Courage and heroism

In August 2012, the journal Nature published evidence that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue butterfly Zizeeria mara [1]. Among the team at University of the Ryukyus Okinawa undertaking the research was a mature student in her first year, Chiyo Nohara.  Chiyo died on 28 October 2015 at the age of 60 from a heart attack. Chiyo was a scientist who set out to protect her fellow human beings despite great pressure from the authorities and at great risk to her own life.

Chiyo once said to a friend [2] “No matter how much you researched and knew, it would be pointless if you die before letting the world know about what you learned”. Fortunately, Chiyo’s research was published, and provided the first scientific evidence of harm to a living organism from the accident at Fukushima.  I will not describe the research itself, which is available in print [1]. (See also [3] Fukushima Mutant Butterflies Confirm Harm from Low-Dose Radiation, SiS 56.) Instead, I would like to concentrate on her response to the accident at Fukushima, and pay tribute to the intelligence, courage, and energy of Nohara and her team-mates in initiating the research, in undertaking the fieldwork, conducting laboratory experiments, and later defending their work against critics.

Chiyo was born 8 May 1955 in Ube city of Yamaguchi prefecture. She studied economics at Okayama University and Aichi University; taught accounting at university level, publishing numerous papers and was involved in public auditing at a local and national government level. But in 2010, at the age of 55, partly because her own daughter suffered allergies, Chiyo became interested in environmental health. She resigned from her university post and enrolled in the Biology graduate school programme of the Faculty of Science at University of the Ryukyus.

Accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

When the accident at Fukushima occurred in March 2011, Chiyo was only in her first year of study. Nevertheless, she persuaded her team that research in the Fukushima area was of crucial importance, and that it had to be started immediately. She had already been active in donating money and supplies to the victims of the tsunami and earthquake, but she said [4]:“I want to go to Fukushima.  I want to see the stricken areas with my own eyes”.  She said she “wanted to do anything” to help the people affected by the accident.

The graduate team, led by Associate Professor Joji Otaki, specialised in molecular physiology, and had been researching the mechanism of the pale grass blue butterfly’s (Zizeeria maha) peculiar colour patterns which are influenced by environmental conditions such as temperature. He saw that this species of butterfly could be used as an environmental indicator.

Conducting research in the contaminated territories

After much heart-searching three members of the graduate school decided to go to the contaminated territories of Fukushima. They all signed a written disclaimer [4]: “I am fully aware of the dangers of my activities in relatively high radiation level areas”.  But several days before their scheduled trip to Fukushima, they were summoned to the Dean’s office. Chiyo and her team were subjected to some aggressive and unpleasant questioning from the Dean, the sub-Dean, and another member of staff. They were challenged with regard to their preparation and planning, and about the reaction they would elicit from people in Fukushima prefecture “when they see a team of the University of the Ryukyus pursuing butterflies with butterfly nets, while they are desperately searching for missing relatives [from the tsunami].”

Eventually, permission was given, subject to the correct radiological protection measures and strict crisis management planning in the event of another explosion at the nuclear power station. Interestingly the sub-Dean paid his respect to the team later saying that many research teams will not take risks for fear of losing funds but “this research team doesn’t care about such risks.  They just want to know what is happening there.  I support their work, but they make me nervous”.

The team left on 13 May 2011 for a six day field trip. They carried a Geiger counter to record radiation levels and gave themselves a strict 20 minute time limit at any one site. If no butterflies were found they moved on. They visited 15 sites in 4 prefectures (Tokyo, Ibaraki, Fukushima, Miyagi), and flew back to Okinawa on the 18 May with 144 butterflies.

Chiyo worries about her health

The work was continued over the next months in the university laboratories in Okinawa, and in September the team visited Fukushima prefecture once again and collected more specimens. Part of the laboratory research involved feeding the butterflies on oxalis corniculata contaminated by radionuclides from the Fukushima area. It was Chiyo and her husband who made the trips to the contaminated territories to collect contaminated oxalis – 15 trips in the space of 18 months. Inevitably Chiyo worried about her health. A friend said [2] “every time she went to Fukushima to collect butterflies, and every time she measured the radiation level of the contaminated oxalis, her physical condition deteriorated.But she did not want young students to do the job.”

The team collected first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011 and some of these showed abnormalities. They reared two generations of progeny in the laboratories in Okinawa and found that although these had not been exposed to radiation, they had more severe abnormalities. They were also able to produce similar abnormalities in individuals from non-contaminated areas by external and internal low-dose exposures. Adult butterflies were collected from the Fukushima area in September 2011, and these butterflies showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. The team concluded that the artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima nuclear power plant had caused physiological and genetic damage to this species of butterfly.

Research “important and overwhelming in its implications”

The research was first published in August 2012 in Nature and international response was immediate[2]. The BBC detailed the research findings and included the comment that the study was “important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities in Fukushima” [5]. Le Monde in France was more explicit, saying that although officially no-one has yet died from the effects of the radiation from Fukushima, many experts believe that people will fall ill and die in the years to come [6]. The BBC and the German TV company, ARD, came to interview Professor Otaki in Okinawa, and the American TV networks ABC, CNN and Fox also covered the story.

The research elicited a huge number of comments (276 139 in the first six months up to January 2013, according to the publisher’s website). The comments were answered by Chiyo and the team in a new paper in 2013 [7]. Eleven points were discussed in depth including the choice of this species as an environmental indictor, the possibility of latitude-dependent forewing-size reduction, the rearing conditions and the implications of the accumulation of genetic mutations. Many of the comments expressed were unscientific and politically motivated and could not be answered for that reason.

In Japan the research is not widely known

The mainstream Japanese media did not report the significance of this research, except for a few minor references. On personal blogs and Twitter accounts the research findings were widely disseminated but not always positively. The lack of press freedom in Japan since the Fukushima accident is very disquieting. In the 2010 Press Freedom Index of countries in the world, Japan ranked 11. By 2015 it had fallen to 61, and this is in large part due to secrecy about the accident at Fukushima [8]. In Europe and the United States, pictures of the pale grass blue butterfly, Z. maha and its abnormalities, post-Fukushima, can be accessed within seconds, but not so in Japan. The Japanese government’s response to the accident has been overwhelmingly to give falsely reassuring “information”. An example is Prime Minister Abe declaring to the Olympic Bid Committee in 2013 that “the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is under control”, which is clearly not true [9].

It is an uphill struggle. Scientists and non-scientists in the West have a duty to help the Japanese people. Just as at Chernobyl, there is [10] “a fragile human chain made up, in the East, of activists in a country trapped in radioactive contamination and in the West, by activists who support them against scientific lies.” In 2014, Chiyo travelled to Geneva to present her research at the Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionising Radiation, organized by the Collective IndependentWHO [11]. She was already ill. IndependentWHO have published the proceedings of this Forum and dedicated them to Chiyo Nohara, with the words “She died in the cause of scientific truth”. Within the pages of Science in Society, dedicated to scientific independence, I salute her. But we would be doing Chiyo Nohara a disservice if we did not add that the implications of her research are that no-one, and especially not children, should be living in the areas contaminated by the accident at Fukushima.

Susie Greaves

ISIS Report 07/01/16

Published first in ISIS – Institute of Science in Society

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Honouring_the_Life_and_Work_of_Chiyo_Nohara.php

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References
1 – Hiyama A, Nohara C, Kinjo S, Taira W, Gima S Tanahara A and Otaki JM. The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly.Nature Scientific Reports2, 570, DOI: 10.1038/srep00570

2 – Obituary of Chiyo Nohara  by Oshidori Mako in Days Japan, December issue, 2015, Vol.12, No.12, p.23.

3 – Ho M W. Fukushima mutant butterflies confirm harm from low dose radiation. Science in Society 56, 48-51, 2012.

