(.... more on 5 September 2005)
Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a well known expert, has made many comments on
the IAEA’s press release. One of these comments is on the following quote:
“Approximately 1000 on-site reactor staff and emergency workers were heavily
exposed to high-level radiation on the first day of the accident; among
the more than 200,000 emergency and recovery operation workers exposed
during the period from 1986-1987, an estimated 2200 radiation-caused deaths
can be expected during their lifetime”. Bertell: “Radiation-caused deaths
is a loaded statement. It assumes that only death is considered to be detrimental,
and eliminates the consideration of all severe and debilitating morbidity.
Moreover, these scientists, trained by the documents released by International
Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) over the last fifty years,
have accepted without question that the only health effects “of concern”
attributable to radiation are deaths from cancer. Non-fatal cancers are
basically of no concern. These are administrative decisions and not science.[..]”
Dr. Angelica Claussen from the German branch of the IPPNW remarks:
“Studies conducted for the International Chernobyl Project of the IAEA
took place from January 1990 to the end of February 1991. In 1990 alone
the rate of new cases of thyroid cancer in children in Belarus was 30 times
higher than the 10 year average.” The IAEA report states however: “The
official data that were examined did not indicate a marked increase in
the incidence of leukaemia or cancers. (..)
Reported adverse health effects attributed to radiation were not substantiated
either by those local studies that were adequately performed or by the
studies under the Project.. (..) The children who were examined were found
to be generally healthy. (..).” Later independent research by the BBC has
proved that the IAEA and its international commission of experts were already
in possession of all of the relevant facts at the time of the conference
and the presentation of the report, including the histopathological evidence
for a marked increase in the rate of thyroid cancers. It is alarming to
ascertain that this deliberate deception of the general public was practiced
by such experts as Professor Mettler (Director of the medical expert group
of the International Chernobyl Project) and other experts from the EU and
Japan.