UN again Chernobyl 'Myth.' LNT fraud at risk!

["Jim Muckerheide" <jmuckerheide@cnts.wpi.edu>]

Friends, 

 

Confirming the LNT fraud continues! Maybe its time that we reconsider

radiation health effects and radiation protection policies that

increasingly demonstrate only a willingness to defraud the public!? (As

the head of one national program hissed at me in 1999, "You just want to

kill the golden goose!")

 

Note that the UN reports here are NOT just UNSCEAR, but the Development

Programme and UNICEF!

 

Do you have access to the UN Report, or other media reports?

 

Regards, Jim Muckerheide

Radiation, Science, and Health

====================

 'Myth' of Chernobyl suffering exposed 



Relocation and hand-outs have caused more illness than radiation, a new

UN study concludes. 



Anthony Browne

Sunday January 6, 2002

The Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk>  



It is seen as the worst man-made disaster in history, killing tens of

thousands, making tens of millions ill, and afflicting generations to

come. Exhibitions of photographs of the deformed victims have toured the

world, raising funds and awareness. 



Now a report from the United Nations on the consequences of the

Chernobyl nuclear disaster 15 years after the event comes to a very

different conclusion. It says the medical effects of radiation are far

less than was thought. The biggest damage to health has instead come

from hypochondria and well-meaning but misguided attempts to help

people. 



The report suggests the reloca tion of hundreds of thousands of people

'destroyed communities, broke up families, and led to unemployment,

depression, and stress-related illnesses'. Generous welfare benefits,

holidays, food and medical help given to anyone declared a victim of

Chernobyl have created a dependency culture, and created a sense of

fatalism in millions of people. 



The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, published by

the UN Development Programme and Unicef, is a challenge to those who

seek to highlight the dangers of nuclear energy. 



More than 100 emergency workers on the site of the accident on 26 April

1986 suffered radiation sickness, and 41 of them died. The biggest

direct consequences of the radiation are increases in childhood thyroid

cancer, normally a very rare disease, that increased 60-fold in Belarus,

40-fold in Ukraine, and 20-fold in Russia, totalling 1,800 cases in all.

The report says other evidence of increases in radiation-related

diseases is very limited. 'Intensive efforts to identify an excess of

leukaemia in the evacuated and controlled zone populations and recovery

workers were made without success. There remains no internationally

accredited evidence of an excess of leukaemia.' There is also no

evidence of an increase in other cancers, and there has been no

statistical increase in deformities in babies. The only deformities

related to radiation were among babies of pregnant women working on the

site at the time of the explosion. 



The UN believes most of the deformed babies photographed by Western

charities to raise funds have nothing to do with Chernobyl, but are the

normal deformities that occur at a low level in every population. 'The

direct effect of radiation is not that substantial,' said Oksana

Garnets, head of the UN Chernobyl programme. 'There is definitely far

more psychosomatic illness than that caused by radiation.' 



The evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, particularly from

less contaminated areas, is seen as an over-reaction, which in some

cases did more harm than good. 'The first reaction was to move people

out. Only later did we think that perhaps some of them shouldn't have

been moved. It has become clear that the direct influence of radiation

on health is actually much less that the indirect consequences on health

of relocating hundreds of thousands of people,' Garnets said. 



Among relocated populations, there has been a massive increase in

stress-related illnesses, such as heart disease and obesity, unrelated

to radiation. 



The UN is concerned about the corrosive effects of handouts to those

classified as Chernobyl victims. In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, they

get more than 50 different privileges and benefits, including monthly

payments and free school meals, medical treatment and holidays. In

Ukraine, 'victims' get up to $100 a month. 



In Ukraine, 92,000 people have been officially designated as permanently

disabled, and half of the population says their health has been

affected. 



'There is an incentive to get classified as a victim. People getting

benefits think they should get more and more. They think everything

should be done for them by someone else - it creates a huge sense of

fatalism and pessimism, which means they don't get on with their life,'

Garnets said. 



In the largely deserted village of Chernobyl, 18km from the reactor and

deep inside the government's total exclusion zone, the UN's report was

welcomed among the 600 people who have illegally returned to their old

homes. 



Nina Melnik, 47, who edits a local newsletter, said: 'I don't just know

that relocating people killed more than the radiation did, it is

scientifically proven. It was totally the wrong thing to do. They should

open up the area and let everyone come back.' 



anthony.browne@observer.co.uk 



 



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