4 – “Prometheus Traps: Pursuing Butterflies”, Nakayama Y,  Asahi Shimbun, 2015 (Series no.4: 12 July 2015:, no.5: 14 July 2015, no.6: 15 July 2015, no.7: 16 July, 2015, no.8: 17 July 2015, no.10: 19 July 2015)

5 – “Severe abnormalities found in Fukushima butterflies”, Nick Crumpton,  13 August 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19245818

6 – “Des papillons mutants autour de Fukushima”, Philippe Pons, 15 August 2012, http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/08/15/des-papillons-mutants-autour-de-fukushima_1746252_3244.html

7 – Hiyama A, Nohara C, Taira W, Kinjo S, Iwata M and Otaki JM, BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013, 13:168 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/13/168 http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-13-168.pdf)

8 – “Japan slips in press freedom index.” Toko Sekiguchi, Wall Street Journal: Japan Real Time, 13 February 2015. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/02/13/japan-slips-in-press-freedom-rankings/

9 – “Japan Olympic win boosts Abe but Fukushima shadows linger”, Elaine Lies, Reuters, 9 September 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-japan-idUSBRE98806P20130909#ujqbOt12wDCbMa2v.97

10 – Tchertkoff W, Le crime de Tchernobyl: le goulag nucleaire.  Actes Sud (2006)

11 – Collective IndependentWHO, Proceedings of the Scientific and Citizen Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionising Radiation, (2015) http://independentwho.org/media/Documents_Autres/Proceedings_forum_IW_november2014_English_02.pdf

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Geneva, Switzerland, 30 October 2015
Message of condolences on the death of Chiyo Nohara to the members of the BCPH Unit of Molecular Physiology, Department of Chemistry, Biology and Marine Science, Faculty of Science, and the Instrumental Research Center,
University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan

The members of the Collective IndependentWHO – Health and Nuclear Power are deeply saddened to learn of the premature death of your colleague Chiyo Nohara. We remember with emotion her remarkable presentation at our Forum in Geneva last year of your team’s important work on the biological impacts of the Fukushima accident on the pale grass blue butterfly. She had the courage to make the long trip to Europe when she was already ill, most probably from the effects of field work in the irradiated areas. By doing so she made a major contribution to disseminating your pioneering work to a wider international audience of concerned citizens and scientists. The report on our “Scientific and Citizen Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionizing Radiation”, soon to be published, will be dedicated to her memory. Kindly convey our heartfelt condolences to her colleagues, family and friends.
For the Collective IndependentWHO – Health and Nuclear Power
organizers of the Scientific and Citizen Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionizing Radiation, Geneva, Switzerland, 29 November 2014

Alison Katz
katz.alison@gmail.com ;

G. Gordon-Lennox
gordon.lennox@wanadoo.fr

Chiyo Nohara

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Dr Baverstock, a graduate of London University, led the Radiation Protection Programme at the World Health Organisation’s Regional Office for Europe from 1991 to 2003. From 1998 to 2002 he set-up a dedicated project office in Helsinki for nuclear emergencies and public health and in 2002 he transferred to the WHO’s European Centre for Environment and Health located in Bonn where he was the Regional Advisor for Radiation and Public Health. In 2001 he was a member of a UN mission charged with making a situation analysis on the Chernobyl affected regions of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The mission report “The human consequences of the Chernobyl accident: a strategy for recovery” was published by the UN in 2002. From November 2003 to April 2005 he served on the UK Committee for Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM). Currently he is a partner in the European commission funded ARCH project the objective of which is to develop a strategic research agenda for the health effects of the Chernobyl accident.

“Read or Download Keith Baverstock’s critical appraisal”

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Published in ISIS – 24 September 2014
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Tokyo_contaminated_and_not_fit_for_habitation.php

In July 2014 Dr Shigeru Mita wrote a letter to his fellow doctors to explain his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama city in the West of Japan [1]. In it, he appeals to their sense of duty to answer the anxieties of parents in Japan who do not believe the information coming from the authorities. He says “I must state that the policies of the WHO, the IAEA or the Japanese government cannot be trusted.” and “if the power to save our citizens and future generations exists somewhere, it does not lie within the government or any academic association, but in the hands of individual clinical doctors ourselves.”

Mita claims that all 23 districts of Tokyo are contaminated, with the eastern area worst affected – up to 4 000 Bq/kg. (The becquerel is a unit of radioactivity. One Bq is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second). These findings confirm what the nuclear physicist Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Nuclear Education found in 2012, when he picked up five random soil samples in Tokyo from between paving stones, in parks and playgrounds. The levels of contamination were up to 7 000 Bq/kg ; in the US, anything registering these levels would be considered nuclear waste [2].

While practising in Tokyo, Mita also discovered changes in the white blood cells of children under 10.

Independent science & independent reporting in Japan outlawed
In December 2013, the Japanese parliament passed a bill whereby public officials and private citizens could face ten years in prison for divulging “special state secrets”, and journalists, five years, for seeking to obtain classified information. The bill is widely interpreted as a way of preventing sensitive information about Fukushima (among other topics) reaching the Japanese public and by extension the rest of the world [3].

The independent organisation Reporters without Borders has downgraded Japan in its world press freedom index from 22nd place in 2012, to 53rd in 2013 and to 59th in 2014, following the passing of the state secrets bill. Reporters without Borders say that Japan“has been affected by a lack of transparency and almost zero respect for access to information on subjects directly or indirectly related to Fukushima” [4].

Nuclear lobby put in charge
Back in December 2012, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) whose mission is to promote the peaceful uses of the atom, signed agreements with Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Medical University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. These “Practical Arrangements” have in effect, handed over the management of the post-accident situation at Fukushima and its health consequences to the nuclear lobby. Among other clauses regarding cooperation and funding, we read that “The Parties will ensure the confidentiality of information classified by the other Party as restricted or confidential” [5].

But this should come as no surprise. Anyone who doubts the heavy hand of the nuclear lobby in the “management” (i.e. minimisation) of nuclear accidents should read the account by the physicist Bella Belbéoch entitled “Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia” [6]. The initial Soviet cover up of the accident is well known. Less well known are the “stages of submission” in which the IAEA forced the Soviets to accede to their demands to minimise estimates of the health effects of the accident. In a series of manipulations and bullying tactics, they forced the Soviet officials to divide their estimates of the health effects by a factor of 10. One Soviet delegate, Legassov, committed suicide, a few days after he capitulated to the IAEA demands, on the 26th April 1988, the second anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.

A travesty of reporting on risks and cancers
How has the nuclear lobby reacted to Fukushima ?  A preliminary assessment published in 2012 by the World Health Organisation (but actually emanating from the IAEA) managed to draw optimistic conclusions, while ignoring two critical groups, the workers at the TEPCO plant, and the people who were evacuated from the immediate area (See [7]  WHO Report on Fukushima a Travesty  SiS 55).   Then in 2013, the UNSCEAR report [8] described the risks of people developing thyroid cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer as barely discernible, even though the rates of childhood thyroid cancer in Fukushima prefecture are already 40 times what would be expected [9]. The UNSCEAR report has been criticised by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War because it consistently underestimates the radiation dose received, underestimates internal radiation, ignores the vulnerability of the human embryo to radiation, ignores hereditary effects, ignores the unreliability of the dose received by workers at the stricken plant, and only considers some cancers as potential health effects, whereas the experience of Chernobyl shows that every vital organ and system of the body is affected [10].

Raising the ‘safe’ limit of radiation
The Japanese people are faced with a government whose response to the dangers of the radiation was to increase the acceptable limit from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year and who are now encouraging people to move back into areas that had previously been evacuated. (The millisievert is a unit of radiation dose. Before the Fukushima accident, Japan, like the rest of the world, respected the limit of 1 mSv/year recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection – ICRP). Meanwhile, the nuclear lobby wants to see the resumption of nuclear power in Japan as quickly as possible. This is not an atmosphere in which doctors are encouraged to report health effects that could be the result of radiation, and certainly not in Tokyo, whose residents have been led to believe that they have nothing to fear.

