The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag

by Wladimir Tchertkoff

  It might interest you to know that we have just began to look at exactly this subject with some French scientists. In the 1990’s, I was invited to a centre (not open to the public) of the Commissariat de l’Energie Atomique near Paris to present this book68. We had numerous discussions. Then they broke off all contact with us. But I think my research must have touched a raw nerve, because they always had my book with them. They even came out to Belarus to see me. They questioned me about it many times.

  68 Aspects cliniques et experimentaux de l’action des radionucleides incorpores dans l’organisme, (Clinical and experimental aspects of the action of radionuclides incorporated into the body), Gomel, 1995.

  Q.—So your ideas were new to them?

  Y. Bandazhevsky.—It’s difficult to say. They didn’t give their feelings away. Relations between us were excellent and then suddenly it all came to an end.

  He searches among his papers and gets out a map.

  Y. Bandazhevsky.—Here we are. I’ve found the name. It was the Institut de Protection et de Sûreté Nucléaire—IPSN—in Paris. They gave me this map showing atmospheric contamination above Moscow. I gave them the scientific study that I had done in 1996. And here is the Russian translation of the agreement that we drew up together: “Activities…Specific recommendations”…We agreed that “…given our common interest in conducting research together in the area of incorporated dose, the two institutes will collaborate in the following areas: effects of radionuclides on the human body; experimental research, clinical research”, etc. Then, suddenly it all came to an end. I don’t think I’ll ever know the exact reason, it’s obvious that you’re going to come up against obstacles in this area, but, nevertheless, I managed to see a lot with my own eyes. This enormous building with all these people directing all of that world wide. They only showed me one part of the centre; there are other buildings, an incredible number of laboratories, and fantastic equipment.

  At our first meeting we talked about the chemical action of caesium. At Gomel, we had some very lively discussions about radioprotection. We took part in a number of working groups and seminars together.

  2. THE FRENCH CONTEXT

  It would be interesting to understand the reasons for the comings and goings of the French between Paris and Gomel in 1996 and 1997, and also, to know what they have done or not done since then in their numerous laboratories. It was not long before Nesterenko and Bandazhevsky, in 1998, would severely criticise the register of doses presented by the Minister of Health in Belarus and the work that it oversaw at the Institute of Radiological Medicine. More importantly, it was not long before the police took action against the heretical Bandazhevsky, in 1999, and his French colleagues, who had been so interested in his research, had shown little interest in his fate since then.

  Various reforms had taken place within the French nuclear establishment since these brief encounters between Bandazhevsky and the French nuclear scientists, and Bandazhevsky could not have had any idea what was going on behind the scenes. At the beginning of 2005, tension was building between the ASN (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire) the “nuclear watchdog” in France, and some officials at the IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire) and this explains in part the apparently contradictory behaviour of some of the people who showed an interest in Bandazhevsky’s work. As professional researchers their interest had been genuine but fell away quite suddenly when plans for collaboration were drawn up.

  Originally the IPSN (Institut de Protection et de Sûreté Nucléaire), formed part of the CEA (Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique), which was created on 18th October 1945 with the aim of “pursuing scientific and technical research in the use of nuclear energy in the field of science, industry and national defence”. The 1945 statute brought together the civil and military wings of nuclear energy.

  Since then, some restructuring had taken place: at the beginning of the 1990’s, the IPSN formally separated from the mother ship, the CEA, and a number of people, with no connection to the CEA, were brought in to the scientific committee, to give the Institute a semblance of independence. In 2002, two new influential bodies were set up: the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) and the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) which replaced the IPSN. The ASN’s role was to issue warnings or give authorisation to companies like EDF and COGEMA. The ASN would be jointly overseen by three ministries, the Ministry of Industry, Environment and Health.

  The IRSN itself was formed when the OPRI (Office de Protection contre les Rayonnement Ionisants), predecessor of SCPRI (Service Central de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants), headed by the famous Professor Pellerin, joined forces with the IPSN, the organisation with whom Bandazhevsky had been in contact.

  The IRSN is the expert body on which the ASN depends to evaluate the safety of nuclear installations, and the public health risks associated with exposure to radiation. Its work is no longer overseen, as it has been historically, by the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) but by the five Ministries: Industry, Environment, Health, Research and Defence. The tensions that arose in early 2005 are most likely an indication of the dichotomy that Bandazhevsky came up against between the subjugation of scientific researchers to the military-industrial complex and the principle of independence, which is inseparable from science.

  Here is an explanation of the conflict as it was perceived in a newspaper article entitled:

  THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY

  Research organisation believes its independence is threatened

  by the Nuclear Safety Authority.

