pr%C3%A9sent%C3%A9es_%C3%A0_la_Facult%C3%A9_des.html?id=MQvwcQAACAAJ and: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862623,00.html and: http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/web/paper.php?doi=041944cg&a=f
Discovered by Abraham Petkau, 1972, Whitshell at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (web).
His study: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/v71-196
He discovered:
that 26 RAD per Minute (fast radiation rate) need a total dose of 3500 RAD to harm a cell membrane.
with 0,001 RAD per Minute (slow dose) only 0,7 RAD are needed to harm a cell membrane.
The Mechanism behind it:
The production of free radicals of Oxygen (O² with a negative electric charge) caused by ionising effect of the radiation.
The free radicals caused by the slow dose (0,001) are sparsely distributed radicals do have a higher chance to reach the cell membranes.
Why:
The free radicals of the fast radiation rate (26) are tight together and so they react faster with each other.
The low electric charge of the cell membranes attract the free radicals in the early state of the reaction (minor total dose).
(by Alexey Jablokov, co-author of the 1000,000 Chernobyl Deaths-Study: http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf ):
The UNSCEAR Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the effects of radiation United Nations has declared:
The UNCEAR committee has decided not to extrapolate the effects of Low-level radiation from the Chernobyl accident on the population on the basis of models extrapolate absolute terms, because these predictions are afflicted with unacceptable unreliability (UNSCEAR, 2011; 98, p.18).
This “unreliability” depends on both the methodological errors of the officially recognized system for the determination of radiation risk (eg: ECRR, 2003, 2010), as well as with the underestimation of the extent of the effects of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (eg: Bertell, 1985, Stewart, 1989)
One of the methodological error of traditional approaches to determining the scope of Radiation risk is the exclusive use of data on cancer mortality, although it is not the most important cause of mortality after the Chernobyl accident, in radioactively contaminated territories. Another methodological error of UNSСEAR approach is a complete disregard of the Increase in perinatal mortality rate after the disaster that after the Chernobyl Accident in the many highly radioactively contaminated areas in Belarus (Petrova et al. 1997, Korblein, 2002, 2006), Ukraine (Dzykovich et al., 2004), Russia (Balewa, et al., 2001), Germany (Schreb, Incited, 2000, Korblein, Kuchenkoff, 1997, Schreb et al., 2000), Poland (Korblein, 2003, 2006) and UK (Bentham, 1999, Busby, 1995) showed. Since the time of the nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere is known that the radioactive Contamination, an increase of prenatal mortality rate (stillbirths and Miscarriages) and infant mortality rate (Sternglass, 1972; White, 1992;. Playford et al, 1992; Overview here Busby, 1995; Yablokov, 2002, Durakovic, 2003) causes In the period 1987-88 is a well-documented increase in infant mortality in the leaves radioactive contaminated areas of Ukraine (Grodzinsky, 1999; Omelianetz, Klementjew, 2001, Dubowaja, 2010), Russia (Fetisow, 1999; Hworostenko, 1999; Komogortseva, 2001, Utka et al. 2005, ZYB et al., 2006) and Germany (Korblein, 2006 notice) was found. After the Chernobyl Accident increased infant mortality affects even the entire demographic Statistics of a number of countries. In the more contaminated areas of Ukraine and Russia an increased Overall mortality observed. (The most recent 1995;. Omelianets et al, 2001; Оmelianets, Klement’ev, 2001, Grodzinsky, 1999;. Golubchikov et al, 2002, Kaschirina, 2005; Sergeeva et al. 2005; Dubowaja, 2010, Kaschirina, 2005; Sergeewa et al, 2005;. Fetisow, 1999; Sukalska et al.
2004 and many others).