Changes in white blood cells in children
Mita began work as a general practitioner in Tokyo in the 1990s. In the letter to his colleagues explaining his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama City, he claims that contamination in the eastern part of Tokyo is 1000-4000 Bq/kg and in the western part, 300-1000Bq/kg. He compares these levels with Kiev, in Ukraine, after the accident at Chernobyl, of 500 Bq/kg, and with measurements taken before the 2011 Fukushima accident at Shinjuku, the site of the Tokyo municipal government of 0.5 – 1.5 Bq/kg. He says that “Tokyo should no longer be inhabited, and that those who insist on living in Tokyo must take regular breaks in safer areas”.

Mita conducts thyroid ultrasound tests for parents who are concerned about the health of their children but he is now concerned about the results of another test on children under 10, the differential white blood cell count. This test is undergone routinely by workers in the nuclear industry who are exposed to radiation. Blood is produced in bone marrow, which is one of the organs most vulnerable to radiation. The white blood cells consist of five different kinds of cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, eosinocytes, basophils and monocytes, and it is the relative numbers of these five cell types that is examined. Mita has found a decline in neutrophils in children under 10, in areas that are not considered to be highly contaminated or even contaminated at all. His patients come from Northern Kanto, the area around Tokyo and including Tokyo itself [11].

“The pediatricians general textbook says that the reference value of neutrophils for healthy children (6-12 years old) is between 3000 and 5000. 3000 is considered as the threshold value.” Mita says. “But the mean value of neutrophils of the children who have visited our clinics since the accident has decreased to 2500. … It is lower than the threshold value of 3000. I think this points at a serious problem.”

Mita explains that although the decrease in neutrophil does not directly cause lowered immunity, it is “the last bastion of the immunity system” and could play a role in fatal illnesses such as septicaemia in the case of aggressive colds. “In the summer of 2011, there were many children with bloodshot eyes; and what we saw most were children with dark circles under the eyes. We also had increased occurrence of sinusitis. Previously, these patients got better soon after they were given proper treatment; however, we are seeing more cases of sinusitis accompanied with mild case of asthma continuing for longer periods. And when these children spend some time in the West, they get better.If at all possible, I would like them to move away from East Japan.”

In adults, he has found increased nosebleeds, hair loss, lack of energy, subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary haemorrhage, skin inflammation, and coughs. He has found an increase in infectious diseases such as influenza, hand, foot and mouth diseases and shingles. “We also see more patients with diseases that had been rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica is a disease common among those above age 50 and contracted by 1.7 people out of every 100,000. Before 3.11, [the date of the accident at Fukushima] we had one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more than 10 patients at the same time.” Dr Mita wonders “Could these be the same symptoms of muscle rheumatism that were recorded in Chernobyl ?”

Finally, Mita says that the radioactive contamination of Tokyo is increasing because of the Japanese government’s policy of transporting radioactive waste from the Fukushima zone all over Japan for incineration or burial. The Japanese government and the nuclear authorities claimed that filters on the stacks of the incineration plants would remove most of the radioactivity, but this is not the case, and in the opinion of many, it is adding to the contamination. Arnie Gundersen, for instance says, “They are creating 100 to 1000 times more radioactive material by burning debris than keeping it in concentrated form” [12].

To conclude
Mita is talking about his perceptions of the changes in health of a population living in an area that is not considered contaminated. It will be all too easy to dismiss his findings. He himself is not optimistic. He acknowledges that to prove any of his suspicions would require teams of doctors, and expensive research projects to compare groups of people, their radioactive contamination and the illnesses from which they suffer. That’s something simply beyond the reach of any single physician. In other words, “it’s impossible under the present state to collect the kind of data that would be printed in a prestigious science magazine. Still, as long as I know that something strange is clearly happening, I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”

And here is Professor Yablokov talking about the difficulties that doctors and scientists experienced in the Chernobyl territories, to prove a correlation between radiation and illness [13]: “The demand by IAEA and WHO experts to require “significant correlation” between the imprecisely calculated levels of individual radiation […] and precisely diagnosed illnesses […] is not, in our view, scientifically valid. […]We believe it is scientifically incorrect to reject data generated by many thousands of scientists, doctors and other experts who directly observed the suffering of millions affected by radioactive fallout in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, as “mismatching scientific protocols.” It is scientifically valid to find ways to abstract the valuable information from these data.” Yablokov goes on to list the ways in which this could be done.

But it was not done in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and, in this way, the true health consequences of the Chernobyl accident remain hidden. The 2 million people, including 500,000 children still living in the worst contaminated areas around Chernobyl suffer a myriad of illnesses. (According to the Ministry of Health and Sciences in Belarus in 2000, 85% of the children in the contaminated areas were ill, whereas that figure was 15% before the accident in 1986 [14].)

Mita has made a brave decision. The pressure on health professionals and other citizens in Japan to remain silent about the health consequences of Fukushima, will lead to a health catastrophe there – not now, but in the decades to come.

For more on Fukushima and Chernobyl see [15] Truth about Fukushima and other articles in the series (SiS 55) and [16] Fukushima Crisis Goes Global (SiS 61).

References
01 – World Network for Saving Children from Radiation (2014). A Tokyo doctor who has moved to western Japan urges fellow doctors to promote radiation protection: A message from Dr Mita to his colleagues in Kodaira, Tokyo. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2014/07/16/a-tokyo-doctor-who-has-moved-to-western-japan-urges-fellow-doctors-to-promote-radiation-protection-a-message-from-dr-mita-to-his-colleagues-in-kodaira-city-t/
02 – ENENews (2012). Gunderson: Tokyo soil so hot it should be sent to nuclear waste dump – Really severe releases hit city. Accessed 25 August 2014,  http://enenews.com/gundersen-tokyo-soil-hot-be-shipped-radioactive-dump
03 – “Japan whistleblowers face crackdown under proposed state secrets law.” Justin McMurray, Guardian, 5 December 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/whistleblowers-japan-crackdown-state-secrets
04 – Reporters without Borders (2013). Press freedom index 2013: Dashed hopes after spring. Accessed 25 August 2014,  http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
05 – Practical Arrangements between Fukushima Medical University and the International Atomic Energy Agency on Cooperation in the Area of Human Health. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/energy/fukushima_2012/pdfs/fukushima_iaea_en_06.pdf
06 – Belbéoch B. Responsabilités occidentales dans les conséquences sanitaires de la catastrophe de Tchernobyl, en Bélorussie, Ukraine et Russie. In Radioprotection et Droit nucléaire (eds. I Rens, J Jakubec, E George). Collection SEBES, 1998. English translation: Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia. http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/western_responsability.html 25/8/14
07 – Greaves S.  WHO report on Fukushima a travesty. Science in Society 55 2012, 38-39.
08 – United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionizing Radiation. United Nations, New York, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/13-85418_Report_2013_Annex_A.pdf
09 – Wasserman H. Fukushima, the continuing catastrophe.  The Ecologist, June 2014.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2433355/fukushima_the_continuing_catastrophe.html
10 – Physicians for Social Responsibility USA et al. Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report “Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami.” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Berlin, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://ippnw-students.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UNSCEAR-Critique.pdf
11 – World Network for Saving Children from Radiation. Dr Shigeru Mita addresses the need of blood examination among children in the Kanto area. 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/11/title-dr-shigeru-mita-addresses-the-need-of-blood-examination-among-children-in-the-kanto-area/
12 – “Radioactive rubble reaction to haven in Japan.” Arnie Gundersen, Youtube.  Accessed 25 August 2014,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIr-QcsjKxE
13 – Yablokov AV, Nesterenko VB and Nesterenko AV. Consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe for public health and the environment 23 years later. Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences 1181, 2009, 318-326.
14 – UN Human Rights Council. Seventh session. Point 3. A/HRC/7/NGO/33 22 February 2008.
15 – Ho MW. Truth about Fukushima. Science in Society 55 2012,18-23.
16 – Ho MW. Fukushima crisis goes global. Science in Society 61 2014, 4-9.

