Development & Aid, Environment, Europe, Headlines, Health

HEALTH-EUROPE: Chernobyl’s Elusive Bottom Line

Julio Godoy* - Tierramérica

PARIS, May 3 2006 (IPS) - Twenty years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the worst in atomic energy history, governments, international institutions, scientists and environmentalists continue to debate the true extent of the disaster’s impacts on human health.

On Apr. 26, 1986, a series of fires and explosions at the Ukranian energy plant released radioactive material that spread through the atmosphere over Western and Eastern Europe, especially over Ukraine itself, Belarus and Russia – the three were Soviet republics at the time.

A study by international environment watchdog Greenpeace says that in those three countries alone, by 2056 the accident will have claimed the lives of more than 93,000 people through thyroid cancer, leukemia, and blood and respiratory diseases.

The Greenpeace total is based on scientists’ analysis of the three countries and contradicts the official report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), published in September, which says just 56 people have died so far as a direct result of the Chernobyl accident and estimates that around 4,000 more people will die in the longer term.

Other studies by European scientists also suggest that the WHO-IAEA report minimises the number of victims. Such is the case of Elizabeth Cardis, radiologist for the International Agency for Research on Cancer, based in Lyon, France, and co-author of one of the latest investigations of the matter, to be published in June.

“By 2065 there will be some 41,000 cases of cancer in Western Europe. Of those, 16,000 will be fatal,” Cardis told Tierramérica in an interview.

These estimates are based on statistical analyses of the number of people exposed to the radioactive cloud in several European countries, including France, Austria, Germany and Italy, the different levels of exposure to the radiation, and the number of cancer cases recorded since 1986.

According to that study, the Chernobyl accident will claim the lives of at least 16,000 people in thyroid cancer deaths in Western Europe, and 25,000 more to other types of cancer. The study did not focus on Eastern Europe.

“The 20 years that have passed since the Chernobyl accident are a very short period to analyse in an exhaustive way the development of diseases whose symptoms are recognisable only after decades,” Cardis explained.

Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the former Soviet Union, which had jurisdiction over Ukraine in 1986, hid the most basic information about the accident and its consequences.

There exists no official registry of the personnel who worked on the reactor after the catastrophe. Unknown are the names, locations and current health status of tens of thousands of people who were directly exposed to the radiation.

Despite the Chernobyl accident and its consequences, many governments and the nuclear industry in Europe continue to defend atomic energy as clean and safe, arguing that it contributes to the fight against climate change because it does not produce gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect, as do petroleum derivatives.

Some countries launched new nuclear research programmes and have announced construction of nuclear reactors over the next five years. The French government recently approved construction of three reactors, the first of which would begin operating in 2012. The others are slated to begin energy production in 2020.

With its 58 reactors, which generate 78.5 percent of the country’s electricity, France is the nation most reliant on atomic energy.

Jean-Philippe Desbordes, author of the book “Atomic Park – a la recherche de victimes du nucléaire” (in search of the victims of nuclear energy), said in a Tierramérica interview that “just one accident on the scale of Chernobyl in France would convince the French authorities to renounce atomic energy.”

In Germany, leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, which governs the country in coalition with the Social Democratic Party, insists on reviewing the decision to gradually dismantle all functioning nuclear reactors by 2025.

For Roland Koch, head of government in the central state of Hesse, “Suspending the use of atomic energy in Germany is foolishness.”

But environmentalists criticise Koch, saying he does not have valid responses to questions about managing radioactive waste and the production of material that could be used in atomic weapons.

“Nuclear power is inherently highly dangerous and despite claims of improvements in safety, scientists agree that another catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl could happen at any time, anywhere,” said Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International.

“We must ensure that no more Chernobyls ever take place again, and ensure that atomic energy has no future, investing instead in renewable alternatives. On the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl, governments and international bodies such as the IAEA must exercise their moral duty to future generations by committing to a rapid and permanent eradication of nuclear power,” Leipold said.

(* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Apr. 29 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)