The methodological error of the epidemiological approach to determining the number of victims is based on the accounts of the radiation risk is that the estimation of the number of victims on the comparison of relatively well-documented mortality and morbidity rates (the number the sick and the dead carried out), while levels of radioactive Load can not be accurately determined. Moreover, this approach to determine the Number of victims is not capable of the effects of low radiation dose precisely to record (which have added even the inventor of this approach): “The currently available Epidemiological data provide no basis for reasonable assurance to the radioactive contamination attributable morbidity and mortality in test groups from the To predict the population of the three republics and other European countries, with a average dose of less than 30 mSv were charged in the past 20 years. Any rise in [the morbidity and mortality among these groups] would be lower than the Emerging scientific measurability. “(UNSCEAR, 2011, (97), p. 18). The methodological Defectiveness of the epidemiological approach leads to the large deviation of forecasts the numbers of victims:
4,000 deaths (in 90 years. Belarus, Ukraine, European part Russia) according to IAEA / WHO – press paper Chernobyl forum 2005
8,930 deaths (in 90 years. Belarus, Ukraine, European part Russia) according to Chernobyl forum 2005
7,400 deaths (Whole world for 50 years) according to Anspaugh et al., 1988
30,000 deaths (Whole world for 50 years) according to Goldman, 1987
18,000 (8,000 – 32,000) deaths (Europe, 1986 – 2065 without Thyroid cancer) according to Cardis et al., 2006
30,000 – 60,000 deaths (Whole world. About the entire period) according to Fairley, Sumner,2006
117,000 (37,000 – 181,000) deaths (Whole world. in the period 1986 – 2056) according to Malko, 2010
317,000 – 475,000 (495,000 with Leukemia) deaths (Whole world. About the whole period. only radiocesium) according to Hofman,1994
899,000 – 1,786 000 deaths (Whole world. About the entire period. only radionuclides) according to Bertell,2006
Some estimates of the additional through by the ‘Chernobyl’ caused mortality Cancer, which made the epidemiological approach (“dose” method) were Based on the spread of the “dose” method estimates, which are set out in the table are more than 400 times higher than the usual scientific disagreement. You can with the Opinion of UNSCEAR agree that not a forecast of the number of victims work but with one caveat: This does not work only if the traditional “dose” – Method is applied.
For the estimation of the total number of victims is another method (the so-called “Balance” method) reliable. It consists of the data of the health status of Population of the radioactively contaminated areas with high data. To compare health status of the population from the “clean” areas. The basic source data consist of physical instrumental measurements of radioactive Contamination of an area and the incidence rate and mortality (morbidity and mortality) in this area.
The best example of this method is the Additional calculations on the “Chernobyl” accident declining mortality, Hudolej W. et al. (2006) in the six regions of Russia was performed. In these
Areas that were affected by the fallout from Chernobyl were the worst, 7.5 million People.
I leave the details of the bills and put aside just before the results: Total number of excess deaths in these six radioactively contaminated areas was 60 400. This corresponds to 3.75% of total mortality of the population during the examined 15 years (from 1990 to 2004.) or 37 of every 1,000 people. Conversion to at all levels of ≥ 1 Ci / km ² contaminated areas within the former Soviet Union (and taking into account the mortality of liquidators and evacuees from these areas after 1986) could all of the additional mortality rate in Ukraine, Belarus and in the European part of Russia in the period 1990-2004 by the Chernobyl accident was caused, amounted to around 240 000 cases.
In Europe, outside the areas affected by radioactive releases from the Ukraine, Belarus and the European part of Russia could be the additional “Chernobyl” – Mortality in areas with a level of contamination Cesium137> 1.08 Ci / km ² (> 40 kBq / m) in the period 1990 to 2004 a number of 185 000 cases, represent, and in the areas with a higher population density and a contamination level of
To this figure should be even mortality within the first 3.5 years after the Disaster (May 1986 – 1989) and add the period 2006-2011. If it is suspected that the annual death rate for the first 3.5 years of the 1990-2004 period at about corresponded to (the infant mortality rate is higher, while the mortality of adults lower), adds even further 240 000 cases. If one assumes that the Mortality rate during 2005-2010 was about half (on the one hand, the population older and “collected” diseases are clear and the latent period of several Cancer is over, on the other hand, the level of chronic radiation decreases due to the decay of cesium-137 and strontium-90), there are again additional 170 000 cases.