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On April 2nd, 2014, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published its complete report “Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east-Japan earthquake and tsunami”.

The report draws mainly on data from the nuclear industry’s publications rather than from independent sources and omits or misinterprets crucial aspects of radiation exposure. Also, we question some of the assumptions used as the basis for calculations in the report.

We are concerned that the apparently systematic underestimations and questionable interpretations in the report will be used by the nuclear industry to downplay the expected health effects of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima.

For these reasons, we present our medical and scientific insight on the UNSCEAR report, noting first the points with which we agree, followed by our ten main points of criticism.

“Read an abstract of the report”

“Read the full report”

Published in:

http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/information-in-english/maximum-credible-accident.html

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Naoto Matsumura

Naoto Matsumura, a Japanese peasant from the contaminated area around Fukushima and a victim of the disaster, wanted to come and stand outside the WHO headquarters this Wednesday, March 19 2014, to express his anger and dismay.

In fact, having abandoned the victims of Chernobyl to their fate, the World Health Organization, which conceals the true effects of radioactivity, is now doing no more by way of providing help to the victims of Fukushima either.

Yes, there the crime continues.

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The same fate awaits the Japanese people and their children living in areas contaminated by the Fukushima disaster because the same strategy is being put in place in Japan with the same players, the same pseudo-scientific justifications and under the aegis of the same authorities.

In this article I will detail the actions taken by representatives of the international scientific and political community at different levels of involvement that have harmed the children of Belarus around Chernobyl. First, we need to examine the management of the consequences of the disaster by the United Nations (UN) agencies responsible for nuclear power and health: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), promoter of nuclear power, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) whose goal is “to bring all people to the highest attainable level of health.” Both agencies undertake and endorse, from their position of authority within the scientific and medical domains, the criminal policy imposed by the five member states of the UN Security Council in the area of nuclear power in general and in the contaminated territories around Chernobyl and Fukushima in particular. This policy, while giving the appearance of being scientific, is based on a strategy of ignorance that is anything but scientific. The sleight of hand employed by the nuclear lobby is to use the experience of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to explain Chernobyl. The nuclear lobby compares the very high levels of radiation released in the initial flash when the bombs in Japan exploded with the very low levels of radiation around Chernobyl and claims a priori that these low levels cannot be the cause of the pathologies that have appeared since the Chernobyl accident. But the two events and the mechanisms by which they damage health are not the same. One does not explain the other. No atomic bomb exploded at Chernobyl. There were two explosions of an atomic nature (power excursions) and a fire that lasted 10 days. Today the ambient and surface background radiation around the power station is low. But huge amounts of artificial radioactive elements were ejected during the thermal explosions and while the fire raged for ten days, these elements were dispersed over great distances by the winds and rains. These long-lived elements contaminate the environment, plants, animals and humans. They have destroyed the health and the lives of hundreds of thousands of young liquidators who ingested and inhaled radioactive particles while working around the plant, and they will continue to contaminate future generations. Genetic and perigenetic damage will appear in the liquidators’ children and then be transmitted to subsequent generations, causing suffering that the first generation will not have known. (1).

WHO and IAEA recognise only the deaths of around fifty liquidators who worked at the plant in the first few days, and about 9000 additional cancers up to 2056, while in 2001, official data from the Ukraine and the Russian Federation claimed that 10% of the liquidators had already died and 30% of them were disabled (there were more than 800,000 from across the USSR). The 2 million farmers and more than 250,000 children from Belarus who live in radioactive areas, were, according to the IAEA and WHO, unharmed by the Chernobyl accident. The large number of illnesses, which are increasing and getting worse every year in Belarus, are attributed officially to stress, “radiophobia” or to parental alcoholism.

Abel Gonzales, Director of Radiation Transport and Waste Safety at the IAEA, Vice President of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), director of the Radioprotection Agency in Argentina, Argentina’s delegate to the IAEA and to UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation), and adviser to the WHO, told the Kiev conference, (4-8 June 2001) that was filmed by Swiss television, that it was impossible, given the low levels of radioactivity to prove a correlation between the radioactivity and illness – that it was “an insoluble epistemological problem.” He used these words: “there are no grounds for direct knowledge at this stage. We do not know! “.

And yet we do know that Professor Bandazhevsky ended up in prison and in exile precisely because he demolished this pretence that “we do not know” with his own rigorous scientific research that he undertook over a period of nine years. Unlike Gonzales (who is a physicist), Bandazhevsky is a pathologist and he mastered the “direct knowledge” that the IAEA representative said he lacked and that, he claimed, could not be known at this stage. Bandazhevsky discovered the correlation. He proved the cause and effect relationship between low level radiation and the destruction of vital organs.

During my investigations, I discovered that French scientists, members of non-governmental organisations, have played an active role in this harmful policy that condemns Belarusian children to suffer from a variety of unknown diseases, caused by the radiation. These children are not offered any radioprotection nor any qualified medical help. French organisations, financed by rich European countries collected data on the levels of contamination in people, gave them lessons on how to avoid excessive contamination, but did not offer medical treatment to the contaminated children they observed . Even worse, they refused to distribute the natural pectin-based additive to these highly contaminated children, a product which accelerates the elimination of radionuclides from the body and keeps the levels of contamination in children below the threshold at which damage to vital organs become irreversible.

Who are these people that have played such a role in a story that began 27 years ago? What are their goals? What exactly is going on?

Faced with the inaction and deceit of the Soviet Government about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, the physicist, Professor Vassili Nesterenko academic, director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, contested government policy from the first few hours following the accident. He demanded the evacuation of residents within a 100 km radius of the plant fire. He was sacked from his post in July 1987, for alarmist behaviour and for sowing panic, and finally left the state run institute in 1990 to create the independent Institute of Radiation Safety “Belrad” to help children in the contaminated territories. Working in the most contaminated villages of Belarus, he organised 370 local radiological monitoring centres, where doctors, teachers and nurses were given training in radioprotection, and families were taught how to process food to reduce contamination. Funded initially by the government, during the brief period of “democratisation”, these centres are closed today after the nuclear lobby wrested control of the situation.

In 1996, Nesterenko successfully adopted a food additive made from apple pectin, recommended by the Ministries of Health in Russia and Ukraine, as an adsorbent of caesium 137. In the space of one month the amount of radionuclides in the body of the child can be reduced by 60-70% (2).

In 1994, Nesterenko met the rector of the Gomel Medical Institute, the pathologist and doctor Yuri Bandazhevsky, who, since 1991, had been researching the aetiology of the new diseases appearing among residents of the contaminated territories. With his wife Galina, a paediatrician and cardiologist, Bandazhevsky discovered that the frequency and severity of morphological and functional alterations of the heart increases in proportion to the amount of radioactive caesium incorporated into the body. He describes the heart disease found in young children, adolescents and adults with degenerative disease of the myocardium (heart muscle). as “caesium cardiomyopathy”, Sudden death occurs at any age, even in children. At levels above 50 becquerels per kilogram of body weight, irreversible lesions occur in vital organs.

From 1996, the “Belrad ‘Institute and the Institute of Gomel worked together. Nesterenko worked in the villages and concentrated on measuring the internal contamination of the body by caesium137 using human radiation spectrometers supplied by Western NGOs. Together, the two institutes showed that if the level of Cs 137 in the diet of children and laboratory animals is reduced, irreversible damage to vital organs can be prevented. This discovery opened up completely new directions for scientific research.

In April 1999, the two scientists were invited by the Belarusian parliament to take part in a commission to investigate the register of dose and the use of government funds by the Institute of Radiation Medicine at the Ministry of Health in its medical research on the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. Their findings displeased those committee members who were close to the Ministry.

