• Suspected infant mortality rise difficult to prove
• Predicted deaths range from 4,000 to half a million
* John Vidal, environment editor
* guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 January 2010 18.15 GMT
At the children's cancer hospital in Minsk,
Belarus, and at the Vilne hospital for radiological protection in the east
of Ukraine, specialist doctors are in no doubt they are seeing highly unusual
rates of cancers, mutations and blood diseases linked to the Chernobyl
nuclear accident 24 years ago.
But proving that infant mortality hundreds
of miles from the stricken nuclear plant has increased 20-30% in 20 years,
or that the many young people suffering from genetic disorders, internal
organ deformities and thyroid cancers are the victims of the world's greatest
release of radioactivity, is impossible.
The UN's World Health Organisation and the
International Atomic Energy Agency claim that only 56 people have died
as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl and that about
4,000 will die from it eventually.
They also say that only a few children have
died of cancers since the accident and, that most of the illnesses usually
linked to Chernobyl are due to psychological distress, radiophobia or poverty
and unhealthy living.
But other reputable scientists researching
the most radiation-contaminated areas of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are
not convinced. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another
UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the
Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in
Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus.
Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of
sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian
national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths
so far.
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suite:
The mismatches
in figures arise because there have been no comprehensive, co-ordinated
studies of the health consequences of the accident. This is in contrast
to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where official research showed that the main
rise in most types of cancer and non-cancer diseases only became apparent
years after the atomic bombs fell.
With Chernobyl there have been difficulties
in gathering reliable data from areas left in administrative chaos after
the accident. Hundreds of thousands of people were moved away from the
affected areas, and the break-up of the Soviet Union led to records being
lost.
Controversy rages over the agendas of the
IAEA, which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years, and
the WHO. The UN accepts only peer-reviewed scientific studies written in
certain journals in English, a rule said to exclude dozens of other studies.
Four years ago, an IAEA spokesman said he
was confident the WHO figures were correct. And Michael Repacholi, director
of the UN Chernobyl forum until 2006, has claimed that even 4,000 eventual
deaths could be too high. The main negative health impacts of Chernobyl
were not caused by the radiation but by the fear of it, he claimed.
But today Linda Walker, of the UK Chernobyl
Children's Project, which funds Belarus and Ukraine orphanages and holidays
for affected children, called for a determined effort to learn about the
effects of the disaster. "Parents are giving birth to babies with disabilities
or genetic disorders … but, as far as we know, no research is being conducted." |
NUCLEAIRES !