In this way, the overall level of additional “Chernobyl” in the mortality rate Period of the first 25 years are estimated by the disaster: 1 034 000 + 240 000 + 170 000 = 1.444 million victims. But this figure also shows the entire “Chernobyl” mortality is not complete. It is known that the disaster to a sudden increase in prenatal mortality has done. The increase in the number of still-births and miscarriages can be divided into a number highly radioactively contaminated areas in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to determine (Kulakov et al, 1993;. Buzhievskaya et al, 1995; Buldakov et al, 1996;. Golovko, Ishewski, 1996; Medvedeva et al, 2001; Lypik, 2004;. Serdjulk et al, 2004; Timchenko et al, 2006;. ZYB et al. 2006) (. Scherb et al, 2000; Scherb, Wiegel, 2010) as well as the phenomenon is in Bavaria, Croatia (Korblein, 2008), UK (Bentham, 1991, Busby 1995), Finland (Auvinen et al, 2001.) Italy (Semisa, 1988) and Norway (Ulstain et al., 1990) measurable. The calculation of the total Number of such cases is not entirely accurate, but might, according to the experts’ assessments about 170 000 cases estimated for whole Europe.
If we agree with the opinion of the nuclear society, in the UNSCEAR (2001) is expressed, and thus give up the tests, the exact number of victims of To predict the Chernobyl disaster, because we seem to inaccurate estimates, then comes the one thought prohibition. The other approach is to consider all arguments and vague estimates to clarify gradually. With regard to the scale of the disaster, the whole territory of northern hemisphere and thus affected more than one billion people and has concerns, it clear that it is impossible to exactly the number of victims up to thousands or tens of thousands of people determine. But it seems important to determine the magnitude of the numbers: Some thousands (Which is unnoticeable in the overall mortality rate) or a few million (which is a Forcing a rethink in terms of nuclear technology would).
The “balance” – method for determining the number of victims of the Chernobyl accident, which during the last years has developed rapidly and is still evolving, it looks advantageous- Especially in comparison with that used with the calculation of the radiation risk “Dose” method, which is based on unreliable estimates of radiation dose. The “Balance” – method is not ideal because it is the formation of average values of
demographic characteristics and an assessment of the radiation rate in the observed Areas needed. The undoubted advantage of the “Balance” method when compared with the “dose” Method, however, is that it makes no less verifiable assumptions. In the analysis of the mortality situation in the Chernobyl radionuclides on by one level of ≥ 1 Ci / km ² (40 kBq / m) contaminated areas in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine has been found that the overall mortality rate here is around 4% higher than in the relatively “clean” neighboring areas. In the other, huge sections of the northern Hemisphere, which were affected by the Chernobyl fallout is weaker, the number of additional Low mortality, no doubt, but given the large amount of people affected they certainly still essential. The rough estimation of the total possible number of Chernobyl victims in the period of the last 25 years is about 1.44 million cases (under Consideration of prenatal deaths – 1.6 million cases). This confirms the known Statement: The Chernobyl accident is the biggest technological catastrophe in Human history.
German source: http://www.tschernobylkongress.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/jablokov_opferzahlen_tschernobyl.pdf
Rosa Goncharova’s geneticist. In the Belarusian capital Minsk, she directs the laboratory of the Institute of Genetics and Cytology of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. For decades, the research professor and her team investigated the effects of long-lasting radioactive low-level radiation.
What harm take people living in contaminated areas?
“Must live”, because there are 2600 villages that should relocate. Rosa Gonchrova summarizes the results of their studies (in german):
http://www.hr-online.de/servlet/de.hr.cms.servlet.File/11-042?enc=d3M9aHJteXNxbCZibG9iSWQ9MTIwMTQ3NTImaWQ9NDExMDgxNDEmZm9yY2VEb3dubG9hZD0x
TRANSLATION
“One of the main lessons learned from Chernobyl is the fact that even low doses of ionizing radiation in animals and humans have biological and genetic consequences. This is now proven. They produce damage in the body cells and in the sex cells. Even at a low dose of less than 100 micro Sievert and even years at a tolerated dose of one millisievert were identified in our laboratory genetic changes.”
“About one Milllisievert per year: This is the annual dose limit for people who do not work professionally with ionizing radiations. For occupationally exposed persons in Europe are higher limits. The research team has identified mutations, ie changes in the genes of the nucleus.”
