RE: Article: U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research

["Dukelow, James S Jr" <jim.dukelow@PNL.GOV>]

Title: RE: Article: U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research

Webster's Science news report strikes me a being pretty well balanced.  The offending phrase, "200 Hiroshima bombs' worth of radiation" is not a direct quote, but part of a summary of the assertions of Keith Baverstock, who, for better or worse, is the European radiation health advisor for WHO and who was apparently a driving force behind the creation of the (unfunded) International Chornobyl Research Network.  Webster describes at length the results of the UNSCEAR review of Chornobyl health research, quoting UNSCEAR's Norman Gentner and University of Munich Radiobiology Institute's Albrecht Kellerer, both of whom seem to view dimly the need for the proposed additional research.  Kellerer proposes putting time and money that would be spent studying the effects of the Chornoby accident into studies of the consequences of contamination of the Mayak region and exposure of workers  and those living in the region.

 

Strictly speaking, Chornobyl is the correct English transliteration of the Ukrainian spelling (in their version of Cyrillic) and pronunciation of Chernobyl/Chornoby/whatever.

 

Best regards.

 

Jim Dukelow

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Richland, WA

jim.dukelow@pnl.gov

 

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Franta, Jaroslav [mailto:frantaj@AECL.CA]
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 11:42 AM
To: 'Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS)'; 'RadSafe'
Subject: RE: Article: U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research

The article states that " ....the April 1986 explosion at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, .... spewed roughly 200 Hiroshima bombs' worth of radiation across a region of Eastern Europe....."

Hmmm -- would that be the prompt gamma & neutron radiation in the first millisecond of the blast, or the fission products which did not fall down on Hiroshima due to the altitude of the blast, or both, or what ? How do you compare radiation exposures with dose rates millions of times slower ?

I'm not surprised when I see this type of lame comparison in the popular media. But in Science Magazine ? That really sucks.

Jaro

PS. "Chornobyl" is reportedly the correct Ukrainian spelling of the name.
=====================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS) [mailto:jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov]
Sent: Friday October 25, 2002 2:13 PM
To: 'RadSafe'
Subject: Article: U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research

This link was sent to me and I thought I would send it along.  I always
spelled it Chernobyl.
-- John

John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD  20715-2024

E-mail:  jenday1@email.msn.com (H)     
----------------------------
LOW-DOSE RADIATION:
U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research
Paul Webster*

MOSCOW--The United Nations is mounting a last-ditch effort to reinvigorate
flagging interest in the long-term health consequences of the Chornobyl
disaster. At a meeting of U.N. agencies in New York City earlier this week,
the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
established a new organization, the International Chernobyl Research
Network, to mount a coordinated research program on the lingering impacts of
the world's most serious nuclear reactor accident. A concerted scientific
effort is necessary, it argues, "if the evidence is not to be lost forever."
Prospects for the new initiative are unclear, however. OCHA itself has no
money to launch new research projects, and expert opinion is split on the
network's scientific potential.
 
. . .

 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/298/5594/725a
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