HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
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UNITE! Info #119en: 2/2 More Chernobyl horror hoaxes
[Posted: 07.05.00]
[Continued from part 1/2]
APPENDICES
To my reply to Marco Saba, in part 1/2, I'm appending here,
first, as Appendix 1, those outrageously incorrect "reports"
concerning "effects" today of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986
which appeared yesterday on the Activist mailing list, and a
brief reply of mine to the first of them.
After this, a 1996 article by Rod Adams is reproduced, as
Appendix 2: "Chernobyl health effects".
APPENDIX 1.
A)
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Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 20:23:36 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Beth von Gunten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Activist_List] Chernobyl Kills and Cripples
14 Years Later
Chernobyl Kills and Cripples 14 Years Later
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a new UN report on the con-
tinuing effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 which
spread a radioactive cloud over Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and
western Europe, states that:
"Chernobyl is a word we would all like to erase from our memo-
ry... More than 7 million of our fellow human beings do not have
the luxury of forgetting. They are still suffering, everyday, as
a result of what happened... Not until 2016, at the earliest,
will be known the full number of those likely to develop serious
medical conditions."
The report cites 3 million children require treatment and many
will die prematurely.
The Ukraine Minister of Health Olha Bobyleva said that consump-
tion of radioactive food produced in the northern and central
Ukraine regions of Kiev, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Cherkassy and Riv-
ne pose continuous public health dangers.
(Reuters 4/21/00)
B)
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Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 20:33:20 +0200 (MET DST)
To: "Activist Mailing List" <Activist_List@listbot.
com>
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rolf Martens)
Subject: Re: [Activist_List] Chernobyl Kills and Cripples
14 Years Later
Beth von Gunten,
That which you quoted below, from some people who should know
better, is simply not true and is part of, respectively, a re-
sult of, a certain very nasty bourgeois propaganda campaign.
The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was serious enough. It cost the
lives of some 41 people and caused considerable damage. (And it
most certainly was no "accident" but a willed event, on the part
of certain people, just as was that near Harrisburg in the US in
1979, as a number of facts show.)
But certain "reports" by media and politicians, such as this
one, in the 14 years since then, have wrongly blown the effects
of this disaster [up] out of all proportion, and *this* has
caused quite enormous damage; in some ways, it has been even
worse than this disaster in itself.
*No* "radioactive cloud" (if by this is meant an actually harm-
ful one) was spread over Russia, Belarus or western Europe, for
instance - nor over most parts of the Ukraine itself either.
This quite contrary to a certain propaganda syndrome in which
many governments have taken part.
As demonstrated (again) in a recent doctor degree thesis, people
in the city of Lund in southern Sweden - just to take one detail
concerning the matter - received tens of times as much radioac-
tive cesium from the atmospheric A-bomb tests in the 60s as
they did from Chernobyl "fallout", and those levels of this
stuff (which they got in the 60s) by no means were harmful
either.
You and others could look up some sites on the actual health ef-
fects from "Chernobyl" where some actual experts are informing
on this, in contrast to what certain politicians are saying for
purely political reasons, which is quite outrageously wrong.
Rolf M.
You wrote:
>
>Chernobyl Kills and Cripples 14 Years Later
.......
[Rest of the quote snipped here; see A above]
C)
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Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 01:52:07 +0100
From: Marco Saba <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Activist Mailing List <Activist_List@listbot.
com>
Subject: [Activist_List] Chernobyl, another Martens
misinformation
Mr Rolf Martens from Sweden is carrying out a campaign to tell
that nuclear is safe. But he even don't know what is happening
in his own land. Here an article to open your eyes (from:
http://stop-u238.i.am) and a question: Who's behind Rolf
Martens?
THE NUCLEAR POWER DECEPTION
Radioactive Reindeer: the Chernobyl Legacy
Fallout from the Chernobyl disaster has all but exterminated the
last of Norway's original Laplanders.
