Chernobyl: what happened and what the toll was

In December of 2009, the Annals New York Academy of Sciences provided publication services for a book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Here is how the book is described on a web page with the HTML title of Chernobyl | The New York Academy of Sciences: (The HTML title…

In December of 2009, the Annals New York Academy of Sciences provided publication services for a book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Here is how the book is described on a web page with the HTML title of Chernobyl | The New York Academy of Sciences: (The HTML title of a web page is an important element in the way that search engines index the site.)

This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the authors, official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations’ agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.

After reviewing the book, a number of nuclear professionals, including some credentialed and experienced radiation effects specialists began exchanging emails wondering how the New York Academy of Sciences could have possibly accepted this book for publication based on a number of specific errors, omissions and outright denials of the scientific method. At least one member of the email discussion group is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences; he volunteered to contact the people in charge of publications to find out what could be done.

After some discussion, the people at the NYAS agreed that the document did not reflect the views of the academy, but that the decision to publish the document was made before the person who is currently in charge of publication arrived in his job. That person has stated that he has no authority to withdraw the publication, but he did issue a statement that provides some, but not much, distance between the document and the NYAS.

The statement, titled Statement on the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences volume entitled “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” was posted on April 28, 2010. It says the following:

With a foreword by the Chairman of the Ukranian National Commission on Radiation Protection, Dimitro M. Grodzinsky, the 327-page volume is an English translation of a 2007 publication by the same authors. The earlier volume, “Chernobyl,” published in Russian, presented an analysis of the scientific literature, including more than 1,000 titles and more than 5,000 printed and Internet publications mainly in Slavic languages, on the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

*

**The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences issue “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”, therefore, does not present new, unpublished work, nor is it a work commissioned by the New York Academy of Sciences. The expressed views of the authors, or by advocacy groups or individuals with specific opinions about the Annals Chernobyl volume, are their own. Although the New York Academy of Sciences believes it has a responsibility to provide open forums for discussion of scientific questions, the Academy has no intent to influence legislation by providing such forums. The Academy is committed to publishing content deemed scientifically valid by the general scientific community, from whom the Academy carefully monitors feedback.*

Some members of the scientist and engineer email group have recommended a response of silence – essentially hoping that ignoring the book will overcome the fact that it is still available from a web page giving a strong impression that it is considered to be scientifically valid and that can easily be interpreted to support a contention that the document has been peer reviewed for publication by a reputable group of scientists. However, ignoring the existence of this document has done nothing to reduce its utility as a focused weapon to be used against the sensible path of developing nuclear energy to replace fossil fuel combustion.

On September 4, 2010, Karl Grossman, a man who has been professionally engaged in anti-nuclear advocacy activities since the 1970s, but who calls himself a journalist, published a book review of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment that once again attempted to add credibility to the document by linking it tightly to the New York Academy of Sciences. His piece can be found at Climate and Capitalism with the eye catching title of Scientists conclude: Chernobyl killed nearly 1 million people.

Grossman’s title and the conclusions that he published make a mockery of truth. The reality is that an enormous amount of credible scientific effort was invested in the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) study of the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. That study reached a completely different conclusion. Here is the description of the study and the organizations involved:

An inter-agency initiative, the Chernobyl Forum, was launched in 2003 to provide assessments of the environmental, health, and socio-economic consequences of the Chernobyl accident. The following UN organizations (FAO, IAEA, OCHA, UNDP, UNEP, UNSCEAR, WHO), the World Bank and the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine joined the efforts to generate “authoritative consensual statements” on the environmental and health consequences attributable to radiation exposure arising from the accident and provide evidence-based recommendations for mitigation of these consequences.

That international, multi-agency effort used careful science to produce a lengthy report that concluded that Chernobyl killed just 30 people (2 from burns and other injuries, 28 from acute radiation sickness) and MAY result in AS MANY AS 4,000 additional early deaths from delayed effects among the 626,000 people that received doses above variations in natural background radiation. What many people who read that result do not necessarily understand is that the phrase “as many as 4,000” can also mean “as few as zero”.

I spent most of my adult life as a commissioned officer in the Naval Service. I am proud of having been sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. The people who wrote and published their biased and unscientific interpretation of the effects of the Chernobyl accident were perfectly within their First Amendment rights. The best answer to free speech that happens to be incorrect is more speech that exposes truth and science to show just wrong other interpretations might be.

In June of 2010, the American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear News published a blurb about Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment in a regular segment titled Recently Published. Ted Rockwell, a man with a long list of professional credentials and accomplishments that include having edited the very first unclassified nuclear reactor shielding design manual for the US Atomic Energy Commission, wrote a letter to the editor of Nuclear News to share his thoughts about the unsubstantiated Chernobyl document. The below letter first appeared in the July 2010 issue of Nuclear News.

#### Ignoring Science

The Recently Published section of the June issue of Nuclear News (p. 20) included the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, published by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). Your readers should be warned that this book is not what they would expect from the academy. As a member of NYAS, I’ve asked the academy to repudiate it, and a panel of independent scientists is now investigating, the “only legal way” to that end. I expect that they will carry out this process fairly.

I do not consider the book a legitimate academy report for a number of reasons:

1. It is not a new study and does not bring any new or unpublished information to light. It is a tra