Panic around Chernobyl harmed people more than radiation

In March, we marked the 8th anniversary of the Fukushima accident (11 March 2011), which is portrayed as a “new Chernobyl”. Germany subsequently announced that it would close all its nuclear power plants by 2022. In January 2019, the German government announced that it would also close its 84 coal-fired power plants within 20 years. The sword of Damocles of an energy blackout hangs over Germany.

If we are to seek effective alternatives to fossil fuels, we cannot do without nuclear energy. Germany’s energy suicide, which will leave it dependent on electricity imports, illustrates this very clearly. But myths (urban legends) that distort the benefits and risks of nuclear energy stand in the way. [1] One need only read the “myths about Chernobyl” section on the website of the city of Pripyat, a short distance from Chernobyl, to find that everything is somewhat different from what we have believed all our lives. [2]

Long-held assumptions were shaken as early as 2005 by the World Health Organization, which organised an international forum (with the participation of the governments of the affected countries) to assess 20 years of research into the impacts of the accident. The report, entitled “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environment and Socio-Economic Impacts”, can be downloaded in full [3], or readers can consult the WHO press release, “Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident”. [4]

The press release begins as follows: Up to 4,000 people could eventually die as a result of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident almost 20 years ago. These are the conclusions of an international team of more than 100 scientists. By 2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths could be attributed to the effects of radiation exposure. Almost all involved emergency workers who received high doses of radiation; many of them died within a few months of the accident, though some did not die until 2004.

Fifty deaths is surprisingly few for the largest nuclear disaster in history. But where does the figure of 4,000 people who might – perhaps – die, but have not yet died, come from?

I further quote from the report’s summary: “The number of deaths from cancer caused by radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident cannot be reliably estimated with any precision… Projections indicate that, among the most affected populations (accident cleanup workers, evacuees, residents of the most strictly controlled area), total cancer mortality may increase by up to several percent because of radiation exposure from the accident. This could mean up to several thousand additional cancer deaths, an increase on the roughly one hundred thousand cancer deaths expected among these populations from causes other than radiation. An increase of this magnitude is, however, very difficult to detect, even with very careful epidemiological studies.”

This does not mean that nobody was affected. But it is simply not an increase of hundreds of percent, as one might expect. Ukraine and Belarus do not rank among the countries with the highest incidence of cancer per 100,000 inhabitants, as a glance at any statistical yearbook will confirm.

The Greens group in the European Parliament was disappointed (or rather appalled) by the optimistic tone of the WHO, and so commissioned its own report (under the acronym TORCH), [5] which, as expected, greatly inflated the death toll. This alarmist report received greater media attention because sensational stories sell. Dr Fairlie, who wrote it, was also given space in Czech media (headline: “Chernobyl is still killing: another 40,000 people will die from cancer, scientist claims”). [6] However, newspapers did not mention that Dr Fairlie had been commissioned by the Greens group. They did, quite rightly, report the disagreement of Czech scientists, who criticised the linking of the recent increase in cancer incidence with Chernobyl.

A spokesperson for the Institute of Health Information and Statistics, which falls under the Czech Ministry of Health, said at the time: “These data and trends cannot in any way be linked to events in Chernobyl 30 years ago.” Petr Vlček, head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Endocrinology at Motol University Hospital, said of the increase in thyroid cancers: “If it depended solely on Chernobyl, then the numbers of virtually all cancers would have to rise. Only the small ones are increasing.” [6, 8]

Cancer incidence is indeed rising worldwide. See, for example, the article “WHO releases alarming figures: cancer is getting out of control”. [7] But this cannot be attributed to Chernobyl. The increase in detected cases of cancer occurred only for small tumours that are difficult to detect. This is because they had previously escaped attention, until the wave of interest led to more thorough examinations of the population and greater prevention. There was therefore no deterioration in health, but rather an improvement in detection. This is documented, for example, by a 2016 study in The New England Journal of Medicine.[8]

TORCH itself acknowledges (p. 16) that the effects of radiation were generally low and therefore difficult to detect: “Only large, expensive and lengthy epidemiological studies can reveal effects where the signal (an increase in cancer incidence) is weak and the data noise (a high natural incidence of cancer) is strong. More often, we see a series of small studies, each showing only a few additional cases of illness, which does not prove much.”

Yet while the Greens’ report received extensive attention in Czech media, hardly anyone here has heard of the World Health Organization report. For journalists, good news is not news. I have perhaps only come across Brezina’s 2006 article; otherwise, silence.[9]

What is the source of the public’s apocalyptic ideas about Chernobyl? First, there are the staggering numbers of hundreds of thousands of evacuees who were relocated from the area. The image of abandoned, depopulated cities overgrown with grass evokes a landscape after nuclear war, although no nuclear explosion occurred at Chernobyl.

Many people imagine that there was some sort of mushroom cloud over Chernobyl. There is not even a crater there. There was only a conventional explosion, not a nuclear one, and a fire. As a result, clouds of contaminated radioactive vapour escaped into the atmosphere for days. Did you know that the plant’s other units continued generating electricity until 2000?

