Professor Rose Goncharova, Member of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences in Belarus, has studied genetic anomalies in fish and rodents, which have increased from generation to generation in areas with relatively low levels of caesium-137 contamination, 200 km from Chernobyl. We interviewed her in April 2000.
R. Goncharova.—In 1989, following a request from the former Soviet Union, research was undertaken as part of the International Chernobyl Project: they were asked to evaluate the radiological situation and its possible influence on the health of the population. The research was undertaken by well paid, highly qualified international experts. They were not able to demonstrate an increased frequency of chromosomal aberrations in somatic human cells, in peripheral blood in the inhabitants of the contaminated areas. Nothing was found. Three years ago, American researchers published an article describing a research project on emigrants from the former Soviet Union57. They had left Belarus between 1986 and 1989, from Kiev, Babruisk and Mozyr, where levels of contamination are low: at Babrouisk, less than 1 curie, and Kiev and Mozyr between 1 and 5 curies per square kilometre, where, in principle, levels of radiation were so low, “it could have no effect”.
57 G.K. Livingston, R.H. Jensen, E.B. Silberstein, J.D. Hinnefeld, G. Pratt, W.L. Bigbee, R.G. Langlois, S.G. Grant, R. Shukla, Int. J. Radiat. Biol., 1997, 72, No 6, p. 703–713.
They emigrated during those years and soon after their arrival in the United States, they found themselves part of a medical follow up. Using a Human Radiation Spectrometer, they measured the concentration of radionuclides in their bodies. They studied cytogenetic lesions in the lymphocytes of peripheral blood, in other words, chromosomal aberrations and genetic mutations. And so these American researchers, quite simply, showed the effects of low level radiation. Very low levels of radiation. But it wasn’t published until about three years ago (in 1997). In my articles, I explore the reasons why in 1989, in more contaminated areas, the international experts did not find any lesions in the hereditary apparatus of the somatic cells of the inhabitants, nor any chromosomal aberrations, nor genetic mutations when, among the Soviet emigrants who, before they left, were living in areas with lower levels of contamination, these effects were found one or two years after they arrived.
Q.—What is the significance of this? Were the first people lying or do we need to look for another explanation?
R. Goncharova.—The first people are “so good” at their work, in quotes, that they do not uncover effects that were obviously there.
Q.—It was their job not to discover them?
R. Goncharova.—I don’t know what their job was. I am simply recounting the facts.
V. Nesterenko.—The International Chernobyl Project concluded: there is nothing to fear, the government has taken all necessary measures. Gorbachev got a positive response to the two questions he had posed. A lot of money changed hands and they got the answers they wanted. I don’t contest the expertise or the qualifications of the experts.
R. Goncharova.—I said the same thing myself: these are highly qualified professionals. You have to be extremely “capable” to hide evidence of effects that in my opinion was leaping off the page. But of course, we are paying now, and will carry on paying, over the next decades for this criminal policy.
Chapter IX
ALTERNATIVE EXPERTISE
Valery Legasov, crushed by Ilyin’s Moscow mafia, committed suicide a year too early. He could have been elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR along with Yury Shcherbak, Anatoli Volkov, like many other dissident scientists and experts. From 1st September, he could have participated in the work of the commission set up by the Supreme Soviet to analyse the causes of the accident at Chernobyl and to investigate the responsibilities of those who had not taken the necessary protective measures in the post-accidental period.
It was under threat from this investigation—which would have found them guilty—that the Moscow nucleocrats asked the IAEA and the WHO for the expertise of the International Chernobyl Project. The two commissions, one overseen by the UN and the other by independent Soviet citizens, worked simultaneously. The first concluded its task after a few weeks spent in the field, (published in May 1991). The second worked between 1990 and 1993, and survived the collapse of the USSR (21st August 1991) thanks to the financial support of a private entrepreneur, under perestroika.
