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To confront the IAEA with the realities of nuclear power we placed a
250kg concrete container containing two 1kg radioactive samples into
the lobby of the UN agency building in Vienna. To ensure public safety, the
soil samples delivered to the IAEA were placed in a container with concrete and lead shielding.
But where the samples were collected there are no such safeguards for anyone. The radioactive soil was taken from locations between 40km and 50km from the Chernobyl reactor - in areas well outside the exclusion zone in which people have free access. In the random soil sample there was a small but highly radioactive grain of spent fuel, which was ejected from the reactor by the explosion. This is highly dangerous if inhaled or ingested or when it comes into prolonged contact with the body.
In the same area from where the soil samples were taken, people harvest wood, mushrooms and berries from the forests, unwittingly exposing themselves to serious radiation risk. The samples are 10-25 times more radioactive than the limits set by the European Commission for defining a substance as radioactive waste.
Our research at the location of the disaster in the Ukraine shows there is serious radioactive contamination in places where people still live.
Part of IAEA's mandate is to promote nuclear power. Promoting an industry that is dirty, dangerous and expensive is a hard job, especially in the year marking the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl. To try and down play the effects of the disaster they published a report with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in September 2005 claiming only 4000 people would die from the disaster.
It is now clear that the IAEA report was deliberately misleading. We recently published a report by 52 scientists whose research predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.
Even staff from the WHO now admit the report was intended as a political tool to deflect criticism from nuclear power:
Zhanat Carr, a radiation scientist with the WHO in Geneva, says the 5000 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.
What figures and statistics never tell is the pain and suffering inflicted on individuals by the nuclear industry every day since the first nuclear bomb was exploded in 1945.
Nuclear technology has always been inherently dangerous. Today, thankfully, it is also unnecessary. Our energy needs can be met with safe and efficient renewable energy technologies. So, why are so many politicians peddling nuclear power at the very time we need it least, when we have safe and sustainable sources available to power the world?
Is it the role of a UN agency, funded by your taxes, to advance the profits of the nuclear industry? Do we not have the right to expect the IAEA to focus only on the values and principles of the UN - peace, security, and human rights - and not on private industry's profits?
But where the samples were collected there are no such safeguards for anyone. The radioactive soil was taken from locations between 40km and 50km from the Chernobyl reactor - in areas well outside the exclusion zone in which people have free access. In the random soil sample there was a small but highly radioactive grain of spent fuel, which was ejected from the reactor by the explosion. This is highly dangerous if inhaled or ingested or when it comes into prolonged contact with the body.
In the same area from where the soil samples were taken, people harvest wood, mushrooms and berries from the forests, unwittingly exposing themselves to serious radiation risk. The samples are 10-25 times more radioactive than the limits set by the European Commission for defining a substance as radioactive waste.
Our research at the location of the disaster in the Ukraine shows there is serious radioactive contamination in places where people still live.
IAEA nuclear whitewash
Part of IAEA's mandate is to promote nuclear power. Promoting an industry that is dirty, dangerous and expensive is a hard job, especially in the year marking the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl. To try and down play the effects of the disaster they published a report with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in September 2005 claiming only 4000 people would die from the disaster.
It is now clear that the IAEA report was deliberately misleading. We recently published a report by 52 scientists whose research predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.
Even staff from the WHO now admit the report was intended as a political tool to deflect criticism from nuclear power:
Zhanat Carr, a radiation scientist with the WHO in Geneva, says the 5000 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.
What figures and statistics never tell is the pain and suffering inflicted on individuals by the nuclear industry every day since the first nuclear bomb was exploded in 1945.
Nuclear technology has always been inherently dangerous. Today, thankfully, it is also unnecessary. Our energy needs can be met with safe and efficient renewable energy technologies. So, why are so many politicians peddling nuclear power at the very time we need it least, when we have safe and sustainable sources available to power the world?
Is it the role of a UN agency, funded by your taxes, to advance the profits of the nuclear industry? Do we not have the right to expect the IAEA to focus only on the values and principles of the UN - peace, security, and human rights - and not on private industry's profits?
