Revisiting Chernobyl

April 26 marked the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. An explosion and fire spread huge amounts of cancer-causing radiation over a vast area – a disaster exceeded only by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott called it “by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl.” The effects of both catastrophes are being felt by countless millions.

Caldicott called denial about Chernobyl’s widespread deadly effects “one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine.” Everyone should know the truth, she stressed.

A 2009 New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) study said Chernobyl killed around one million people and counting. Seven years later it’s likely many more.

The official IAEA figure claiming around 4,000 deaths was fabricated to downplay the disaster. NYAS explained its analysis was based on “a collection of papers translated from the 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.”

“According to the authors, official discussions from the (IAEA) and associated (UN) agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl 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.”

Distinguished nuclear expert Christopher Busby earlier called downplaying the devastating effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima “breathtaking ignorance of the scientific literature.”

Many research groups studied the health effects caused by the Chernobyl disaster. Evidence is “massive and demonstrable,” Busby explained. Scientific peer reviewed literature is definitive.

From 1986 to 2004, “more than a million people have died…as a direct result of Chernobyl,” said Busby.

A study he conducted showed widespread increases in infant leukemia in six countries – fetuses in the womb at the time of contamination affected. “There (was) no other explanation than Chernobyl,” Busby explained.

Helen Caldicott warned against eating European food, saying “(f)orty per cent of (the continent) is still radioactive.”

Countless thousands developed thyroid cancer from Chernobyl, she explained. Inhaling one millionth of a gram of deadly plutonium causes cancer.

Joseph Conrad once said “(a)fter all the shouting is over, the grim silence of facts remain.” Nuclear apologists can’t hide its danger.

Einstein said splitting the atom “changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Arrogance and hubris may end life on earth.