Chernobyl and Glasnost:  The Effects of Secrecy on Health and Safety
Environment
Washington
Jun 1992

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Authors:                  Shlyakhter, Alexander

Authors:                  Wilson, Richard

Volume:                   34

Issue:                    5

Start Page:               25

ISSN:                     00139157

Subject Terms:            Radiation
                          Public health
                          Nuclear accidents & safety

Geographic Names:         Chernobyl USSR


Abstract:

The health effects of radioactive contamination from the accident at Chernobyl
USSR and the protective measures that were taken after the accident are
discussed.  The USSR's policy of secrecy in the affair, originally intended
to prevent panic, caused stress among its citizens and has increased long-term
public concern about other accidents.
Copyright Heldref Publications Jun 1992

Full Text:

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 caused
major changes in the Soviet Union. One of the first was that many Soviet
leaders finally realized that a technical society cannot operate in secrecy;
political openness is essential for preventing and responding to such accidents
because, without it, only a few people benefit from past experience. Then-General
Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev began his policy of openness, or glasnost,
by announcing in mid May 1986 that full details of both the cause of the
Chernobyl accident and its consequences would be made available to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to the world.

The Soviet Union's report to the IAEA meeting in Vienna from 25 to 29 August
1986 was impressive because of the amount of detailed work that went into
it and the amount of information released.(1) It was a great leap forward
for the Soviet government to release so much data. However, many Western
scientists (and eventually the Soviet people) were alarmed to find that
not all the data were released. The most serious coverup involved the deposition
of large quantities of radionuclides more than 100 kilometers northeast
of Chernobyl, between Gomel and Mogilev, in Belarus, and even northeast
of Briansk, in Russia. In these areas, more than 40 curies of cesium 137
per square kilometer were deposited, leading to an inhabitant's lifetime
dose of more than 20 rem (the radiation background in nature is about 0.1
rem per year). Pages describing the extent of the deposition, which were
included in a draft of the 1986 report but removed following orders from
"higher up" (according to one source, the order was given by Nikolai I.
Ryzhkov, then the prime minister), were not made public until March 1989.
Moreover, the whole report r to IAEA was classified as secret within the
USSR. The inevitable result of such secrecy subsequent to the Chernobyl
accident was a breakdown of trust between the Soviet citizens and the central
government and its experts. Thus, in the heated political climate, an independent
assessment by 1 foreign experts of the health hazards appeared highly desirable
for both the establishment and its opponents.

THE INTERNATIONAL CHERNOBYL PROJECT

The International Chernobyl Project (ICP) began in October 1989 when the
government of the USSR requested IAEA to assess the health effects of radioactive
contamination from the accident at Chernobyl and the protective measures
that were taken. The project, which was directed by Itsuzo Shigematsu,
director of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan,
and involved approximately 200 volunteer experts from 25 countries and
7 multinational organizations, also received support from both the Soviet
government and the governments of the three affected republics: Russia,
Ukraine, and Belarus. The results of the project, which were presented
in Vienna on 21 May 1991, are summarized in an overview report by the International
Advisory Committee(2) and in a three-volume technical report by IAEA that
will probably be the major reference source on Chernobyl in the years to
come. Because the most important requirement for a study of this kind is
credibility, it is unfortunate that the government's detailed reports were
not available before the release of the three-volume report. This absence
of information fueled the charge that the conclusions were reached first
and that data were gathered solely to justify them. Because the official
overview of the accident's aftermath was published before the detailed
report, some doubted whether it summarized the report.

ICP was not intended to duplicate the enormous amount of work already done
by Soviet scientists. The project's limited time and resources allowed
only an examination of the extensive "official" information, measurements
of contamination levels, estimations of absorbed doses, and an assessment
of the health conditions of a sample of the population in the affected
regions and of the claims that these conditions were rapidly deteriorating.