The figure that the contaminated area includes five million people also sounds frightening. What is not said, however, is that the contamination is very low (10 – 20 mSv). People evacuated from the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl received radiation doses of 30 – 50 mSv. Far greater exposure was received by hundreds of thousands of accident cleanup workers, who received total doses of 100 to 200 mSv. [10]

These sound like high figures, but let us compare them with an X-ray examination at a hospital. The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) [11] states that X-ray examinations are not dangerous if effective radiation doses are below 50 mSv for a single examination or below 100 mSv for several examinations over a short period. The occupational health limit for workers who handle radiation is 20 mSv per year.

This applies to adults, of course. Children’s bodies are more vulnerable, which is why pregnant women are not sent for X-rays. This is also why Chernobyl is associated with an increase in thyroid tumours among children, which fortunately are easily treatable.

For comparison, there are areas on Earth – especially at higher altitudes, where more cosmic radiation falls – where natural radiation is higher than the global average of 2.4 mSv per year… even as high as 260 mSv per year.[12] Surprisingly, they have a lower incidence of cancer, perhaps because local organisms have developed better self-repair mechanisms (known in English as “hormesis”).

Unfortunately, it has become customary to blame every health impairment in Ukraine on Chernobyl. Everyone has surely seen people with disabilities in the media described as victims of Chernobyl (the so-called Children of Chernobyl). For example, the legless athlete reported on by Blesk. [13] It is undoubtedly a personal tragedy. Journalistic hyenas love such stories. But it is not true that the area experienced an unusual increase in the frequency of disabilities. Taking an individual case out of the overall context is unprofessional.

A typical media line reads: “People with disabilities are still being born in Ukraine.” Yes. People with disabilities are born all over the world. They always have been. The BBC: “British paediatrician Rachel Furly says that, in the most serious cases, children are born without limbs, and in one case a child was born with two heads.” [14] Such shocking things really do happen. The ancient Greeks already knew of polycephaly (see Wiki). But they do not happen in Ukraine any more often than at the other end of the world.

If you Google “horrors of Chernobyl”, you will be confronted with images of horribly deformed mutants. This is a typical “hoax” assembled from photographs that often have nothing whatsoever to do with Chernobyl. It is sad when the tabloid press misuses fiction on the level of The X-Files as cheap sensationalism. For futile attempts to find mutant animals near Chernobyl, see an article in Vesmír magazine from 2001.[15]

To understand such a complex issue, filming one person with a disability is not enough; long-term epidemiological studies are needed to examine the health records of an entire country or region over decades.

I quote from the WHO report (Summary): “Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer among persons exposed at a young age, there has been no demonstrated increase in the incidence of cancer and leukaemia as a result of radiation exposure in the most affected populations.” The incidence of thyroid tumours in children rose significantly at the time, but mortality did not, because the problem can be detected and treated early.

Any journalist can find the nearest healthcare facility in a telephone directory, photograph someone with a disability there and declare: “Behold, a victim of Chernobyl.” Organisations helping people with disabilities in Ukraine likewise have no incentive not to play the Chernobyl card. Raising money for the sick is not easy, and every argument is useful.

An older 2002 UN report entitled Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident states: “The UN is convinced that most of the deformed children photographed by Western charities to secure funding have nothing to do with Chernobyl, but rather have ordinary deformities that occur at a low rate in every population.” [16, 17]

And again from the WHO press release: “Confusion over the impacts is compounded by the fact that thousands of people in irradiated areas died of natural causes. At the same time, expectations spread that people would suffer illnesses from radiation exposure. This has led local residents to tend to attribute all health problems to radiation exposure, and consequently to regard the number of deaths caused by Chernobyl as much higher than it actually is.”

Above all, this passage: “Because radiation doses were so low, there is no evidence of an effect on the number of abortions, pregnancy problems, birth complications or children’s overall health. A slight but persistent increase in detected congenital deformities has been observed in both contaminated and uncontaminated areas of Belarus, but this is clearly due to improved detection, not radiation.”

Alarmists who dislike the cited WHO report have tried to find evidence of an increase in newborn deformities in Ukraine. Reuters, for example, reported in 2010 on research by Dr Wladimir Wertelecki [18, 19], who analysed in detail data from the Rivne district in Ukraine. He found that neural tube defects (NTDs) were more frequent there than the European average. Let us examine this example. I understand that some people do not trust governments, which downplay their failures, while others do not trust activists, who exaggerate problems, so the best approach is to delve personally into the scientific data.

Wertelecki examined the health records of approximately 96,000 children born in 2000 – 2006. He found that there were 22 affected children per 10,000, higher than the European average of 9. Unfortunately, Reuters journalists cannot read statistical data and do not understand what this means.

It is misleading to compare poor Ukraine with the European average, which represents the richest part of the world. Health status correlates strongly with living standards. Elsewhere in the world, figures such as 20:10,000 are entirely common, including in China, Ireland and Argentina. In countries such as Turkey and India, figures well above 20 are also common. [20]

Thus, Wertelecki’s research – despite misleading Reuters headlines – merely underscores the reassuring conclusions of the WHO. A figure of 22 does not match the media image of Chernobyl. For the largest nuclear disaster in history, I would expect an incidence more like two thousand out of ten thousand children, and so on.