When reactor 4 of Chernobyl's nuclear power station exploded on
the 26th of April 1986, the whole world panicked. Throughout the
northern hemisphere, whole herds of livestock were systematical-
ly slaughtered, whilst as far afield as England, schoolchildren
were warned off their tea-time milk. The media festered on the
horrific mess. Even today "Chernobyl" is an adjective for disas-
ter. But few have heard the story of the Saami people.
The Saami, who were the original Laplanders in the regions now
know as northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, fought
their way into contemporary society through a minefield of colo-
nisation, oppression and disease. Their huge nomadic pastures
have been eaten up by land grabbers, and in Norway it has only
been through grudging state intervention that they haven't dis-
appeared altogether: in 1933, the government recognised the
Saami's nomadic reindeer-herding tradition, granting them sole
rights to the ancient industry.
But the Chernobyl disaster has jeopardised even this fragile
stability. For just days after the explosion, the Saami's rein-
deer, whose meat they both eat and trade, became highly radioac-
tive. The animals are particularly vulnerable because of their
propensity for eating lichen which itself grows without roots,
sapping all its nutrients from the air.
When the air was filled with radioactive particles that April,
the lichen naturally absorbed them, storing them at high concen-
trations and passing them straight on to the reindeer.
The Norwegian government did their best to avert a livestock
crisis. Overnight, the official radiation tolerance levels per
kilogram of reindeer meat were increased 20-fold, from 300 bq/kg
in May to 6,000 bq/kg in November of the same year. But such
dubious legislation made little difference. In 1988 alone, 545
tonnes of reindeer carcass had to be disposed of as toxic waste.
The Saami have been sorely affected. Their primary source of
food is still completely contaminated, and absent thousands of
personalised Geiger counters, it is impossible for them to dis-
tinguish between those reindeer massively over-contaminated and
those which pass the government's (albeit questionable) safety
levels. Fish, berries, and other available food have been simi-
larly poisoned. As a result, the incidence of thyroid and other
cancers has risen.
Trade in reindeer has been their monopoly, and the basis of
their autonomy. Since the disaster in Chernobyl, the Saami peop-
le have lost that autonomy, and have become dependants on the
state. As more and more of the 19,000 remaining Norwegian Saami
turn to the government for support, generations of skills and
cultural practices, which for centuries, have passed by word of
mouth from parent to child, are being lost.
While Chernobyl exploded the myth of safety surrounding nuclear
power in the West, it undermined the very existence of the Saami
people.
-Sara Bell
--------------------------------------------------
Rolf Martens wrote:
.........
[See B above]
APPENDIX 2.
ATOMIC ENERGY INSIGHTS (ROD ADAMS)
ON CHERNOBYL HEALTH EFFECTS, 1996
Article reproduced from homepage of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc:
<http://www.openweb.com/AAE/>. Earlier posted by me as part of
Info #73en on 17.07.1998. - RM
ATOMIC ENERGY INSIGHTS
Volume 2, Issue 1 April 1996
----------------------------------------------------------------
Chernobyl Health Effects
Best Available Data
The health effects of the accident at Chernobyl have been the
subject of numerous intensive studies. Here are the results.
Two people died during the accident itself; one was killed by
the explosion and one suffered a heart attack. A third person
died early the next morning from thermal burns (he was scalded
by steam.) 237 people were initially diagnosed as suffering from
acute radiation exposure and were hospitalized for treatment. Of
those, 21 were estimated to have received doses ranging from 6
to 16 Gy (600 to 1600 RAD) over a short period of exposure. 20
of the 21 died in spite of intensive medical attention including
some highly publicized bone marrow transplants.
Many of these highly exposed people were fire fighters who had
severe thermal and radiation induced burns covering much of
their body. These burns greatly complicated their treatment.
Twenty-one patients received acute doses of between 4 and 6 Gy
(400 to 600 RAD). Of those 7 died. 55 people received acute do-
ses between 2 and 4 Gy with one death. No deaths occurred among
the 140 hospitalized people with exposures below 2 Gy.
Therefore, the immediate death toll from the accident was 31.
Since the accident, 11 more deaths - possibly caused by radia-
tion - have occurred among the population of highly exposed
people, bringing the death toll to 42.