The scale of the project is nonetheless impressive. ICP scientists made
nearly 50 missions to the USSR and measured 8,000 residents' external radiation
exposure and 9,000 persons' whole-body contamination. Also, 1,400 people
were carefully examined by the project medical teams. But the work was
limited to a study of selected residents who remained in heavily exposed
areas. None of the 600,000 decontamination workers, for example, was studied.
However, the ICP report is important because it was independent--and was
seen to be independent--of official Soviet reports.

The main contribution of people's integrated external exposure was determined
to be from deposited cesium 137 and cesium 134, which have long lifetimes
and can still be found on the ground. Using radioactivity maps that have
been widely available since 1989 and have been generally accepted, the
IAEA team studied radioactivity contamination in selected towns, and its
results were generally consistent with those in the Soviet report. (The
Soviets' procedure for deriving radiation doses from external exposure
is described in some detail in the ICP report. Although the procedure had
seemed sensible in 1986, the Soviets' report should have justified in more
detail such important assumed parameters as how fast the cesium sinks into
the soil.) To check the validity of the internal dose data, the equipment
calibrations of 13 Soviet institutes were come pared with those at the
IAEA laboratory in Seibersdorf, Austria. The measurements of cesium 137
levels in the soil compared well, but strontium 90 and plutonium 239 levels,
which are harder to measure, had been overestimated by a factor of four,
strontium 90 levels in milk by a factor of nine and cesium levels in milk
by a factor of three.

Because radioactive iodine that escaped at Chernobyl has already decayed,
concentrations are no longer possible to measure. However, it would normally
be assumed that iodine was deposited in the same areas as was cesium. Thus,
the overestimation of cesium activity in milk may well mean that the estimates
of doses of iodine absorbed by people's thyroid glands were also inflated.
Scientists in the USSR are now reevaluating the results of the measurements
they made after the accident. However, the assumption that cesium and iodine
were deposited similarly may lead to too much uncertainty, and the ICP
report did not directly address this crucial point.

ICP estimates of human internal doses based on whole-body measurements
are 8 to 30 times lower than the results of the environmental transfer
models. This fact may partly reflect the effect of restrictions on the
consumption of locally produced food, which is not accounted for in model
calculations. Although this discrepancy has been noted before in studies
of nuclear bomb fallout, it appears that the dose commitment from internal
doses equals only 15 to 30 percent of the external dose estimates. Still,
noncompliance with the official recommendations was widespread because
of local traditions and economic disarray. For example, the surface contamination
in three settlements was five times lower than that in six other settlements.
However, residents in these three communities had two to five times more
radioactive cesium in their bodies than had their counterparts in more
contaminated settlements.

Unfortunately, the ICP report does not always make a clear distinction
between data obtained from official sources that were accepted without
verification; data accepted after verification; and data independently
obtained by the IAEA teams. Also, although the work was done by different
people and different sections of the report were presumably written by
different people, the authors of the sections are not identified. Thus,
the authors cannot be held accountable by their peers for their statements
or be e directly questioned, which is particularly important because the
report contains many judgmental statements.

THE SAKHAROV CONGRESS

The framework of the International Andrei Sakharov Congress, which was
held in Moscow on 21 May 1991, was unusual. As part of the overall theme
"Peace, Progress and Human Rights," the subject of Sakharov's Nobel Prize
lecture, the congress was designed to be a vehicle for internationally
recognized experts to make recommendations for governments and other authorities.
When both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin attended the first session,
it became clear that the conference would be influential. Three coordinators
were chosen by the organizing committee to direct the discussions of the
causes of the Chernobyl accident, its effects, and the future of nuclear
power. Each coordinator recruited several experts of his choice in an attempt
to cover a range of expertise and preconceptions; each expert, in turn,
invited several consultants. The participants acted privately, and each
wrote a brief report before the meeting and circulated it among other experts.
At the end of the meeting, a set of recommendations was compiled and presented.(3)

The purpose of the Sakharov congress was different from that of the ICP,
because it allowed independent experts--mostly from outside the USSR--to
discuss the data presented and draw their conclusions. Although the two
conferences on Chernobyl were complementary, they were held at the same
time, and most of the IAEA experts could not be present in Moscow.