Bandazhevsky and Nesterenko signed their own report and sent it to the Security Council of Belarus, which has overall responsibility for the health of the population. The Security Council insisted that the Ministry of Health withdraw its register and invited the latter to review the register “urgently on the basis of the conclusions” reached by Nesterenko and Bandazhevsky. Bandazhevsky sent a report to President Lukashenko, in which he severely criticized the work of the Institute of the Ministry and showed that 1998, out of a total of 17 billion roubles, only one billion had been spent effectively. On the night of 13th July 1999 he was arrested on the basis of a decree against terrorism introduced by Lukashenko. On 18th June 2001, he was sentenced by the military chamber of the Supreme Court of Belarus to 8 years in prison for corruption, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence against him.

ETHOS – Before this, in 1996, a group of French researchers, called ETHOS (a non-profit NGO as defined by No 1901 law), approached one of Professor Nesterenko’s centres for radiological control in the town of Olmany. ETHOS asked to be given the data it had collected and began to train its representatives in radioprotection in the contaminated territories around Chernobyl. ETHOS is an offshoot of CEPN, created in 1976 by EDF (Electricité de France) and the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique). The French nuclear lobby is well and truly represented here!

One of ETHOS’ goals was to prepare a manual for the European Union on the management of nuclear accidents and of regions that have been contaminated with long-lived radionuclides, providing a programme of measures “for the sustainable management of radiological quality and social trust “(3). For three years, from 1996 to 1998, ETHOS exploited the data and measurements collected by personnel at the Olmany Centre, personnel that Nesterenko had trained and equipped, though ETHOS never compensated the technician for the extra work involved – a profitable and successful collaboration for the French at least. Then the Belarusian authorities, on advice from ETHOS, removed Nesterenko from the village of Olmany and from four other villages in the district of Stolin.

In effect, ETHOS had learned everything from Nesterenko and had collected his data in order to now supplant him. A real case of plagiarism but with one fundamental flaw: the ETHOS mission, as conceived by the French nuclear lobby had an insurmountable statutory limitation, that prevented it from taking any action in the area of health: ETHOS was not qualified to treat the population medically: (4) What was it doing, in that case, at Chernobyl?

I began to understand more when a friend, a sociologist, who had some involvement with ETHOS, told me that Jacques Lochard, leader of the ETHOS project, was employed by the CEA and had defined its task in this astonishing phrase. “We need to occupy the territory”.

Once it had completed its training with Nesterenko, ETHOS was able to present itself as the scientific reference point for radioprotection around Chernobyl and it then became the coordinator of the international Programme CORE (Cooperation and Rehabilitation Programme in the Belarusian territories contaminated by Chernobyl), whose founding members are the Chernobyl Committee of the Government of Belarus, the United Nations Development Programme, the French and German embassies, the European Commission, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation of Switzerland, UNESCO, the World Bank and four districts of Belarus.

On 18th June 2003, I gave a detailed review of this programme to European Deputies and to various political and institutional authorities, on behalf of the Association Enfants de Tchernobyl, Bélarus (Children of Chernobyl, Belarus). In the accompanying notes I wrote:

“This program ignores the health problems in a region where more than 80% of children are ill following the disaster at Chernobyl, while this figure was only 20% before 1986 (5). The Memorandum of the CORE Programme provides for an independent audit after five years of operation, to assess its effectiveness. Our criticisms need to be taken into account from the outset of this project, because the health catastrophe in the contaminated territories is increasing and deepening, like a major epidemic. The contaminated population that has already been abandoned for 17 years by the international community cannot wait an extra five years for a project that does not provide qualified medical intervention. ”

No response. The role of the ETHOS-CORE operation became clear in an article in Le Monde (20.02.08) that revealed “France is preparing for the consequences of a Chernobyl-type accident on its soil,” and that the ASN (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire) has launched a study on the feedback from the post-Chernobyl accident management, entrusted to the company Mutadis Consultants, the ETHOS coordinator.

The aim of the initiative was “to assess the relevance of this feedback in the social, economic and political context of France and the European Union; to learn lessons from the perspective of a preventive system of post-accident management.”

The final report published on 19th March 2007 was entitled “Feedback from the post-accident management in the Belarusian context” and was signed by Gilles Hériard-Dubreuil (Mutadis Consultants), Jacques Lochard (CEPN), Henri Ollagnon (Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon), all three initiators of the European CORE program.

Thus, supported politically and financially by the nuclear lobby and the nuclear states, ETHOS, which appeared to be helping to solve the problems caused by the Chernobyl disaster, was in fact blocking the recognition of the health catastrophe that independent scientists like Nesterenko and Bandajevsky were trying to expose in the face of a thousand obstacles. The importance for the lobby was to define radiological quality and to build social trust (sic) following a nuclear disaster. The scientific information provided to Western observers, by the contaminated children, the guinea pigs, would not be altered since the internal radiation load had not been reduced with the use of the adsorbent that CORE refused to fund. A puzzle, made up of apparently unconnected pieces, only comprehensible once it is understood that what is important is the collection of useful data in the management of a major nuclear accident in one of the richest countries in Europe. Yuri Chtcherbak, medical doctor and writer, leader of the Ukrainian Green Party in 1990 and elected to the first “democratic” Supreme Soviet of the USSR, recounted a conversation he had with a French professor. He had asked the man what he considered the most significant aspect of the accident at Chernobyl and the man replied that: “It’s very interesting! I would never have been able to set up this sort of experiment in my laboratory. I can now observe.” Chtcherbak commented “It’s hard to imagine the cynicism of these people, of their behaviour!”

I do not know if Chtcherbak could imagine at that time that the cynicism that so outraged him was only a foreshadowing of the systematic crime perpetrated at the level of European governments: to refuse to administer a naturally preventive product that is as well-tolerated as pectin to the children of Chernobyl so that they could undertake a study on how to manage the consequences of a disaster here. This is intolerable.

I wrote to Jacques Lochard, “Radioprotection in the territories contaminated by Chernobyl is impossible without scientific measurement of the body of each child and of the food the child eats. This is what the Ministry of Health of Belarus will NOT do because it wants to continue to publish its generalised and false statistics. This is the reason for its opposition to Professor Nesterenko’s use of human radiation spectrometers whose results reveal the true levels of contamination. These measures are essential for targeted prophylaxis of each child and to establish the correlation between the radioactive load in the body and the many illnesses studied by the pathologist Bandazhevsky. But they also reveal the true extent of the Chernobyl disaster, which has only just begun. To ignore the science, and concentrate only on education and social support, can become an alibi for the cover-up, and leaves people in a state of “ignorance and uncertainty” (6). You are right to hope that the Belarusian people take their destiny into their own hands. Belarusians like the scientist Nesterenko, for example. Either their expertise will be used to create genuine radioprotection policies or there will be no radioprotection at all. Without these scientists, the impoverished peasant farmers will remain trapped, with neither means nor knowledge and they will never have the strength to face their destiny. Nesterenko’s 370 centres must be restored to him. ”

Wladimir Tchertkoff

April 2013

1 – Goncharova R.I. & Ryabokon, 25-26th October 1994, Conference “Radiobiological Consequences of Nuclear Accidents”.

2 – Swiss Medical Weekly 2004;134:24–27 · www.smw.ch

3 – International publication called SAGE to which the academic Vassili Nesterenko contributed. Internationally renowned as a physicist, a liquidator from Chernobyl in the first hours of the accident, a specialist in radioprotection and unequalled in his expertise on the contaminated territories of Belarus, it was logical to turn to him for this information. Like the 4 other foreign writers at SAGE, Nesterenko provided written contributions to the report. He was assured by the CEPN that his text on radioprotection measures (anthropogammetric measures, pectin cures, information for children, parents and teachers) would be taken up in full, unedited in the SAGE project. In fact, the essential measures and his four main recommendations in the event of a major accident, in the conclusion to his text, were not included in the publication. The fact that they included his name in the list of authors at the front of the book after censoring his text is a morally reprehensible act on the part of those responsible for its publication.