“Man, like every other living being possesses, protection systems, the repair such mutations almost. If there is now under the influence of radioactivity additional mutations, the organism will be charged additionally, he must also fight against it.”
“For these children we have found changes in individual genes. And the worst part is that these children show an increased sensitivity to other unfavorable factors. That is, these children fall ill more frequently than others. Among the unfavorable factors include poor diet, environmental factors, chemical pollution. This is true not only for children but for adults too. They all have an increased sensitivity to other unfavorable factors.”
“In plain English: who spends his life in contaminated areas spend, must, whose immune system is weakened.”
Radioactivity, as it opens the doors for other health problems.
The most dangerous radiation is which is ingested with food. Thus, for example, cesium-137 from the inside to act on the cells, because it displaces the vital potassium in muscle tissue. Or strontium-90, a radionuclide that accumulates in the bone and bone marrow: there can damage blood cells and can cause cancer such as blood.”
– On the question of whether changes in the genetic inheritance of future generations, says geneticist Rose Goncharova: “We demonstrated in our laboratory for the first time that genetic changes over generations may be swept on. We have found after Chernobyl more than 22 animal generations of genetic instability. There are animals that live in the contaminated areas who have to live under the influence of low doses. We have been scientifically proven.”
“This has been proven in one of the most common mammals in the bank vole. The cells of these mice were well comparable with those of humans, says the researcher. Therefore one can transmit many findings to him.”
“Even after 22 generations of mice you can still see changes, mutations. They are inherited. The radioactivity is harmful. So it happens that many offspring do not survive or even many embryos. Those who survive are somehow cope with the situation. But whose genome is unstable, and they also pass into the next generation. And often they are ill. Their whole system is more unstable than in other animals.”
“The mortality rate in these animals is very, very high. Mice produce very many offspring, and therefore they can afford a high death rate. Man, however, will usually produce only one child. In any case, not five, six, seven at once. He also does not bring several generations in a year or during his life to the world. So we can also transmit the results that actually would be transferable to humans, not in all respects to him.”
“Which low doses of radiation effects in humans may have, but points to a study that was published in December 2010 in Germany. It states: Within a radius of 35 km around a nuclear plant are fewer girls were born in areas without nuclear power. We investigated the surroundings of 27 facilities in Germany and four in Switzerland. Fewer female births have been noted previously: In regions that were hit by the Chernobyl radioactive precipitation. It is believed that female embryos are more sensitive to radiation and therefore die rather than male.”
END of Excerpt—
“I think that increased thyroid cancer incidence of children from irradiated parents would be first manifestation of the induced genomic instability”: http://vivretchernobyl.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/presentation-of-rosa-goncharova-genomic-instability-after-chernobyl-prognosis-for-the-coming-generations/
FEMALE FETUS & RADIATION
By low-level radiation from accidents and tritium emissions from cooling towers less girls are born:
http://www.tschernobylkongress.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/ScherbVoigt_fehlbildungen_fehlende_geburten.pdf – quote: “The gender gap in 1987 – 2007 (Chernobyl gender gap) corresponds to approximately 440 000 theoretical missing female births when only the female sex was affected. If also male births were affected at a ratio of male: female = 3:10, is the gender gap by about 790 000 (180 000 +610 000) male + female births” PAGE 32
Increased sex ratio in Bavaria (Germany):
after Chernobyl and in the vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants –
epidemiological findings: http://www.tschernobylkongress.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/Koerblein_sexratio.pdf
What meaning might lie behind it? Fewer women means fewer people. Nuclear power is probably an instrument to curb population growth
http://www.odwac.gov.on.ca/standards_review/tritium/Tritium_Radiation_Risks_Additional_Note_for_ODWAC_Fairlie.pdf – quote: “Background radiation is also the primary reason why women aged over ~40 are
advised not to have children. This is because their stocks of ova have been exposed since birth to 40 or so years’ background radiation and have thereby been damaged to such an extent that an unacceptable proportion, when fertilised, results in congenital malformations, spontaneous abortions or stillbirths. Many scientists also consider that background radiation is the prime factor in the ageing process, and is ultimately the reason why we are not immortal.” PAGE 5
Another effect is observed in Belarus: oligospermia. In Japan there will be infertility risk – an attack on human race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9lyxgJhc0c
Population control through nuclear pollution – by John W. Gofman – former ICRP scientist: http://books.google.de/books?id=gjIzAAAAMAAJ&q=gofman+tamplin&dq=gofman+tamplin&hl=de&ei=2SE8TszrF8Wx8gOYsJScAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ
MICE & RADIATION
Mice developed a new type of cancer, AFTER 25 GENERATIONS (quote: “unusual cancer after 25 generations” at
http://books.google.de/books?id=3gUAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56#v=onepage&q=mewissen%20fo-cuses%20on%2025&f=false)!