The workshop on the causes of the Chernobyl accident was the least controversial,
but, nonetheless, effective and important. It is very clear that Soviet
society as a whole has little regard for safety: People fasten automobile
seat belts only when they believe a policeman is looking, even though belts
are compulsory; on domestic flights, few airline travelers fasten seat
belts. Few Western representatives at the IAEA experts' meeting in 1986
believed the Soviet report on the Chernobyl accident that identified human
error as the primary cause, though all believed it was contributory. A
good reactor design compensates for human errors. At the Sakharov congress,
the Soviets admitted that many aspects of their system were at fault. The
Soviet RBMK reactor design, for instance, does not allow for much error.
The importance of carrying out a probabilistic risk assessment for Soviet
reactors was widely discussed at the congress. In most cases, such assessments
have suggested cost-effective ways of reducing the calculated risk probability
and improving safety.

In October 1991, a generator exploded and caught fire in the turbine hall
of Chernobyl unit two. Although no radioactivity was released in this particular
accident, it indicates that the Soviet attempt to instill an adequate level
of safety-awareness in nuclear power plant operations has not yet succeeded.
After such an accident, a Western reactor would be shut down until officials
had identified the root causes and any gaps in personnel training had been
eliminated. Investigating teams from each of the three affected republics
took a similar approach and recommended that reactor two not be repaired
and that steps be taken to close the whole power plant.

After the 1986 accident, the Soviets reported in Vienna that the reactor
core was in roughly the same position as it had been previously, and it
was generally believed that only a small part of the core had melted. In
1989, however, scientists drilled a hole into the reactor cavity and could
not find the core. It now appears that all the graphite had burned, and
the uranium had melted to form a glass mass below the reactor cavity.(4)
Full reports of the meltdown were given at a meeting in Helsinki on 29
May 1991. In spite of the complete meltdown, however, only a small fraction
of strontium had escaped, leading to only small human radiation doses,
which is reassuring because future accidents are unlikely to be appreciably
worse.

HEALTH EFFECTS

If the doses are uncertain, the health effects from the accident are more
so. Predictions of health effects are mostly based upon data from the atomic
bomb blast in Japan, which are summarized by the reports of the United
Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the
Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation of the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences. At doses of 50 rem given all at once, those reports
suggest that there will be one incidence of cancer for every 1,000 humans.
Most scientists accept that there is an additional dose-rate reduction
factor of between 2 and 10 for doses at a low rate. There is general agreement
that few cases of cancer will appear immediately. The delay period is 5
years for leukemia, 15 years for some other tumors, but maybe as little
as 2 years for childhood leukemia. Therefore, few or no cases of cancer
should yet be found. It is vital to realize that Chernobyl was not the
only radiation incident and that any claim of large, low-dose effects has
testable consequences elsewhere.(5) But a few scientists believe that responses
to low radiation may be greater than the linear dose response suggests.
This was a minority view at the Sakharov congress, where one expert proposed
a corresponding biological model. Other experts and consultants pointed
out that this model is at variance with well established radiobiological
results.

The ICP teams studied children for changes in blood levels, general health,
lymphocyte counts, production of thyroid-initiating hormone, weight, and
height. Although no significant differences in health effects were found
between people who lived in contaminated areas and those who lived in the
control areas, there are significant general health problems in both areas
that are not specifically related to contamination. In fact, the state
of health in the former USSR is much worse than that of Western Europe.
For example, according to official Soviet statistics, the death rate of
Soviet 30-year-olds is more than three times that of 30-year-olds in Sweden,
and it does not seem to be improving.