4 – M. Henry Ollagnon, of l’Institut National d’Agronomie Paris-Grignon, member of the ETHOS team, advocated sustainable development in the contaminated territories as a way to ensure their rehabilitation. During a conference at Stoline in November 2001, he told Professor Michel Fernex : “The work we’re doing is really good, but the children are becoming more and more ill”.

5 – Statement from the President of the Academy of Sciences in Belarus, in December 1999, confirmed by the Vice–Minister of Health of Belarus at a parliamentary hearing about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, in April 2000.

6 – In 1958, a year before the agreement was signed that subordinated the WHO to the IAEA in the area of radiation and health (28th May 1959 WHA 12/40), WHO published a report analysing the “ mental health issues arising from the peaceful uses of atomic energy” The report concluded with the words ” But in the long run the greatest hope of mental health in the future of the peaceful uses of atomic energy is the raising of a generation which has learnt to live on terms with ignorance and uncertainty and which, in the words of Joseph Addison, the 18th century English poet, “rides in the Whirlwind, and directs the Storm”. (World Health Organisation Technical Report Series no 151). Thus the strategy of ignorance and deceit was protected and made legitimate.

Article published in “Japanese Scientists”, December 2012.

 Note from Susie Greaves, the translator of this article by Wladimir Tchertkoff, and of his book “Le crime de Tchernobyl: le goulag nucleaire”published by Actes Sud 2006

Unfortunately, ETHOS, with Jacques Lochard once more as director, has been visiting Japan for the last two years, advising the population on radioprotection. Lochard promotes ETHOS along with his counterpart Ms Ryoko Ando, the director of the NGO, ETHOS Fukushima. In November 2011 before ETHOS Fukushima started up, the Japanese government held a meeting at the Cabinet Office to which Lochard was invited.

At public meetings, Lochard speaks with pride of the radioprotection work done by ETHOS and CORE around Chernobyl. His message to the Japanese people is remarkably similar to the message given to the victims of Chernobyl. Psychological factors such as poor attitude, lack of determination, and fear are the real enemies. He says “[…] the fear of radiation is slowly vanishing outside the affected areas around Fukushima….there is really no objective reason for being scared taking into account the extremely low levels of exposure….a key issue will be to maintain strong links (social economic and cultural) between the affected areas and the rest of the country…the experience of Chernobyl has shown that over time the stigma of the territories and their inhabitants is a serious issue and it is important to take action against this risk[…] The decision about the 20 mSv is a good news. This will allow many people to return to their home soon. Of course the objective will be to implement all feasible protection actions to reduce and maintain exposure as low as reasonably achievable if possible below 1 mSv […].

It is worth noting that in Belarus, twenty or so years ago, it was Jacques Lochard who conducted cost benefit analysis on evacuation plans for the IAEA Chernobyl Project.  While the former Soviet Union scholars demanded the residents’ relocation where levels were above 1mSv/year, and experts from ICRP and WHO, at levels above 5 mSv/yr, Lochard, considering the cost, insisted that it could be up to 100 mSv/yr.  Possibly because Lochard proposed this ridiculous figure, a compromise was made and the mandatory evacuation level was set at 5 mSv/yr. One has to ask whether Lochard, an economist by profession, see the contradictory nature of these various pronouncements. Either it is damaging to health to live in areas contaminated at levels above 1 mSv/y or it is not. Of course, his reference to ALARA, the cynical principle used throughout the industry (as low as reasonably achievable), tells us all we need to know. Whether it is damaging to their health or not, people will not be evacuated if the government cannot or will not find the funds.

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Congenital hypothyroidism is a rare but serious condition normally affecting about one child in 2,000, and one that demands clinical intervention – the growth of children suffering from the condition is affected if they are left untreated. All babies born in California are monitored at birth for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels in blood, since high levels indicate hypothyroidism.

Joe Mangano and Janette Sherman of the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York, and Christopher Busby, guest researcher at Jacobs University, Bremen, examined congenital hypothyroidism (CH) rates in newborns using data obtained from the State of California over the period of the Fukushima explosions.

Their results are published in their paper Changes in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. The researchers compared data for babies exposed to radioactive Iodine-131 and born between March 17th and Dec 31st 2011 with unexposed babies born in 2011 before the exposures plus those born in 2012.

Confirmed cases of hypothyroidism, defined as those with TSH level greater than 29 units increased by 21% in the group of babies that were exposed to excess radioactive Iodine in the womb [*]. The same group of children had a 27% increase in ‘borderline cases’ [**].

Contrary to many reports, the explosion of the reactors and spent fuel pools at Fukushima produced levels of radioactive contamination which were comparable with the Chernobyl releases in 1986. Using estimates made by the Norwegian Air Laboratory it is possible to estimate that more than 250PBq (200 x 1015) Bq of Iodine-131 (half life 8 days) were released at Fukushima.

This is also predicted by comparing the Caesium-137 estimates with I-131 releases from Chernobyl, quantities which caused the thyroid cancer epidemic in Byelarus, the Ukraine and parts of the Russian Republic.

More on this later. At Fukushima, the winds generally blew the radioactive iodine and other volatile radionuclides out to sea, to the Pacific Ocean. The journey 5,000 miles to the West Coast of the USA leaves a lot of time for dispersal and dilution. Nevertheless, small amounts of I-131 were measured in milk causing widespread concern.

The authorities downplayed any risk on the basis that the “doses” were very low; far lower than the natural background radiation. The University of Berkeley measured I-131 in rainwater from 18th to 28th March 2011 after which levels fell. If we assume that mothers drank 1 litre of rainwater a day for this period (of course they didn’t) the current radiation risk model of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) calculates an absorbed dose to the adult thyroid of 23 microSieverts, less than 1/100th the annual background “dose”. The foetus is more sensitive (by a factor of about 10 according to ICRP) but is exposed to less as it is perhaps 100 times smaller.

So this finding is one more instance of the fact that the current radiation risk model, employed by the governments of every nation, is massively insecure for predicting harm from internal radionuclide exposures or explaining the clear observations.

The Fukushima catastrophe has been dismissed as a potential cause of health effects even in Japan, let alone as far away as California. And on what basis? Because the “dose” is too low.

This is the mantra chanted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO, largely the same outfit), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). And let’s not forget all the nuclear scientists who swooped down on Fukushima with their International Conferences and placatory soothing presentations.

This chant was heard after Chernobyl, after the nuclear site child leukemias; in the nuclear atmospheric test veterans cases; and in all the other clear situations which in any unbiased scientific arena would long ago have blown away the belief that low level internal exposures are safe.

But this one-size-fits-all concept of “dose” is the nuclear industry’s sinking ship. It provides essential cover for the use of uranium weapons, whether fission bombs or depleted uranium munitions; for the development of nuclear power stations like Hinkley Point; the burying of radioactive waste in landfills in middle England; releases of plutonium to the Irish Sea from Sellafield (where it drifts ashore and causes increases in cancer on the coasts of Wales and Ireland); and most recently, for the British Governments denial of excess cancers among nuclear test veterans.

This new study is not the first to draw attention to the sensitivity of the unborn baby to internal fission products. In 2009 I used data supplied to me when I was a member of the UK government Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) to carry out a meta-analysis of infant leukemia rates in five countries in Europe: England and Wales, Germany, Greece, and Byelarus.

There had been an unexpected and statistically significant increase in infant leukemia (age 0-1) in those children who were in the womb during the (whole body monitored) increased levels of Caesium-137 from Chernobyl. The beauty of this study (like the TSH study) is that, unlike the Sellafield child leukemias, there is really no possible alternative explanation.

It was the low “dose” of Caesium-137 that caused the leukemias. And the dose response trend was not a straight line: The effect at the very low “dose” was greater than at the very high “dose”. Presumably because at the high doses the babies perished in the womb and could not, therefore, develop leukemia. I published the results and drew attention to the failure of the ICRP model in the International Journal of Environment and Public Health in 2009.