  Experts at the IRSN are worried

  In fact it is the very purpose of the organisation that was set up only three years ago to reform the nuclear industry that is being challenged. One of the aims of this reform was to clarify, precisely, the respective roles of the scientists and the decisions makers, and for this reason, the IRSN was granted a certain level of independence.

  But in drawing up the contract of objectives that the IRSN must sign with the government […], the ASN seems to be trying to rein in the IRSN. “The IRSN was created in order to achieve a separation between those doing the monitoring and those being monitored”, writes the ASN director, Andre-Claude Lacoste, in a letter to the directors of the IRSN…”but its objective is not to separate scientific expertise from management and should not have the effect of distancing one from the other: they should be partners in a supplier-client relationship…”

  “This goes against the spirit of the reform!” retorts Francois Rollinger, an official of the CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail). Furthermore, the nuclear watchdog claims that “it would be useful if the IRSN’s findings were made available to the public, with certain reservations,[…] that the content does not lend itself to erroneous or malicious interpretation, that it contains only objective facts”. These “reservations” are interpreted by some as “avoiding making public any contentious issues”, of which there are many surrounding the nuclear industry. It is unlikely that this concept of transparency would be shared by all those working in the organisation. […]

  Does this mean that the IRSN is unable to undertake investigations on its own initiative, or respond to demands for information from other organisations? […]

  The director general of the IRSN, Jacques Repussard has distanced himself from some of the ASN director’s statements: he does not accept that “the IRSN was not created with the aim of separating scientific expertise from inspection” and confirms that “our research is made available to the public and will continue to be so”. When asked whether the IRSN today has the means to be autonomous, his answer is clear: “That remains to be seen”.

  Caroline de Malet, Le Figaro, 2nd February 2005

  These two faces of the French scientific establishment offer some hope of its independence of spirit, which, if not apparent in their written statements or in the ability to take
on board new information, can be seen in the differing responses of the two scientists and senior officials interviewed by Jean-Michel Jacqemin-Raffestin69, when he sought their opinion about Bandazhevsky’s report on “The role of radioactive caesium in pathologies of the thyroid gland”. Here are their replies.

  69 Tchernobyl, aujourd’hui les français malades (Chernobyl, today the French are ill), Editions du Rocher, June 2001.

  Jean-Francois Lacronique, a cancer specialist, and president of OPRI at the time of the interview, in 2001:

  As a matter of fact, it is a really interesting report and should be taken very seriously! It is embarrassing in so far as it is extremely difficult to refute. My colleagues at the IPSN are already familiar with Bandazhevsky’s theses. We have all spoken about the subject together, and they have been to Gomel and to Minsk to meet Bandazhevsky.

  It seems that this man wanted to set up an international centre and was looking for funding. Sometimes the search for funds involves venturing beyond strict ethical boundaries. I think that’s what got him into difficulties with his government. And besides, what he writes doesn’t go down that well with the international scientific community; he has put himself forward as an original thinker. He deliberately chose to publish his work himself.

  The documents that I have read are remarkably well done and conform to Western standards. There is the matter of his curriculum vitae, so the problems remain.

  His thesis that if someone dies and high levels of caesium are found in the organs it can be concluded that the cause of death was the caesium, is a valid scientific hypothesis because, although a cause-effect relationship has not been established, it is a plausible explanation. I believe it should be taken seriously, and as with all scientific hypotheses, it should be looked at again and confirmed by others. Personally, I take Bandazhevsky’s work very seriously and rather than saying “it is not recognised scientifically”, I would say that other teams should work on the same hypothesis in order to reproduce the result or to refute it.

  I would like to make the following comments. It seems to me that for a scientist, the result of an experiment, if correctly undertaken, should not be “embarrassing” All credit to Lacronique for suggesting that other teams repeat the experiment in order to confirm or refute the result, though unfortunately, as far as I know, no such experiment has been undertaken by his organisation, unless it has taken place in secret. Contrary to what Lacronique says, a causal relationship has been established by Bandazhevsky, and is the most significant part of this “expertly written” research. As far as his other comments are concerned, Lacronique seems to know very little about the political context in Belarus and about the state of the judicial system there, if he can conclude even before the verdict was announced on 18th June 200170, that Bandazhevsky is guilty. As a citizen of the country that first introduced human rights, it is hardly the response one might expect to the plight of a fellow scientist. As for “originality”—according to M. Lacronique, Bandazhevsky “deliberately chose to publish his own work himself”—I hope that this book will show quite clearly that Bandazhevsky’s isolation from the scientific community is very easily explained by the national and international context, rather than by some peculiarity in his character.

  70 See Part Seven, Chapter 1, page 476.

  And here is André Aurengo, chief medical officer in nuclear medicine for the Pitié-Salpetrière group of hospitals and a French representative at UNSCEAR71:

  71 United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, set up by the United Nations General Assembly to evaluate world wide doses of radiation, their effects and the risk they entail.