Reports of worsening health problems in southeastern Belarus and northern
Ukraine, where the cesium deposition was greatest, were presented at the
Sakharov congress. Specifically, 26 cases of thyroid cancer were recorded
in one year, compared with an average of one or two cases in earlier years.(6)
It is unclear whether these reports were subject to histological review,
which is essential for linking them to radiation. Also, it is important
to understand that underreporting occurred before 1985, which might explain
why more thyroid cases were found in regions free of cesium fallout than
in regions of high fallout.

Other results discussed at the congress included those from a 10-year study
of cancer incidences at the district and oblast levels in three areas of
the Ukraine that experienced heavy contamination but no evacuation.(7)
The scientists found, for example, no cases of thyroid cancer in subjects
under age 14 between 1981 and 1989, but 3 cases were found in 1990. There
was also a significant increase in the incidence of leukemia for the group
65 and older starting in 1987, and an increase in all other cancers for
the same group starting before the accident, in 1985. The scientists attribute
the increases to the peoples' concern about contracting cancer after the
accident, which led them to conduct a more thorough investigation of elderly
patients. It is important to realize that, in early cancer registries,
the statistics for people older than 65 were often unreliable. It would
be interesting to compare the age-adjusted rate with corresponding rates
from Western Europe to see whether this explanation is consistent. The
scientists concluded that, even in the Ukraine's most highly contaminated
areas, cancer has not yet greatly increased as a resuit of the Chenobyl
accident.

The ICP team could not confirm these and other findings because of the
Soviets' lack of data and deficiencies in their own methods. Unfortunately,
the overview report does not mention that pessimistic claims exist. On
the other hand, several nonobjective ailments-fatigue, chest pains, and
anemia--are much more widespread in the contaminated areas than in the
control areas. This conclusion is consistent with a study of the psychological
conditions of the population in several contaminated regions of Belarus,
which was performed between 1988 and 1990 by a commission of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences.(8) The academy scientists conducted interviews with
local residents, local and republican authorities, and environmental activists
and discovered a relatively stable "Chernobyl syndrome," which included
concerns about life and health; adequate medical services; resettlement,
benefits, and payments; placement in social structure; lack of trust in
the authorities; and absence of information. Many respondents expressed
feelings of depression: "This grief breaks our hearts....We can think about
nothing else....It all keeps piling up, people are on the verge of psychosis....We
are just walking corpses....We will all die by 1993." Many respondents
viewed themselves as guinea pigs. This sentiment is promoted by both poor
medical services and the suspicion that financial bonuses are given to
keep people in the contaminated areas. The commission concluded that the
people's anxiety was an adequate reflection of their situation and should
not be confused with radiophobia, the label all too often used by the authorities.
It would be interesting to compare the relative effects on public health
of radiation and stress after one U.S. and two Soviet nuclear accidents:
Three Mile Island released no radiation and caused moderate stress; Kyshtym
released a moderate amount of radiation with no observable stress (because,
in 1957, the residents were not told of the danger); and Chernobyl experienced
moderate irradiation and high stress. If stress alone can cause a rise
in the leukemia rate, then cancer would have been observed around Three
Mile Island, which is not the case;(9) if low radiation doses were much
more harmful than most experts believe them to be, some effects would have
been seen at Kyshtym, which is not supported by the data disclosed so far.(10)
If claims about cancer effects around Chernobyl prove true, they will indicate
the existence of a synergism between radiation and stress. However, such
a synergism will be difficult to reconcile with the data on atomic-bomb
survivors, whose dose and stress levels were no less than those at Chernobyl.
A separate statement presented at the Sakharov congress calls for the full
release of data on previous radiation accidents and incidents in the USSR,
specifically data concerning the effects of high occupational doses at
the Chelyabinsk military installation between 1947 and 1960(11) and of
the Kyshtym accident in 1957.