And 10 Generations – By Tritium / H³!
Source: http://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/abstr10.pdf and http://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/abstr14.pdf Tritium is released from every nuclear power plant in the world. During the revision of a reactor up to 5 million Becquerel per liter of air! https://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/reactors-emitting-tritium-during-normal-mode-children-cancer/ Tritium is a radioactive gas, highly toxic if inhaled. It falls to earth with precipitation in the form of tritiated water. The tritium atoms can replace hydrogen atoms (about half the atoms of the human body are composed of hydrogen) and in the form of tritiated water, the isotope of hydrogen can enter the food chain and set in the body, leading to damage and mutations in DNA. Nuclear facilities emit considerable amounts of tritium which makes the water radioactive. By cooling towers and other ways. This is the reason for rising children cancer rates near nuclear reactors: http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/archive/magnox_a1_28.pdf
Mice are mammals, show mutation earlier than we – who are alos mammals.
Teratological effects and mutations through radiation – ignored by IAEA, OECD, ICRP, UNSCEAR, SCIENCE – proven by Étienne Wolff in the 1930ies: http://books.google.com/books/about/Th%C3%A8ses_pr%C3%A9sent%C3%A9es_%C3%A0_la_Facult%C3%A9_des.html?id=MQvwcQAACAAJ and: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862623,00.html and: http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/web/paper.php?doi=041944cg&a=f
Insects and their fast mutagenic “reaction” on low radiation are some kind of early warning system for us humans: Irradiated Insects in Japan: http://www.freeml.com/bl/8694840/25149/ normal insects soon only in the laboratory: http://www.wissenskunst.ch/en/tschernobyl.htm Great book about mutagentic impact on insects worldwide: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/3908247314/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thtefi-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=3908247314
Reduced abundance of insects and spiders linked to radiation at Chernobyl: http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/chernobyl/papers/moller-mousseau-biol-letters-09.pdf please have a look at this beautiful book – in english: http://radionucleide.free.fr/Stresseurs/fulltext_punaise.pdf and in german: http://www.sensigns.ch/db/daten/dokumente/Heteroptera_Deutsch.pdf
Because reactors depend on heavy water as a moderator, they release larger amounts of tritium to the environment than light water reactors (…) Tritium is a carcinogen, mutagen, teratogen and developmental toxin. It becomes incorporated into DNA and disrupts the genetic code of men’s and women’s reproductive cells: http://www.iicph.org/files/IICPH-Final-Statement-re-Darlington-NNPP-May-17-2011.pdf – current Guideline and Drinking Water Quality Standard for tritium is 7,000 Bq/L, which is based on the permissible ICRP dose limit of 1 mSv/year (lowered to 0.1 mSv in water). This “standard” corresponds to a risk of 350 excess fatal cancers per million people from just one year’s consumption of drinking water, not a lifetime (70 years) 300 million people living in the US: 105,000 DEATHS PER YEAR x 30 years = 3,150,000 murdered people by the peaceful atom! Multiplied x global = weapons of mass destruction
“But tritium can be deadly (…) However tritium behaves chemically and biochemically like ordinary hydrogen. When ingested, it can incorporate itself into all forms of body cells, including those of the reproductive system…” Source: http://ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO10.html
MORE: http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/low-radiation-kills-everything-trees-children-green-energy-peace-climate-democracy-mind-science/
—–MORE…..
Radiation might affect Japan’s
youngest
You can’t smell it, you can’t taste it and
you can’t feel radioactive materials in the air.
But exposure to it can affect the health seriously.