1. PROVIDENTIAL MEETINGS AND SUPPORT
A few weeks before the putsch against Gorbachev, Vassili Nesterenko was writing a report while on the aeroplane taking him from Minsk to a meeting of the Supreme Soviet Commission on Chernobyl, in Moscow. He was chairing the permanent experts and specialists group which was analysing the situation in Belarus, the country that had been most contaminated by the disaster (Belarus, 23% of its territory contaminated, Ukraine 4.8% and Russia 0.5%). Absorbed in his work, Nesterenko did not notice the curiosity of the fellow passenger beside him. He introduced himself and said that he owned an oil company and was president of an NGO, the International Community for the Restauration of the Habitat for Humankind (SENMURV). His name was Afanasi Kim. Having collected money to help the victims of the Chernobyl disaster, he did not know who to give it to, to ensure that it would not end up in the wrong hands. He had observed that Nesterenko’s work related to Chernobyl and asked his advice. Nesterenko invited him to sit in on the meeting of the commission. It was short of funds: some of the work was being undertaken voluntarily by its members. The oil man was pleased to have been able to attend this meeting and they were to meet again to come up with some proposals. Soon after that in August, there was the putsch, the end of communism, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved, and the members of the commission were in despair. They decided to complete their work using their own resources. But there was no money to publish their conclusions. The meeting with A.M. Kim proved to be providential.
The International Community “SENMURV” considered that it was its civic and moral duty to lend practical and financial support to the group of experts so that it could complete its report about the Chernobyl disaster.
Together with “SENMURV” the permanent group of experts from the former Supreme Soviet of the USSR was reorganised into a committee of experts (CUE-ОЭК), and can be seen as its successor. Nesterenko presided over its work until it was completed in 1993.
Significant financial support was given to the group of experts by the humanitarian NGO “Aide-Tchernobyl” (Aid for Chernobyl) set up by A.E. Karpov and R.S. Tilles.
The International Community “SENMURV” published 4 volumes of conclusions from the expertise of parliamentarians and independent scientists in Russian: “The Chernobyl disaster—causes and consequences”.
The fact that the text was only published in Russian limited the dissemination of the independent experts’ conclusions across the international community. To fill the gap, a Swiss journalist Susan Boos, asked Nesterenko to write an extensive “press release” that would sum up the essentials and could be published in German and English. The press release was published under the title: “Scale and consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia”, Minsk, 1996.
In 1998, Susan Boos had convinced her colleagues at the weekly journal WoZ that the international community should not rely solely on the IAEA for its information about Chernobyl, but should examine the studies undertaken by independent scientists in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, especially since the conclusions from these two bodies of expertise were diametrically opposed. The journalists collected enough money to publish 500 copies, in English, of the conclusions of the Supreme Soviet experts. The same year, they published Nesterenko’s manifesto The Chernobyl Disaster. Radioprotection of the Population (Minsk, 1997), also in English, in which he openly committed himself to undertake the work that should have been done by the Ministry of Health in Belarus. Although they were not distributed widely, these documents had at least been rescued from media oblivion. They ha
ve a symbolic and historical value and thanks to the solidarity of a few individuals, the wall of deceit and ignorance has been breached. The intention was to send these documents to universities in America, Great Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.
Paradoxically it turned out that the expertise instituted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was the only moment in history when the emerging civil society in the communist state was able to proceed with the independent study of the consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy. The conclusions of the government’s expert group, alas, were never divulged. But testimony from the contaminated territories around Chernobyl and the search for scientific truth have not ceased since that time. This book, which chronicles the events from one year to another, is proof of that.
I am briefly jumping ahead in the account of events to quote an extract from the book that Nesterenko published in 1997. It reveals the way in which experts from the West denied the real levels of contamination following the accident at Chernobyl, which then had grave consequences for the health of hundreds of thousands of people contaminated by radionuclides.
2. DECEPTIVE AID58
58 Extracts from V. Nesterenko, The Chernobyl Catastrophe. Radioprotection of the Population, Minsk, 1997
THE DISENGAGEMENT OF THE STATE
The desire to reduce the burden of Chernobyl on the national budget has manifested, over the last two years, in declarations about it being quite safe to live in areas contaminated at levels between 1 and 5 curies per square kilometre (Ci/km2) and the possibility of producing food here that is ecologically clean.