EVACUATION

At the request of the USSR government, the World Health Organization (WHO)
sent a group of experts from 19 to 25 June 1989 to Chernobyl and the surrounding
regions to consider the application of radiation protection limits for
the population in the contaminated areas.(12) The USSR considered 35 rem
during a person's lifetime (roughly corresponding to 40 curies per square
kilometer of cesium deposition) as a primary limit, above which everyone
would be evacuated. The WHO experts chose a primary limit 2 or 3 times
higher and were convinced that 35 rem is the minimum dose at which to consider
relocating people. Moreover, the 35 rem would be calculated by what one
scientist believed to be somewhat pessimistic criteria.(13) Half of this
dose has already been absorbed and cannot be reversed. Because it is the
probability of cancer that is added, rather than the dose itself, evacuation
criteria should only reflect future, not past, doses. In addition, WHO
and IAEA both emphasize, as did some experts at the Sakharov congress,
that the evacuation of people causes stress in itself. However, it must
be noted that these technical matters are only a small part of the issue.
Trust in authority is vital, and if trust can be regained by evacuation,
then evacuation, even if costly and stressful, may be worthwhile. Authorities
in Belarus are now evacuating people who have received doses lower than
those recommended by WHO--sometimes as low as 10 rem total--to regain the
trust that the previous authorities lost.

Andrei Sakharov once compared radiation doses to cigarette smoking. The
principal effect of each is the induction of cancer at a multitude of sites.
For example, on the basis of 400 cigarettes per rem, 35 rem equals 1,000
packs of cigarettes--or a three-year supply for a moderate smoker. Other
experts at the Sakharov congress prefer to compare radiation levels with
the natural background level. Including radon exposure, the effective lifetime
background exposure level is about 20 rem, with considerable variability
above that amount.

DISCUSSION

ICP experts favor the explanation that the stress to which people residing
in the affected areas have been subjected is the major contributor to such
nonobjective symptoms as fatigue, chest pains, and anemia. Most local residents,
however, believe that low doses of radiation affect public health and cause
these same symptoms. The ICP report attributes this stress to radiophobia,
though the academy commission and a Ukrainian psychologist at the Sakharov
congress insisted that such anxiety is not a clinical "phobia" and that
use of the word leads to stress itself. To compound the problem, the ICP
report attributes radiophobia to a lack of understanding on the part of
the people. The Sakharov congress, however, took a different view. The
policy of secrecy, originally intended to prevent panic, instead has helped
to create this stress. It is strange that ICP barely mentioned this secrecy
in its report. This failure adds to the impression of a coverup. Now that
secrecy has been eliminated, however, the stress and, often, fear remain.
But no one knows who to believe; when viewed from different perspectives,
these ailments appear to have completely different origins. A heated discussion
at the Sakharov congress involved some Soviet participants who insisted
on a policy statement naming those guilty of endangering public health.
Western experts were reluctant to interfere in the volatile domestic politics.
Finally, the following statement was adopted: "Any changes in public officials
that are necessary to regain this trust (of the people) must be made. Some
of the present officials have lost the trust (of the people)."(14)

Health effects are not unique to radiation. For example, children with
leukemia need medical care regardless of cause. The experts at the Sakharov
congress recommended that "the top priority should be given to the general
improvement of public health...to ensure that the same level and quality
of medical care can be given to all rural and urban populations in the
contaminated areas."(15)

Some contend that the medical effects of Chernobyl are massive and grossly
underestimated in the Russian republic. Who is right? Although the world
has provided much needed medical supplies and medical care worth more than
$60 million for Belarus, Russia has received comparatively little. Clearly,
this is not merely a scientific question, and scientists must be careful
how they answer. Understanding the delicate balance between scientifically
well-founded statements and politically effective statements is vital in

democratic society. The Russians, Ukrainians, and Bela-russians are learning
this lesson under fire. Scientists of the "old school," however technically
competent, are falling by the wayside.

It is important to learn the true lessons of Chernobyl. It was about as
bad a nuclear power accident as is conceivable--yet the world survived
it. More people were killed in the Bhopal accident and in recent floods
in Bangladesh.