I had published a paper on this infant leukemia proof of the failure of the risk model in Energy and Environment in 2000, and also presented it in the same year at the World Health Organisation conference in Kiev. It was there that I first really came up against the inversion of science deployed by the chiefs of the IAEA and UNSCEAR. The conference was videofilmed by Wladimir Tchertkoff and you can see his excellent documentary, which made it to Swiss TV, Atomic Lies, re-released in 2004 as Nuclear Controversies .

For what is done by these people is to dismiss any evidence of increased rates of cancer or any other disease by shouting at it: “the doses were too low”. In this way, reality is airbrushed away. What is this quantity “dose”? It is a simple physics-based quantity which represents the absorption of energy from radiation. One Sievert of gamma radiation is one Joule per kilogram of living tissue.

This might work for external radiation. But it doesn’t work for internal exposures to radioactive elements which can produce huge effects on cellular DNA at low average “doses”. It is like comparing warming yourself in front of the fire with eating a hot coal. Or comparing a punch to stabbing. Same dose, same energy. Very different effects.

This “dose” scam has been used to dismiss real effects since it was invented in 1952 to deal with the exposures from nuclear weapons development and testing. For those who want to dig deeper into the science there is a recent book chapter I wrote in the book New Research Directions in DNS Repair.

The most scary instances of the sensitivity of the foetus to radiation are the sex ratio studies of Hagen Scherb, a German biostatician and member of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR). With his colleague Christina Voigt he has published a series of papers showing a sudden change in the sex ratio of newborns after various radiation exposure incidents.

Sex ratio, the number of boys born to 1,000 girls is a well accepted indicator of genetic damage and perturbations in the normal ratio of 1,050 (boys to 100 girls) are due to the deaths before birth of radiation damaged individuals of one sex or the other depending on whether the father (sperm) or mother (egg) was most exposed.

We found such an effect (more girls) in our study of Fallujah, Iraq, where there was exposure to Uranium weapons. But Scherb and Voigt have looked at the major catastrophes, Chernobyl, the weapons tests fallout, near nuclear sites in data from many countries of the world. Huge datasets.

They estimate that millions have babies have been killed by these subtle internal radiation exposures. The nuclear military project is responsible for an awful lot of deaths. In years to come I believe this will eventually be seen as the greatest public health scandal in human history.

Of course, the exposure to radio-Iodine is associated with thyroid cancer in children. There was a big rise of thyroid cancer in Byelarus, the Ukraine and the Russian Republic after Chernobyl. The situation at Fukushima seems set to echo this, despite the reassurances from the authorities that there will be no effects.

Our paper reports 44 confirmed thyroid cancer cases in 0-18 year olds in Fukushima prefecture in the last six months (a figure that has since risen to 53). In the hypothyroidism paper we discuss the 44 cases relative to the population and calculate that this represents an 80-fold excess based on national data prior to the Fukushima Iodine releases.

This presents a severe challenge to Dr Wolfgang Weiss of the UN and WHO, who stated last year that no thyroid cancers could result from the Fukushima disaster as the “doses were too low”. How does he explain the 80-fold increase in this normally rare condition?

Or rather, when will he admit that the entire scientific model that underpins his views is fraudulent? And that nuclear radiation is – roughly speaking – 1,000 times more dangerous to human health than he is letting on?

Chris Busby

Published first in The Ecologist – 19 November 2013

http://www.theecologist.org/

Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk. For details and current CV see www.chrisbusbyexposed.org. For accounts of his work see www.llrc.org and www.nuclearjustice.org

(1) “Changes in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown” - Joseph Mangano, Janette Sherman and Christopher Busby – in “Open Journal of Pediatrics” – 28 November 2013

For statisticians :

* RR 1.21, 95% CI 1.04-1.42; p = .013

** RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.2-1.35; p = .00000001.

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In his report, Grover describes the extent of the disaster :

“The amount of radioactive cesium (137C) released due to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant is estimated to be 168 times higher than that released by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. According to TEPCO, the accident released 900 petabecquerel of radioactive iodine and cesium…. Other radioactive materials released due to the nuclear accident include radioactive Tellurium (129mTe, 129Te), Silver (110mAg), Lanthanum (140La) and Barium (140Ba).”

The Rapporteur also argues strongly that the old methods of masking the stark reality of radiation exposure used by Soviet authorities after Chernobyl should no longer be acceptable. In the years since Chernobyl, we have learned much more about health damage due to radiation exposure including chromosomal aberrations, increased childhood and adult morbidity, impairment and leukemia. According to Grover, the scientific record demonstrating the link between long term exposure and radiation at low doses and the development of cancers can no longer be dismissed as insignificant. [For more information on the controversy concerning Chernobyl studies and the gaps in scientific knowledge about the health effects of radiation, see Matthew Penney and Mark Selden, What Price the Fukushima Meltdown? Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima]

In the Japanese case, Grover criticizes the lack of effective distribution of stable iodine tablets to the population. He also questions the health protection system for nuclear workers: access to medical examination is not systematic (contrary to law) and the results of the examinations which are carried out are not adequately transmitted to the authorities. Finally, the labour force employed by subcontractors, a large majority of those working at Fukushima Daiichi, does not have a guarantee of access to such screenings. [For more information on the problems faced by workers at the Fukushima Daiichi site, see Gabrielle Hecht, Nuclear Janitors: Contract Workers at the Fukushima Reactors and Beyond]

The right to health is not respected

Concerning the zoning system around the nuclear plant, Grover reminds us of the unacceptability threshold decided for Chernobyl in 1991: any higher than 1 mSv per year and the population was not allowed to return and live and work in contaminated areas. In Fukushima this threshold has been set at the level of 20 mSv per year. In areas with radiation measured at rates between 20 and 50 mSv, the population can freely access the contaminated areas during the day.

The Rapporteur criticizes the use of “cost-benefit analysis” made by the Japanese authorities (following the ICRP recommendations) since such analysis does not respect the fundamental right to health of individuals. Grover argues that “collective interests” should never dominate individual rights, notably the right to health. Thus, he calls on the Japanese government to lower the threshold of exposure under which individuals are allowed to return to contaminated areas, and urges that displaced people receive compensation and free health protection in areas exceeding 1 msv per year.

On the matter of education about radiation, Grover asks the Japanese government to stop all claims in a supplementary reader provided to schools that radiation exposure below 100 mSv per year is not harmful to a person’s health. [For details on the 100 mSv claim in the classroom, see coverage in Kinyobi]

About decontamination, the Rapporteur expresses regret that no clear schedule to bring to contamination levels under 1 mSv has been set by the authorities beyond 2013. To clean school yards is not enough and Grover argues that it is instead necessary to decontaminate more broadly, taking into consideration the multiple “hot-spots” existing in areas which average under 20 mSv. For some of these zones, the population is now being called upon to return to their homes and communities. Finally, he criticizes the policy of involvement of the population in decontamination operations without providing them with proper equipment and informing them clearly of the health consequences.

The Rapporteur also criticizes the financing by the state, which means Japan’s taxpayers, of damages for which TEPCO is responsible: an amount equivalent to 110 billion euros or approximately 145 billion USD, announced at the end of 2012. [For more information on the financial risks of nuclear power that are borne by taxpayers and not by the companies and shareholders that stand to profit, see the Asia-Pacific Journal Feature, The Costs of Fukushima]

For the Japanese government, no “truth” except the views of WHO and UNSCEAR experts

At the same conference in Geneva at which Grover’s report was released, the Japanese government presented a counter report dated May 27, that dismisses Grover’s conclusions. According to Japanese authorities the “scientific basis” of Grover’s report is totally lacking. The “scientific basis” that the Japanese government relies on instead is the basis provided by WHO, UNSCEAR, ICRP and IAEA experts. Many scientists and nuclear critics disagree with these positions and others argue that ties to the nuclear industry and the dual role of assessing nuclear safety and promoting the use of nuclear power make the conclusions put forward by these organizations questionable.