But by juggling statistics, one can create the illusion of a gigantic disaster at will. It is enough, for example, to compare Rivne with a developed country where the incidence of NTDs is around 5:10,000. One can then write that Chernobyl caused an increase in disabilities of hundreds of percent compared with the “normal” level. That such headlines deprive local residents of peaceful sleep? Sensation hunters do not care.

In summary, it is possible that the irradiated population has a slightly higher incidence of health problems than it would have had without Chernobyl. However, its mortality and morbidity do not deviate from what is common even in places where no radiation exposure occurred.

People in Ukraine were harmed far more than by radiation by the panic spread by the media. Evacuees lost their homes and became dependent on the help of others. They see themselves as disabled because they were told they face terrible illnesses. Half a million people, comprising accident cleanup workers and evacuees, were given the right to call themselves “victims of Chernobyl”, and this term entitled them to various social benefits (a “coffin allowance”, as they poetically call it). Naturally, they inferred from this that terrible disabilities awaited them. Otherwise, nobody would give them money for free. These people have spent decades living in fear that they will certainly have deformed children or that they themselves will succumb to terrible illnesses. The frightened public is afraid to eat food grown in Ukraine, so local farmers have lost their livelihoods.

Unfortunately, the economic incentive to keep the “Chernobyl lie” alive is substantial. Local residents who declare themselves “victims of Chernobyl” receive social benefits. That money matters to people; it is a poor country. NGOs raising money for people with disabilities also have no reason to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The Chernobyl brand is excellent for fundraising. Then there are tabloid media, which calculate that a horror photograph on the front cover will sell more copies. But the psychological damage caused by this trade in fear is incalculable.

CHART 2: Responses to the question: “Do you think you have radiation sickness?” In 1990, 263 people from contaminated villages and 263 people from control, uncontaminated villages responded. [21]

Three years after the power plant explosion, a commission of the International Atomic Energy Agency conducted an investigation in Ukraine.[21] It found no clear health consequences, apart from the 50 deaths mentioned above, but noted that half the population nevertheless believed it had radiation sickness. Fears of radiation exposure had serious psychological effects: high blood pressure, sleep problems, increased alcohol consumption and depression.

This is the dark side of “the precautionary principle”. Post-traumatic stress caused by… not telling the truth.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” (F. D. Roosevelt, 1933)

Originally written for OSEL.cz

REFERENCES

[1]A nuclear explosion and ecological catastrophe? These are the biggest myths about Chernobyl. Eurozpravy.cz 10 February 2019.

[2] http://pripyat.com/en/articles/ten-myths-about-chernobyl-disaster.html

[3] Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environment and Socio-Economic Impacts

[4] Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident

[5] TORCH: The Other Report on Chernobyl (Greens/EFA in European Parliament, 2006).

[6] Chernobyl is still killing: another 40,000 people will die from cancer, scientist claims

[7] WHO releases alarming figures: cancer is getting out of control

[8] Vaccarella, S. Worldwide Thyroid-Cancer Epidemic? The Increasing Impact of Overdiagnosis. The New England Journal of Medicine, 2016, Vol. 375, p. 614-617.

[9] Brezina, I. Fear killed, not the atom. MF Dnes. 25 April 2006.

[10] Gale, R.P., Lax, E. Radiation: What It Is, What You Need to Know. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013, page 94

[11] AAPM Position Statement on Radiation Risks from Medical Imaging Procedures. 13 December 2011.

[12] Vaiserman, A. et al. “Health Impacts of Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation: Current Scientific Debates and Regulatory Issues” Dose-response : a publication of International Hormesis Society, 2018, Vol. 16,3.

[13] Blesk: Children of Chernobyl: Tatsiana was born without legs and became a successful athlete

[14] Chernobyl’s legacy 30 years on. BBC. 26 April 2016.

[15] Glazko, V and T. Genetic consequences of Chernobyl, myths and reality. Vesmír 85, 201, 2006/4.

[16] ‘Myth’ of Chernobyl suffering exposed. Guardian, 6 January 2002,

[17] Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. UNICEF and UNDEP, 22 January 2002

[18] Higher birth-defect rate seen in Chernobyl area. Reuters 24 March 2010.

[19] Wertelecki, W. Malformations in a Chernobyl Impacted Region. Pediatrics, 2010, Vol. 125, p. 834 – 843.

[20] Zaganjor I, Sekkarie A, Tsang BL, Williams J, Razzaghi H, Mulinare J, et al. (2016) Describing the Prevalence of Neural Tube Defects Worldwide: A Systematic Literature Review. PLoS ONE 11(4)
[21] Ginzburg, H.M. The psychological consequences of the Chernobyl accident–findings from the International Atomic Energy Agency Study. Public Health Reports. 1993 Mar-Apr; 108(2): 184–192