  Bandazhevsky’s reports are not written in the classical scientific style, and so it is extremely difficult to comment. His methodology is very obscure and it is hard to understand what he has observed, how he has observed it, and what is his control group, etc. Bandazhevsky’s report simply poses a lot of questions, which need further analysis and verification and which cannot really be considered to have been answered. What he writes is not convincing, and, as it stands, no serious international journal would publish his report because of these methodological flaws.

  On the other hand, whatever Bandazhevsky does, says or writes about the subject, it is unacceptable that he be treated in the way that is being reported. Persecuting a scientist (or anyone) for opinions that go against the grain is monstrous, and I would willingly sign any petition to allow him to work and to communicate as he wishes, though this is not to say I endorse his work from a scientific point of view.

  How odd. Did the two scientists have the same document in front of them?

  Professor Aurengo speaks with authority as one of France’s representatives at UNSCEAR. He dismisses Bandazhevsky’s work, without explaining the methodological weaknesses in the research carried out by the Gomel institute. A spokesperson has an important responsibility. For scientists such as Aurengo, it means verifying observations that do not conform to the dogma derived from research undertaken following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions.

  Scientists should have the courage or curiosity to look at the facts as they appear at Chernobyl and to make use of the results that have been found by the researchers at Gomel, at least as a working hypothesis. What one would not expect is that these scientists ignore Bandazhevsky for ten years, stand by while he is put in prison, as his colleagues at the Ministry of Health in Minsk did, and then offer to sign a petition to free him after these humiliations.

  In any case, the two French scientists have at least one thing in common: each in his own way abandoned a colleague who was being persecuted for dissident opinions. One was able to acknowledge Bandazhevsky’s worth as a scientist and the excellence of his research but joined in with the slander about corruption. The other presents himself as a defender of Bandazhevsky’s (or any other individual’s) right to the free expression of his opinions, even if those opinions have no significance because they are apparently “obscure” and “unpublishable”. He “does not understand” and in this way is able to avoid presenting the merits of the argument,—but does not give a very flattering image of his mental capacities, given that his colleague at OPRI had no problem understanding Bandazhevsky’s work. Is it possible that, because he is not an anatomical pathologist, Aurengo really has not grasped the mechanisms described by Bandazhevsky about the effects of proximity of incorporated radionuclides on the body? The results of a serious scientific investigation that repeated Bandazhevsky’s experiments would have contributed to his release and allowed him to present his research at an international level.

  A final observation: Lacronique states that “Bandazhevsky’s work was known to his colleagues at the IPSN”. They visited him in Gomel and in Minsk. Bandazhevsky reveals that he was even invited to Paris, in the mid 1990s. So, it is clear that for ten years, the French scientists knew perfectly well what the average reader will already have understood. Basically, there is a simple but crucial difference between the violent external exposure to radiation from the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the low level internal exposure by the ingestion or inhalation of microscopic radioactive particles at Chernobyl. The proximity effect did not need to be extrapolated from mathematical calculations, but could be measured directly, using a radiometer, during autopsy (for example, in the heart). The number of becquerels incorporated in the tissue, could be measured and then Bandazhevsky could link it to the histological sections of damaged tissue in the organ. He discovered a constant, linear and statistically significant correlation between the level of incorporated becquerels and the lesions observed. This is not Bandazhevsky’s “thesis” but a simple observation. It is a classic experiment, verified and repeated in clinical examination of children and by laboratory experiments on animals. Given their professional expertise, the French scientists will have understood the real significance of these findings far quicker than the average reader,
during the hours they spent with Bandazhevsky. A collaboration was proposed. And then it was quietly dropped.

  And it was only on 28th November 2005 (ten years after!) that the IRSN, as the IPSN is now known, published its “Response to the ECRR report”72 in which it recommends that “research should be initiated in response to questions concerning the population living in the contaminated territories in Eastern Europe”. I am neither a doctor nor a physicist, and cannot comment on the specific criticisms the IRSN makes of the ECRR report (in which they do, however, recognise that the fundamental thesis is “valid and merits debate”), but as a simple concerned European citizen, I am appalled by the absolute passivity, the negligence, the ignorance of the scientific establishment, concerning the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, a unique phenomenon in the history of science. Twenty years have gone by since the disaster, and more than ten, since Bandazhevsky, the only anatomical pathologist conducting research where it was needed, communicated his findings, and we are still no further on.

  72 The report published in 2003 by the European Committee on Radiation Risk severely criticises part of the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, adopted by the European Directive of 13th May 1996 and then by the French government, in 2002.