Radiation, activists and other hazards
- From: The Australian
- April 25, 2011
ONE day in 2001, when I was working in the communications department of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, some anti-nuclear activists dropped by for a visit
It was a group of exuberant drama students from Western Australia who had been touring universities, performing a melodramatic play about the horrors of radiation. On this day, they joined one of the free tours of Lucas Heights, including the outdated little research reactor that had been safely fulfilling Australia's nuclear medicine requirements for more than 40 years.
A representative of one of many environmental organisations opposing the construction of a new reactor was accompanying them. When the tour finished, I recall, the ANSTO tour guides were astonished about how little the man who was supposed to be one of Australia's anti-nuclear experts knew about nuclear science.
All of this might now be forgotten except that some days later, the students returned to Lucas Heights. They frolicked for the cameras around the entrance to the site dressed in barrels and handcuffed themselves to the gates, while others climbed the containment building and unfurled a Greenpeace banner.
The media were invited along, and the pictures were splashed across the television news. It was a public relations triumph for Greenpeace.What failed to make the news is that over the next few days, reports began to filter back to ANSTO about the disruption the protest caused to medical procedures across Australia and overseas. Scores of important diagnostic and other medical procedures were postponed or missed altogether. Some people in the final stages of bone cancer missed out on receiving sophisticated pain relief medication. I started to take phone calls from worried local residents.
In the intervening years, anti-nuclear activism in Australia has not improved. Take Chernobyl for example. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, and opinions of the same anti-nuclear experts I encountered 10 years ago can be found in newspapers and on websites.
These opinions always involve outlandish figures of casualties derived from theoretical extrapolations; they argue that if so much radiation was released, then so many people -- always a large number -- must have died. Happily, these arguments are not supported by experience.
The definitive study, described by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the "most comprehensive analysis on human exposures and health consequences of the Chernobyl accident" was produced by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
The UNSCEAR report was assembled by the world's top scientists, epidemiologists and medical professionals after producing and examining hundreds of studies. It was presented to the UN General Assembly in 2000 and has been regularly updated ever since.
The report found that 134 plant staff and emergency workers at Chernobyl suffered acute radiation syndrome. In the first few months after the accident 28 of them died and, by 2006, another 19 died of causes not usually associated with radiation exposure.
The experts were surprised they could not find the diseases they expected to find in populations of people exposed to significant doses of radiation. The prevalence of birth defects and cancers such as leukaemia were no higher than were being experienced before the accident, even among the 600 surviving workers, many of whom received large radiation doses.
The singular exception to this was the incidence of thyroid cancer in local children. A large increase in cases is now thought to be the result of authorities allowing milk from contaminated areas to continue to be sold.
By 2005, about 6000 cases of thyroid cancer in children had been recorded in neighbouring areas, many more than would be otherwise expected. This was a terrible outcome, but since thyroid cancer is treatable, only 15 people had died by 2005.
Further casualties cannot be ruled out but astonishingly, to this day, the deaths that can be attributed to the worst nuclear accident in history are fewer than 100, and are probably closer to 50.
While direct casualties were surprisingly low, the UNSCEAR authors were disturbed to find numerous studies showing that fear of radiation had caused significant increases in the numbers of abortions and suicides, even in regions far removed from Chernobyl. They concluded the mental health impact of Chernobyl was "the largest public health problem unleashed by the accident to date".
Without doubt, Fukushima will also rate as one of the world's worst nuclear accidents, but all indications are that it is not nearly as severe as Chernobyl. The radiation emanating from Fukushima has been considerably lower, while exposures to emergency workers and local populations have been far better managed.
Amazingly, despite the devastation of the site, there have been no radiation-related deaths at Fukushima so far, and only two workers have been hospitalised as a precaution.
The only people to have perished at Fukushima were a man who became trapped in the console of a crane during the earthquake and two who were swept away by the tsunami. The entire toll from the earthquake, remember, is estimated at about 25,000.
While it is not yet over, and radioactivity continues to come out of the devastated plant, the good news is that there are still precisely zero deaths attributable to the release of radiation at the plant, and on the basis of doses received, zero are expected.
No effects on health or significant contamination cases have been identified among the general public evacuated from the area, despite the fact the accident has devastated the plant, and involved fires, explosions, and releases of radioactivity. If there is a single lesson from Chernobyl for the Japanese, it's that in the years to come misinformation is likely to be more dangerous than radiation. To this end, there is nothing harmless about anti-nuclear activists.
Gavin Atkins blogs at www.asiancorrespondent.com
