Whitewashing Chernobyl's impacts

According to the Agency "fewer than 50 deaths had been 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."

However, these conclusions are not substantiated by reports upon which the digest is based. Indeed they are contradicted by them. Often, research has been omitted and where scientific uncertainty exists, the authors simply conclude that there is no impact. A more careful reading of the 600-page report, as well as previous published research by UN-bodies leads to very different conclusions. For example:

* The World Health Organisation refers to a study of 72,000 Russian clean-up workers of which 212 died as the result of radiation. The total number of 'liquidators' (in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) is estimated at some 600,000;

* The number of 4,000 deaths relates only to a population of 600,000, whereas radiation was spread over most of Europe. The IAEA has omitted the impacts of Chernobyl fall out on millions of Europeans;

* The IAEA tries to make strict distinction between health impacts attributable to radiation and other health impacts attributable to stress, social situation etc. However, the WHO is referring to numerous reports which indicate an impact of radiation on the immune system, causing a wide range of health effects;

The IAEA states today that previous researchers who have estimated the number of deaths up to hundreds of thousands have exaggerated the impacts. This is not correct.

The WHO rightly refers to 2 different methodological approaches to assess the health impacts of radiation:
 
* The first - the scientifically most accepted approach - is based on the standards set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and which assumes that there is a linear relationship between radiation dose and effect, without a threshold. This means that if a very large population is subjected to a very low dose, the collective impact can still be very serious. In the case of the Chernobyl accident, this leads to estimates long term fatality estimates in the hundreds of thousands.

* The other approach is based on epidemiology and tries to report the actual number of casualties and use statistical methods to estimate the total number of casualties for a population. This approach is valuable in well controlled situations, but can become very problematic in complex situations such as in Europe, where were it will be absolutely impossible to relate individual cases cancer e.g. in Belgium or France to Chernobyl fallout.

The Chernobyl explosion occurred April 26, 1986, when an out-of-control nuclear reaction blew off the roof of the steel building and spewed tons of radioactive material into the air. It was the worst nuclear accident in history.

"It is appalling that the IAEA is whitewashing the impacts of one of the most serious industrial accidents in human history," said Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner.

"Denying the real implications is not only insulting the thousands of victims - who are told that their illnesses are a result of  stress and irrational fear and not radiation - but is also leads to dangerous recommendations, to relocate people back in to contaminated areas."