'Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is written by Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko. ' This book is in contrast to findings by the World Health Organization, International Atomic energy Agency and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation who based their findings on some 300 western research papers, and who found little of concern about the fallout from Chernobyl. They are leaving out the findings of some 30,000 scientific papers prepared by scientists working and living in the stricken territories and suffering the everyday problems of residential contamination with nuclear debris and a contaminated food supply.
This new publication of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Volume 1181), is a collection of papers translated from Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. Although there has been discussion of the impact of nuclear accidents and Chernobyl in particular, never before has there been a comprehensive presentation of all the available information concerning the health and environmental effects of the low dose radioactive contaminants, especially those emitted from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.
The senior author, Dr. Alexey Yablokov was State Councilor for Environment and Health under Yeltsin and a member of the Russian Academy of Science – since then he receives no support. Yablokov is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy Art and Science (Boston.) Dr. Vassily Nesterenko, head of the Ukrainian Nuclear establishment at the time of the accident, flew over the burning reactor and measured radiation levels. In August 2009, he died as a result of radiation damage, but earlier, with help from Andrei Sakarov, he was able to establish BELRAD to help children of the area. Dr. Alexey Nesterenko is a biologist/ ecologist based in Minsk, Belarus. The book was expertly translated into readable English by Janette Sherman, Medical Toxicologist and Adjunct Professor in the Environmental Institute at Western Michigan University.
The authors abstracted data from more than 5000 published articles and studies, mostly available only in Slavic languages and not available to those outside of the former Soviet Union or Eastern bloc countries. The findings are by those who witnessed first-hand the effects of Chernobyl. This book is in contrast to findings by the World Health Organization (WHO), International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA) and (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) who based their findings on some 300 western research papers, and who found little of concern about the fallout from Chernobyl.
While the most apparent human and environmental damage occurred, and continues to occur, in the Ukraine, Belarus and European Russia, more than 50 percent of the total radioactivity spread across the entire northern hemisphere, potentially contaminating some 400 million people.
Based on 5000 articles, by multiple researchers and observers, the authors estimated that by 2004, some 985,000 deaths worldwide had been caused by the disaster, giving lie to estimates by the IAEA and World Health Organization.
All life systems that were studied – humans, voles, livestock, birds, fish, plants, mushrooms, bacteria, viruses, etc., with few exceptions, were changed by radioactive fallout, many irreversibly. Increased cancer incidence is not the only observed adverse effect from the Chernobyl fallout – noted also are birth defects, pregnancy losses, accelerated aging, brain damage, heart, endocrine, kidney, gastrointestinal and lung diseases, and cataracts among the young. Children have been most seriously affected – before the radioactive Chernobyl releases, 80% of children were deemed healthy, now in some areas, only 20% of children are considered healthy. Many have poor development, learning disabilities, and endocrine abnormalities.
The government of the former Soviet Union previously classified many documents now accessible to the authors. For example, we now know that the number of people hospitalized for acute radiation sickness was more than a hundred times larger than the number recently quoted by the IAEA, WHO and UNSCEAR. Unmentioned by the technocrats were the problems of “hot particles” of burning uranium that caused nasopharyngeal problems, and the radioactive fallout that resulted in general deterioration of the health of children, wide spread blood and lymph system diseases, reproductive loss, premature and small infant births, chromosomal mutations, congenital and developmental abnormalities, multiple endocrine diseases, mental disorders and cancer.
The authors systematically explain the secrecy conditions imposed by the government, the failure of technocrats to collect data on the number and distribution of all of the radionuclides of major concern, and the restrictions placed on physicians against calling any medical findings radiation related unless the patient had been a certified “acute radiation sickness” patient during the disaster, thus assuring that only 1% of injuries would be so reported..
Below is the New York Academy of Sciences site for the book. Unfortunately, its selling price is now about US$150, which may limit its distribution: http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d...
Source: Rosalie Bertell on Globalresearch.ca and http://sustainableloudoun.wordpress.com/