Some of the patients continue to require periodic treatment for
radiation related illnesses. None of the highly exposed people
were members of the general public; all received their exposure
because of occupational responsibilities related to the nuclear
plant or casualty control.
Long Term Radiation Effects
That answer rarely satisfies people who are curious about the
effects of the accident. There have been far too many widely
published stories about cancers, birth defects, thyroid disor-
ders or other symptoms.
The best estimate of radiation related illness is that there
have been approximately 500-600 excess cases of thyroid cancer,
mostly in children, in the areas most affected by the radioac-
tive fallout. As of early 1996, three deaths have been associa-
ted with this disease. There is some speculation among scien-
tists that the potassium iodide pills given to prevent I-131 up-
take by the thyroid may have contributed to the cancers. In
areas where iodide was not administered, only two cancers have
appeared.
There have been no excess leukemias, congenital abnormalities,
adverse pregnancy outcomes or any other radiation induced
disease in the general population.
Other Health Effects
There have been other health effects from the accident that are
far more disturbing, mainly because they could have been pre-
vented.
One effect has been an increase in stress related illnesses. The
stress can be attributed to both fear of radiation and to the
severe dislocation of people caused by government ordered eva-
cuations.
Many of the peasants in the area near the Chernobyl power plant
lived in the same village where their ancestors had lived for
centuries. In some cases, they were evacuated without any be-
longings or other resources, even when there was little chance
of being exposed to additional doses of radiation.
The fear of radiation is a natural result of years worth of in-
tensive propaganda campaigns and a general lack of knowledge of
recorded health effects. People generally fear things they do
not understand, especially when they have been repeatedly told
by authority figures that their fear is justified.
The level of reported stress or psychological impact also seems
to have been affected by the government program designed to com-
pensate the victims. People who claim to have been negatively
affected are eligible for regular cash payments, medical care
and for special assistance in housing and job placements. These
incentives provide ample reason to blame poor health on radia-
tion exposure from Chernobyl.
Poor diets have also contributed to poor health in the region
near the accident site. Because of stringent safeguards against
potentially contaminated food, locally grown food is often dis-
carded despite the minimal potential health impact. This action
ignores the fact that vitamin deficiencies are far more dange-
rous than slight contamination and the fact that "clean" food is
often unavailable. In some ways, the overall effect is similar
to that of concerned mothers who switched their children from
apples to processed snack foods in the wake of the 60 Minutes
episode on Alar.
Another disturbing fact is that as many as 200,000 women decided
to abort healthy fetuses because of concern that they might have
been damaged in the womb by minor radiation exposures. There is
no evidence of any birth defects caused by the radiation levels
experienced by expectant mothers after the accident.
There has been an increase in alcoholism following the accident.
Here are some explanatory quotes from Piers Paul Read's book,
Ablaze: The Story of the Heros and Victims of Chernobyl. "The
extra allowance paid for the purchase of clean food was spent
entirely on drink - vodka when they could get it, on wine when
they could not." And, "The idea that vodka was an antidote to
radiation was widely accepted even by educated people. . ."
Lessons Learned
The lesson that should be learned from the study of Chernobyl's
health effects is that many of the worst potential effects of a
nuclear accident can be prevented. Decision makers, including
those who make decisions for their families, need to make the
effort to educate themselves about radiation health effects.
In the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, scientists, national
authorities and local officials all proved themselves woefully
ignorant of the potential effects of radiation exposure and un-
able to make decisions that minimized the overall health effects
on the population.
In defense of the people who made poor decisions following Cher-
nobyl, their ignorance can be attributed to the fact that nuc-
lear information has been considered a high level secret in many
nations. There was little readily available information or
guidance.
In cases where scientists or physicians were consulted for their
recommendations, their perceived credibility had more to do with
rank or official position than with their knowledge of radiation
health effects. Deferring to rank rather than knowledge or ex-
perience can be dangerous, especially if the information sources
are defensive about their ignorance.
Copyright 1996 Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. All rights reserved.
Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
P. O. Box 1017
Tarpon Springs, FL 34688-1017
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
{So far Atomic Energy Insights, April 1996}
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