This policy direction has been based on the results of misleading measurements of the contamination of the inhabitants of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, made between 1991 and 1993 by German scientists using a Human Radiation Spectrometer (HRS; also known as a Whole Body Counter—WBC). The National Commission on Radiological Protection (NCRP) lent its support to this idea, in April 1995, and adopted the “concept of radioprotection measures for inhabitants in the post accident rehabilitation phase”. The philosophy behind this concept, developed by a working group under Professor E.P. Petriaiev, was that the emergency phase of the accident was over, the rehabilitation phase had begun and people needed to “learn to live with radioactivity”. According to this concept, no further radioprotection measures were necessary where levels were below 1 millisievert per year (mSv/y). On this basis, in autumn 1995, the government of Belarus reduced radiological and social protection measures for the population in these regions.
DECEPTVE AID FROM GERMAN EXPERTS
In 1991, in response to the request for aid from the government of the former Soviet Union, the German Minister for the Environment gave 13 million marks for a programme to measure the radioactive charge in the body of people living in the contaminated areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, following the accident at Chernobyl. The programme was entrusted to the Centre for Nuclear Research in Jülich (Federal Republic of Germany). In May 1991–1993, 317,000 people were examined in the three Republics using HRS.
These measurements were only taken in the towns because, according to the directors of the programme, the country roads were not suitable for the heavy vehicles carrying the measuring equipment. In this way, no measurements were taken of the rural population of Belarus (with the exception of two villages, Kirov and Svetilovichi: 1,651 measurements out of 41,785, less than 4% of the total). Yet we know that it is precisely in these rural areas that the Belarusian population receives 90% of the collective radiation dose, through the consumption of local contaminated food products. According to the German experts, only 1.4% of people measured in Belarus had received a dose higher than 1 mSv/y; 6.8% had received a dose of 1 mSv/y and the great majority, 91.8% of the population, had received the minimal dose of 0.3 mSv/y.
However, a register of radiation dose already existed for the population living in villages in Belarus at the time of the German programme (Minsk 1991, 1992). Why were the inhabitants of the villages listed below, who had very high levels of radioactivity in their bodies, not included in the FRG programme?
Brest area: Vulka—1.8 mSv/y; Zastenok—3.9 mSv/y; Dobraya Volia—2.5 mSv/y; Pare—1.1 mSv/y; Zhitkovichi—1.6 mSv/y; Gorodnaya—1.2 mSv/y; Derevnaya—1.3 mSv/y; Colonia—3.3 mSv/y; Otverzhichi—1.3 mSv/y; Olmany—3.0 mSv/y.
Gomel area : Komanov—2.9 mSv/y; Negliubka—1.2 mSv/y; Zhelezniki—1.6 mSv/y; Valavsk—1.3 mSv/y; Glazki—5.9 mSv/y; Kuzmichi—2.4 mSv/y; Skorodnoie—2.6 mSv/y; Buda—1.8 mSv/y; Grichinovichi—2.0 mSv/y; Korchevatka—1.5 mSv/y; Beriozovka—3.4 mSv/y; Lenino—2.5 mSv/y; Obukhovshchina—2.0 mSv/y; Slobodka—1.5 mSv/y; Shareiki—1.6 mSv/y; Volyntsy—1.1 mSv/y; Novaya Zenkovina—1.2 mSv/y; Staraya Zenkovina—1.4 mSv/y; Borovka—1.5 mSv/y; Markovskoye—1.4 mSv/y; Rudnishche—3.6 mSv/y; Pervomaisk—1.3 mSv/y; Viazovoye—2.8 mSv/y; Dzerzhinsk—2.0 mSv/y; Danilevichi—1.4 mSv/y; Zabolotie—1.6 mSv/y; Chiane—1.4 mSv/y; Manchitsy—1.5 mSv/y; Verbovichi—1.4 mSv/y; Grushevka—1.6 mSv/y; Konotop—1.6 mSv/y; Buda Golovchitskaya—1.2 mSv/y; Demidov—1.3 mSv/y; Zavoit—2.8 mSv/y; Smolegov—2.6 mSv/y; Khilchikha—2.4 mSv/y; Khomenki—4.7 mSv/y; Dukhanovka—1.7 mSv/y; Dubrova—1.4 mSv/y; Borisovshchina—1.6 mSv/y; Slabozhanka—1.2 mSv/y; Partizanskaya—2.9 mSv/y; Pikulikha—2.3 mSv/y; Krasnyi Bereg—2.0 mSv/y; Pokat—1.7 mSv/y; Krutoie—1.5 mSv/y; Selianin—1.5 mSv/y; Budishche—3.2 mSv/y; Novozakharpolie—2.8 mSv/y; Sapriki—2.4 mSv/y.