The truth made available by UNSCEAR’s experts is a convenient one for the Japanese government: this UN agency in charge of estimating the consequences of the Fukushima meltdowns, is the same one that concluded that there were fewer than 50 immediate deaths due to radiation and under 15 deaths linked to thyroid cancers after the Chernobyl disaster, and is already anticipating “zero deaths” in the short as well as in the long term in Fukushima. This “anticipation” dates from March 2012 and was confirmed in their recent report.

Grover’s call for better protection of the population is considered by the Japanese government to be totally misplaced and redundant since nothing “scientifically” proves that the concerned populations have a real need to be protected beyond measures already being enforced: “The Government will continue to work on measures so that suitable support will be provided to the people who truly need it.”

When Grover recommended that the Japanese government “avoid limiting health check-ups for children to thyroid checks and extend check-ups for all possible health effects, including urine and blood tests”, the answer provided by the Japanese government, which is now asking that those passages be erased, is as follows:

“Intervention trials should be done scientifically and ethically. Why is blood testing or urine testing required? Because of the possibility of what type of disorder is such testing justified? The idea is unacceptable because, we should not unnecessarily burden the local citizens by forcing medically unjustified examinations on them.”

The 1 mSv per year threshold and “prejudgment” of health impacts

The Special Rapporteur recommended that the Japanese government: “… provide funding for relocation, housing, employment, education and other essential support needed by those who chose to evacuate, stay or return to any area where radiation exceeds 1mSv/year.” The Japanese government has responded with: “The sentences described above should be deleted because they are based on prejudgment. As we have already noted, there has been international controversy over the radiation level which affects health and it is still under much consideration from various perspectives.”

Concerning contaminated waste, Grover’s report notes: “As the contaminated waste is stored in residential areas and under playgrounds, thereby posing a health hazard to residents, establishing temporary storage facilities away from residential areas is urgently required.”

The Japanese authorities do not hesitate to openly lie while replying to this criticism: “When soil, etc. is stored, measures to prevent human health impacts are taken such as radiation shielding. Therefore, the description ‘posing a health hazard to residents’ is not the case.”

The Japanese government is revising history. It has been helped in this task by the French president, seven high-level ministers, and other Parliament members and industrial representatives during the state visit to Japan from 6 to 8 of June. The delivery of the 10 tons of MOX fuel which left La Hague on April 17, will also help the Japanese government to reopen nuclear power plants.

Thierry Ribault
Researcher at CNRS
June 10, 2013 in http://japanfocus.org/

 WHO’s health risk assessment of Fukushima – a travesty

Within days of the Fukushima nuclear accident and on the basis of no information whatsoever, WHO stated that “at the moment there is very little public health risk outside the 30 km (evacuation) zone”. In contrast, independent researchers (2) stated – on the basis of the composition of the emissions – that core meltdowns had occurred with massive radioactive contamination. They were right of course as TEPCO and the Japanese government conceded a few weeks later – too late to avoid harm.

Two years on, despite the availability of huge quantities of information, the WHO has issued no corrective to its initial statements. On the contrary, it has just published its “Health Risk Assessment”(3) which denies any health consequences with the exception of a slightly higher risk of developing certain cancers in populations in the worst affected areas.

The report bases its conclusions on “Preliminary Dose Estimations”(4) published by WHO but written by “experts” from the IAEA, UNSCEAR and national nuclear authorities, in other words, the nuclear lobby. The Estimations blithely report levels of radioactivity in Fukushima Prefecture of over 1 – 10 mSv and even 10-50 mSv without commenting on the fact that these are 10 to 50 times higher than the limit (1mSv/year) set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP).

No international health authority on radiation and health

In May 2011, Rémy Pagani, Mayor of Geneva, told Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (5) that if her organization continued in its current subservient role with the International Atomic Energy Agency, part of whose mandate is to promote use of the atom, it would be completed discredited.

Despite wide recognition of its unhealthy links with the nuclear lobby, WHO continues its criminal complicity in covering up the health consequences of nuclear activities. Today WHO’s abdication of responsibility in the area of radiation and health is complete – as is its discredit.

In December 2012, UNSCEAR’s chairman, Wolfgang Weiss claimed (6) that “no radiation effects had been observed in Japan among the public, workers or children in the area of the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear power plant.” This statement is inaccurate and grossly misleading. Firstly, a colossal 35% of children in Fukushima have already developed cysts and nodules on the thyroid gland. Thyroid abnormalities are early manifestations of serious health consequences as we know from Chernobyl. Secondly, given the ten to twenty year latency period for radiation related illness, particularly cancers, it is meaningless to report on what is currently being observed. However misleading they are, such statements provide false reassurance to governments and the public.

Cancer risk 20 times higher than international “acceptable” level

CRIIRAD (7) reports soil contamination in the Planned Evacuation Zones (outside the 20 km circle) that implies exposures exceeding 20 mSv/year (8). This corresponds to a risk of cancer that is 20 times higher than the level that is judged “acceptable” by the ICRP. Hundreds of thousands of people have been exposed to unacceptable levels of radiation in 2012, as they were in 2011.

In a letter to the Special Rapporteur, ACSIR (9) reports terrifying levels of radioactivity in Fukushima, Koriyama and Date – towns situated in areas designated as Safe Zones! In Date, Dr Nesterenko of the Belrad Institute found 88 mSv/year and 237 MSv/year – equivalent to the exclusion zone in 1991 in Ukraine.

The Fukushima Centre for Agricultural Technology reported an increase in the radioactivity of vegetables over six days from 0 Bq/kg to 3421 Bq/kg in just six days’ exposure to dust in the air. (10) This provides an indication of the contamination to which children in the local school are being subjected.

Criminal negligence

The initial comments (11) made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Mr Anand Grover, after his visit to Japan, confirm that the government has been willfully and perhaps criminally negligent in failing to protect the population from radioactive contamination.

Grover notes for example that the government :

• neither provided instructions nor distributed stable iodine to the affected population;

• did not make public essential information from SPEEDI which would have ensured safe evacuation;

• used a dose of 20 mSv/year to determine evacuation areas, which is 20 times the international standard;

• installed radiation monitoring stations that give artificially low readings;

• is conducting a health survey that is too narrow and ignores evidence that cancer and other diseases do occur in relation to internal, low dose radiation below 100 mSv;

• is denying access to the medical records of children with thyroid abnormalities.

A cover up will not be possible this time

In a previous meeting, Dr Chan specifically requested that IW provide her with independent information from alternative networks. With this in mind, IndependentWHO has requested that Dr Chan, Director-General, WHO, organize a meeting with Japanese citizen associations, in the presence of Anand Grover, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, before the next World Health Assembly in May 2013.

Given WHO’s total abdication of responsibility in radiation and health, it does not much matter whether Dr Chan listens either to citizens or the Special Rapporteur. The truth will out. The Japanese people have denounced official lies and disinformation since the first weeks of the catastrophe and will continue to do so over the next decades. In ten to twenty years, the tragedy of the continuing health catastrophe will be there for all to see.

 Alison Katz

Le Courrier – Daily newspaper – Geneva – 25th of March 2013

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1 – UN Special Rapporteur’s Press Statement. County Visit to Japan, 15­26 November 2012.

2 – Such as Fairewinds

3 – Health Risk Assessment from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. WHO, 2013.

4 – Preliminary dose estimations from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. WHO, 2012.

5 – During a meeting with IndependentWHO

6 – Weiss, Wolfgang. Preparing a scientific report to the General Assembly on exposures due to nuclear accident following the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami. J. Radiol. Prot. 32 N113.

7 – Commission de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur la Radioactivité. Communiqué de Presse 5 et 11 décembre, 2012

8 – 1 mSv/year is the permissible dose for adults set by the ICRP

9 – Association of Citizens and Scientists Concerned about Internal Radiation, letter dated 8 November 2012

10 – Fukushima Institute of Agricultural Technology

11 - http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=8403

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