The main observations and conclusions of the Chernobyl +20: IAEA/WHO release are (italics our emphasis): Up to 4,000 people could eventually die of The accident continues radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, concluded an international team of more than 100 scientists. A “Nuclear Renaissance” requires a major As of mid-2005, fewer than 50 deaths had been re-write of history, and official agencies are directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost using the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident and as late as 2004. accident as the springboard to do so. 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer have occurred, mainly in children, but…except for nine deaths, all of April 26th marks the 20th anniversary of the world’s them have recovered. The survival rate among such worst nuclear accident – the explosion and fire at the cancer victims, judging from experience in Belarus, has Chernobyl-4 nuclear reactor near Kiev, Ukraine. For the been almost 99%... “the team of international experts last 20 years the accident has hung like the death-shroud found no evidence for any increases in the incidence of it is over not only Eastern Europe, but also the nuclear leukemia and cancer among affected residents.” industry and its plans to build new reactors. Desperate in its stagnation in the US and abroad, the industry is now attempting to hijack the anniversary for its own ends, and re-write the tragic history that the accident caused to make building new nuclear reactors more palatable to the public. However, new understandings of the effects of low-doses of ionizing radiation on health, and a more determined and unified safe-energy/anti- nuclear community will stand in the way of these plans. 1984 – all over again… While the “nuclear renaissance” has been around officially since late 2001, the nuclear industry and its friends in world governments and agencies have been working exceedingly hard and systematically to prepare the public for nuclear expansion. To do so, the industry Approximately 1,000 on-site reactor staff and has had to work overtime to minimize the effects of both emergency workers were heavily exposed to high-level the Chernobyl accident, and newly recognized radiation on the first day of the accident; among the mechanisms and adverse health effects relating to more than 200,000 emergency and recovery operation ionizing radiation, especially at low doses. workers exposed from 1986-1987, an estimated 2,200 The first round of highly visible, made-for-public- radiation-caused deaths can be expected. consumption distortions came in September, 2005. It An estimated five million people currently live would have made George Orwell’s 1984 character in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that are Winston Smith proud that history could be re-written to contaminated with radionuclides due to the accident; such an extent. With much fanfare, the United Nations’ about 100,000 of them live in areas classified in the past International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World by government authorities as areas of “strict control”. Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations The existing “zoning” definitions need to be revisited Development Program, and representatives from several and relaxed in light of the new findings. governments released a report titled, “Chernobyl’s Most emergency workers and people living in Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic contaminated areas received relatively low whole body Impacts.” Their press release carried the highly radiation doses, comparable to natural background presumptuous and self-serving assertion, “Chernobyl: levels. As a consequence, no evidence or likelihood of The True Scale of the Accident--20 Years Later a UN decreased fertility among the affected population has Report Provides Definitive Answers and Ways to Repair been found, nor has there been any evidence of Lives.” Not-too-deep analysis of the report and the increases in congenital malformations attributable to conclusions and recommendations of its authors would radiation exposure. demonstrate how arrogant and erroneous these proclamations were. Poverty, “lifestyle” diseases now rampant in the former Soviet Union and mental health problems pose a significant documentation has been collated (see below) far greater threat to local communities than does demonstrating the serious flaws in the UN report. radiation exposure. “True” and “Definitive”? Flaws Abundant in Report: Relocation proved a “deeply traumatic The 600+-page UN Report is daunting reading for experience” for some 350,000 people moved out of the anyone, even those familiar with the issues and the affected areas. Although 116,000 were immediately science involved. It is outright prohibitive for the moved from the most heavily impacted area, later average person. For either group several key failures of relocations did little to reduce radiation exposure. commission and omission are quite evident: Persistent myths and misperceptions about the threat of radiation have resulted in “paralyzing fatalism” 1. “Statistical Betrayal”: The announced estimates among residents of affected areas. of health effects and reported observations are wildly Ambitious rehabilitation and social benefit incompatible with those found by other professionals, programs started by the former Soviet Union, and using even the same conservative methods of continued by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, need calculation; and with those of health professionals “on reformulation due to changes in radiation conditions, the scene” in the affected countries: poor targeting and funding shortages. Most credible researchers agree that the exact death Structural elements of the sarcophagus built to toll attributable to the accident will never be known. It contain the damaged reactor have degraded, posing a is still recognized to be a huge and an unprecedented risk of collapse and the release of radioactive dust; industrial accident. However, through very carefully A comprehensive plan to dispose of tons of chosen wording, and selective use of focus on the trees high-level radioactive waste at and around the Chernobyl and not the forest, the IEAE/WHO have engaged in a NPP site, in accordance with current safety standards, statistical betrayal that both perpetuates former absurd has yet to be defined. estimates – the legendary “32 firefighters died” – and Alongside radiation-induced deaths and minimizes present and future ones of greater magnitude. diseases, the report labels the mental health impact of Previously, both political figures, and health Chernobyl as “the largest public health problem created professionals and agencies – even the WHO – have by the accident” and partially attributes this damaging maintained fatality figures and other effects far higher than the ones appearing on the 2005 IAEA/WHO list. In psychological impact to a lack of accurate information. th These problems manifest as negative self-assessments of 1996 on the 10 Anniversary of the accident, former health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of ambassador from Ukraine to the U.S. Yuri Shcherbak initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state. stated in an article appearing in Scientific American that, (All the above bulleted points come from the initial “I believe [that the 1996 Greenpeace estimate of 32,000 deaths to that date] is defensible.” Press release of the IAEA/WHO, Sept. 5, 2005) The total estimate of 4,000 by IAEA/WHO is neither consistent with local or previous official estimates. The World Responds – Along Familiar Battle Lines: Recent analyses by several other organizations and he UN report was warmly embraced by the nuclear eminent researchers produce far more tragic estimates: T industry and its allies in governments and ● The recently released “TORCH” Report – “The Other institutions around the globe. Even the higher political Report on Chernobyl” (see “Resources”) – echelons of the governments of Belarus, Ukraine and commissioned by Rebecca Harms, a Green Party Russia collaborated on and embraced the results, with member of the European Parliament, on behalf of the the attitude that the accident was over, and the world was Greens/EFA in the European Parliament and in now safe to buy their produce and other products, and conjunction with the April 23-25, 2006 Chernobyl+20: they would no longer have to pay so many benefits to Remembrance for the Future conference in Kiev, the survivors. Indeed, in 2005 Ukraine itself announced Ukraine arrived at a range of between 30,000 and 60,000 plans to construct 11 new nuclear reactors (not of the deaths. Additionally, TORCH was very meticulous in RBMK Chernobyl-type design; one recent report its critique of the numerous failings of the IAEA/WHO suggests as many as 35), not to meet local energy needs, 2005 Report. but to sell to the eastern European electricity market. ● The recently released book “Chernobyl: 20 Years On The reaction of the safe-energy/anti-nuclear movement – Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident,” produced and others who deal with the day-to-day effects of the by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR; accident was much different, however. High-ranking see Resources) goes even farther than TORCH in both individuals in the ministries of health of the same three its critique, and its estimates. A compilation of research countries mentioned above were furious over what they papers done by independent researchers from the West, saw as obfuscation at best, denial of the reality they see Russia, Ukraine and Japan, researchers place the fatality daily at worst. Activist NGOs were equally critical, estimate in the range of hundreds of thousands to almost immediately. With the passage of time, millions of deaths from all accident-related causes. officials and journalists caught simply referring to the Further, and in stark contrast to the IAEA/WHO report, old “32 dead from Chernobyl” statistic do so at the risk these researchers actively incorporate new of their professional credibility and integrity.