Many more villages like these, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people with high levels of internal radiation, could be cited. It is hard to understand why the authors of the German programme did not investigate them.
The German measurement programme was undertaken without the participation of Belarusian scientists and the characteristics of the local diet were not taken into account. In this way, the inhabitants of villages, in particular those in Polessie, were not included as important subjects in the measurement campaign.
The error made by the German team in their choice of subjects to measure resulted in an underestimation, by several orders of magnitude, of the dose received by the population of Gomel, via food. The data bank at the Belrad Institute of Radioprotection contains more than 200,000 measurements of radioactively contaminated food products. Over the last five years, between 100 and 200 HRS annual measurement campaigns of the inhabitants from the above mentioned villagers, have been undertaken. Though the surface radioactivity is not high in Polessie, the characteristics of the soil are such that the coefficient of migration of the radionuclides of caesium-137 from the soil into the plants is higher here than in the fertile soils of the Ukrainian “chernoziom”, by a factor of 30–50. The radioactive load in the body is 2–5 times higher in these areas than that reported by the FRG measurement programme.
It is very regrettable that the authors failed to accomplish the task they were set in the German measurement programme, that they neglected the main contingent of contaminated inhabitants in Belarus and have underestimated by a factor of between 2 and 5 the doses received by the Republic’s population.
This information misled the President of Belarus and the new government of the Republic. On the basis of this information, it was decided that living in areas contaminated at levels between 1–5 Ci/km2 posed no danger to health, the mistaken concept of “protective measures in the post accident rehabilitation phase […]” was adopted and the distribution of free medicines and vitamins to children living in the 1–5 Ci/km2 zone was withdrawn, leaving the inhabitants without radiological protection. 1,500,000 people, including 400,000 children, out of a total of 2,200,000 victims of the Chernobyl disaster, live in this zone.
The ideology behind this project is very reminiscent of the errors made in the International Chernobyl Project. The IAEA experts, having excluded from their statistics, the 800,000 liquidators and the 130,000 people who were evacuated from the 30 km zone around the nuclear power station, concluded that there were no health consequences following the Chernobyl disaste
r. In the same way, by omitting the inhabitants of the villages in the areas contaminated by Chernobyl, the FRG measurement programme underestimated the radioactive charge of the Belarusian people.
PART THREE
SCIENCE
BEHIND BARS
Chapter I
YURY BANDAZHEVSKY:
A SCIENTIST BEYOND CONTROL
In 1994, Vassili Nesterenko met the founder and rector of the Gomel Medical Institute, the pathologist and doctor, Yury Bandazhevsky who, since 1991, has been investigating the causes of new diseases appearing among people living in the contaminated territories. With his wife Galina, a paediatrician and cardiologist, Bandazhevsky has discovered that the frequency and severity of the structural and functional alterations of the heart increase in proportion to the amount of radioactive caesium incorporated in the body. He calls this “caesium cardiomyopathy”: heart problems in young children, adolescents and adults, with myocardial degeneration. Death can occur suddenly at any age. Bandazhevsky and his team describe the “interrelated pathological processes in the heart, liver, kidney, endocrine organs as well as in the immune system”. All these injuries arise from the same pathological process that researchers have called “the syndrome of incorporated long-lived radionuclides”. These are the findings of a rigorous study into the health of thousands of adults and children, conducted by the staff at the research institute. For nine years, 25 medical professors have been working on the same subject, in three research areas: clinical, experimental (on animals in the laboratory), and anatomopathological. The Gomel Institute of Medicine has 200 teaching staff, 300 support staff and 1,500 students.
The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag Page 22