The environmental and ecological effects of the oil fires in Kuwait are
far worse, and the long-term medical effects of the air pollution in Kuwait
are comparable to those claimed at Chernobyl. Even these facts are overshadowed
by the brutal occupation and war that preceded the fires.

A more general conclusion is that secrecy will eventually lead to accidents.
Although keeping the public in the dark about an accident may help in the
short term, it increases the long-term public concern about other accidents.
Bureaucrats often justify secrecy by arguing that the population is too
ignorant to cope with the truth. The solution offered by the Sakharov congress
is public education; a partial solution proposed at the congress was to
start a college of radioecology in each of the affected republics. On 20
January 1992, the council of ministers of Belarus formed the first International
Sakharov College of Radioecology in Minsk. So far, funds have been allocated
from the ministry of education, and other funds are being sought from a
variety of international sources to provide for overseas lectures and researchers.
The college, which is scheduled to open in September 1992, plans to offer
special short courses for physicians and other groups who need training
in or an understanding of radiation. If the governments of the world provide
education and learn to avoid secrecy, nuclear power may thrive in the former
USSR and throughout the world.

NOTES

1. USSR State Committee on the Utilization of Atomic Energy, The Accident
at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Its Consequences: Information
Compiled for the IAEA Experts Meeting, 25-29 August 1986, Vienna (Moscow:
State Committee on Atomic Energy, 1986).

2. The International Chernobyl Project, "An Overview Assessment of Radiological
Consequences and Evaluation of Protective Measures," Report by on International
Advisory Committee (Vienna: IAEA, 1991).

3. First International Andrei Sakharov Memorial Congress, "Recommendations
and Proposals of Experts on the Theme 'Global Implications of Chernobyl
Disaster and the Future of Nuclear Power.' Moscow. 21 to 25 May 1991" (forthcoming).

4. A. A. Borovoi, "Inside and Outside the Sarcophagus," Priroda, November
1990, 83-90.

5. A. Shihab-Eldin, A. Shlyakhter. and R. Wilson, "Is There a Large Risk
of Radiation?: A Critical Review of Pessimistic Claims," Environment International,
April 1992.

6. O. Y. Boyarskaya, "Tumors of the Thyroid Gland Among Children After
the Chernobyl Accident" (Report presented at the International Andrei Sakharov
Congress, Moscow, 21 May 1991).

7. A. Prisyazhiuk et al., "Cancer in the Ukraine, Post Chernobyl," Lancet,
338 (1992):1334.

8. A. Nazarov, ed., "The Sociological, Socio-Psychological and Medico-Psychological
Aspects of Expert Assessment of the General Situation in the Region Affected
by the Chernobyl Accident," Environmental Management in the USSR R 9 (Moscow:
All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, 1991), 80-105.

9. G. K. Tokuhata et al., "Cancer Incidence Among Women of Child bearing
Ages Exposed to TMI Accident Radiation: 1O-Year Cohort Follow-Up" (Paper
presented at the Society for Epidemiological Research Annual Meeting, 12
June 1991, Buffalo. New York).

10. G. N. Romanov, L. A. Buldakov, and V. L. Shvedov, "Irradiation of the
Population and Medical Consequences of the (Kyshtym) Accident," Prirodo.
May 1990, 63-67.

11. A. Shlyakhter and R. Wilson, "Radiation Doses and Cancer," Nature 350
(1991):25.

12. The International Chernobyl Project, "The Radiological Consequences
in the USSR of the Chernobyl Accident: Assessment of Radiological Consequences
and Evaluation of Protective Measures," International Advisory Committee
Technical Report, 3 volumes (Vienna: IAEA, 1991).

13. L. A. Ilyin, "Public Dose Burdens and Health Effects due to the Chernobyl
Accident" (Discussion paper at the International Meeting of Soviet and
French Nuclear Societies, Paris, 15-17 April 1991).

14. Sakharov congress, note 3 above.

15. Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.


=============================== End of Document ================================