For normal adults, depending on the
amount of radiation, exposure might cause
cancer, premature aging, organ diseases or
even acute poisoning which usually ends in
death, explains Dr. Winfrid Eisenberg from
IPPNW, a German working group on nuclear
energy.
He also points out that radiation is a particular
threat to unborn children. The young
embryos, especially in the first three months
of pregnancy, are the most susceptible to
radiation damage, much more than born children
or adults, he says. “An embryo grows
very fast and it means that cells are dividing
all the time,” he explains further. “These cells
are more sensitive to the effects of radiation
than older cells.”
Eisenberg says even a very small elevation
of radioactivity or ionizing radiation
may be harmful to embryos or fetuses.
—Deutsche Welle
March 18, 2011
http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/2011-mgs-fukushima.pdf
Health Risk Fears Escalate as Japan
Nuclear Plant’s Radioactive Release
Remains Uncertain
Although the most pressing immediate
health concern is the powerful direct gamma
radiation that threatens workers at the plant,
“we need also to focus on the radioactive isotopes
that are being dispersed at some distance
from the plant,” Ira Helfand, a former
president of Physicians for Social
Responsibility, said at a Wednesday news
conference organized by that group, which is
opposed to nuclear power. …
Some nuclear experts are concerned that
“even if the total radiation dose is not real
high downwind from a plant, the concentration
of these isotopes can pose a very serious
health problem,” Helfand said. …
The clean “linear relationship between
your dose of total body radiation and the
effect on your health is really lost when
you’re talking about low-dose radiation at
some distance from the source,” Helfand
said. “You can have a very small total body
radiation dose and end up getting thyroid
cancer, or ingest some radioactive strontium
and end up getting leukemia.”
—Scientific American
March 18, 2011
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=health-risk-fukushima
“The permissible limits currently set in the EU and Japan for radiation protection mean that the population is exposed to an unnecessarily high risk to health. If we assume that the population of Germany were to ingest food containing the current maximum limits of contamination permitted in the EU – equivalent to the limits applying to imports from Japan – children and adolescents would each be exposed to an annual effective dose of 68 millisieverts (mSv) and adults of 33 mSv. The German radiation protection legislation that governs the operation of nuclear power plants stipulates that the legally permissible limit of total exposure from all exposure pathways is 1 mSv per year for individuals. This means that if children and adolescents ingested the amount of radioactive contamination permitted by EU and Japanese regulations, they would be exposed to 68 times the German limit. Even if only 2 percent of the dietary intake were contaminated to permissible EU and Japanese limits, the annual effective dose would already be over the German limit of 1 mSv.
“Calculations based on models used by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) show that dietary intake of the maximum amount of radioactive contamination permitted in the EU and Japan would lead to at least roughly 150,000 fatalities in Germany each year. Other calculation models reach vastly higher figures. If the entire German population were to eat foods exposing individuals to only 5 percent of the contamination currently allowed in food imports from Japan, at least 7,700 fatalities could be expected; this figure doesn’t even include the secondary consequences of a wide range of greatly varying diseases and genetic disorders.”
“Other countries have to some extent set much stricter limits and thereby done more to protect human health. Even the limits in Ukraine and Belarus are much stricter and have continuously tightened over the last few years. The permissible limit for cesium-137 in milk products in Ukraine and Belarus is 100 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg), whereas this value stands at 370 Bq/kg in the EU and 200 Bq/kg in Japan.”
SOURCE: page 5: http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e44993/CalculatedFatalitiesfromRadiation_Reportfoodwatch-IPPNW2011-09-20_ger.pdf
IT IS 500 Bequerel / Kg in Japan – SOURCE: http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/10/news-spreading-fear/ http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kyoiku/kyu-sokutei/20111012.html
English:
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45059/2011-09-20pressreleasefoodwatch_IPPNW_EN_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e44993/CalculatedFatalitiesfromRadiation_Reportfoodwatch-IPPNW2011-09-20_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45038/2011-09-20Backgroundfoodwatch_IPPNWStrahlenschutznachFukushima_EN_ger.pdf
French:
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45039/radioactive_reportfoodwatch-IPPNW2011-09-20_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45055/2011-09-20communiquedepressefoodwatch_IPPNW_FR_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45056/2011-09-20contextefoodwatch_IPPNWcontaminationradioactive_FR_ger.pdf
Japanese:
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45057/foodwatch_IPPNW_Report_Sep2011_jp_final_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45058/2011-09-20_PM_jp_ger.pdf
German:
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e44978/KalkulierterStrahlentod_Reportfoodwatch-IPPNW2011-09-20_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45041/2011-09-20Hintergrund_Grenzwerte_EU-Verordnungen_Messwerte_ger.pdf
http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e45041/2011-09-20Hintergrund_Grenzwerte_EU-Verordnungen_Messwerte_ger.pdf
Prof. Jacobi – Director of the Institute for Radiation Protection of the Society for Radiation and Environmental Research Ltd. Munich (http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/04/091/4091257.pdf) – Neaherbergm, said in his speech from March 3rd 1973, that he is representing a maximum acceptable radiation risk of the population (without asking them!) and assumed that a civilizational radiation risk exists only when it is visible. The risk would be only low (and therefore should be acceptable and useful), that in the existing natural (spontaneous) frequency of cancer of the total population it would be not detected! For Germany, it seemed (in 2350 spontaneous cancer deaths per million inhabitants), a maximum of ten deaths per year and per million inhabitants is ACCEPTABLE! That makes (80 million people in Germany) 800 cancer deaths by nuclear power stations per year, ACCEPTABLE! Is this still a democracy? Such a drug might would have never get the permission to come on the market! But it is nuclear energy, which is allowed! Thus ANY MURDER WOULD BE ACCEPTABLE, because people die anyway! More: http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/low-radiation-kills-everything-trees-children-green-energy-peace-climate-democracy-mind-science/
Want to know the dangers of Low Doses? The BYSTANDER effect (mentioned by A. Jablokov, 2011, during IPPNW congress) – Attention this presentation uses the unethic and unscientific “LINEAR” no‐threshold model (LNT) method -> 32 Chernobyl deaths / IAEA and Jablokov uses the “BALANCE” method -> 1000,000 Chernobyl deaths. The effect of low radiation is “BIMODAL” and NOT LINEAR according to Burlakova. Anyway, here is the PDF: http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/fileadmin/ISS/PDF/Risikoanalyse/Georgetown/Prise.pdf
BIMODAL: “Presently the international organizations (WHO, IAEA) recognize as the main cause of increase of thyroid cancer in liquidators and children population after the accident their irradiation with radioactive iodine, I-131. The rest of diseases, they suppose, are provoked by psycho-emotional reactions..” (!!!…RADIOPHOBIA…!!!) There is no linear dose effect correlation, but “The bimodal dependence of effects on dose was revealed for all studied parameters. Namely, effects increased at low doses, reached maximum (for low doses), then decreased (in some cases the effect sign reversed) and thereafter increased with the increase of dosage”: http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/kr21/kr21pdf/Burlakova.pdf IGNORED BY IAEA, UNSCEAR, ICRP, WHO
The T65D is mentioned in the PDF of Queen’s University Belfast. What is T65D? It is the base for ALL common and FALSE low dose radiation research: The international radiation protection bodies such as ICRP, UNSCEAR and BEIR base their findings on the somatic damage (cancer, leukemia risks) mainly on studies of the victims of the nuclear tests of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, wo still lived in 1950. That’s right, not 1945, 1950! This study is called “T65D.” It was begun in 1950. The five years before that has not been studied. It was observed since 1950. About 800,000 Japanese people harmed by radiation, and the analysation of their causes of death. http://www.rerf.or.jp/glossary_e/t65d.htm and: http://www.rerf.or.jp/library/archives_e/lsstitle.html / For validation of this study the US even did an atomic test in Nevada: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/212/4497/900.extract
Each person has been exposed to a certain dose of radiation that had to be estimated later (!) Because of the location of the bomb explosion at the moment (T65D study). It is at HIGH DOSE SHORT TERM (explosion). This is in contrast to chronic low-level radiation. ICRP, UNSCEAR and BEIR exclude results that you get from high doses to the low dose effects. THIS IS A CRIME and unscientific and unethic.