The IAEA wants to downplay the consequences An Interview with Keith Baverstock Long-time head of the Department for Radiation and Health of WHO

IPPNW: What do you think about the current WHO/IAEA study on the consequences of Chernobyl?

Baverstock: My main criticism is that the study claims to close the case on Chernobyl. But only 20 years have passed so far. This period of time is a much too short to make final conclusions. Just consider that twenty years after the atomic bombing of Japan, we only knew that leukaemia was a consequence of radiation. 24 years later, we saw the rise in other types of cancer and 45 years later we the saw non-cancer diseases appear.

Furthermore, the authors claim that thyroid cancer can be healed in 99% of all cases. That is not the point, because we don not yet know if more lethal types of thyroid cancer might develop. Already, we see changing patters of histological samples and types of thyroid cancer. We see different latencies, which could suggest different types of cancers.

A disease like thyroid cancer is not something trivial, as the study suggests. For a child, this is a severe burden during its childhood. The damage associated to this is being underestimated. It is much too early to close the case on Chernobyl. (…)

Another strange effect is the micro-satellite instability that has been discovered in children of fathers who were exposed to radioactivity in Chernobyl. A similar phenomenon was also established in mice. We do not know if a health deficit is directly connected with this genetic mutation, but it is a sort of “transgenetic genome instability” that gets weaker and weaker each generation.

IPPNW: What about other health effects?

Baverstock: There have not been any serious and large enough studies done on the appearance of solid tumors, like breast cancer, gastric cancer or lung cancer. No one has dedicated himself in an objective way to the potential effects. Instead, you can find within WHO a blindness and condescending way of treating the subject. This worries me a lot, also because it has led to an atmosphere where the WHO study is being cited by the press to convey a sense of “it’s not as bad as we thought after all”.

IPPNW: The IAEA has published a press statement on the study. What is your role?

Baverstock: The IAEA wants to downplac the consequences of the accident. The press release diminishes the effects of Chernobyl even more than the study itself. This is completely unacceptable. During the meeting of the Chernobyl Forum in Vienna in September of 2005, there was immediate criticism from the audience after the press release was presented. Many were very surprised.

IPPNW: Does the IAEA have an inherent conflict of interest? According to its statutes, the agency’s job is to promote the use of civil nuclear energy around the world.

Baverstock: Officially , the IAEA would say that it is completely neutral regarding to nuclear energy und that her mandate only refers to the promotion of nuclear technology – such as medical radiation therapy. But many of the really competent members of IAEA are strong proponents of nuclear energy. They almost religiously believe that nuclear energy is a good cause – of course such people are attracted by an organization like IAEA.

IPPNW: Has the contract between IAEA and the WHO, which created a type of censure, led to a suppression of information?

Baverstock: I don’t know much about that. I find the contract relatively benign, compared to the real life cooperation between the two organizations. The problem is that the top level of the IAEA is competent in regards to nuclear questions while the WHO is not. The WHO is subdued in discussions with IAEA and due to hierarchical reasons, the low-level WHO-experts are not included in the relevant sessions. This leads to a situation, where, for example, water-experts led the radiological project of WHO.

IPPNW: Who could run objective studies on the health effects of Chernobyl?

Baverstock: The WHO can not. She does not have the competence and has become much too political in recent years. There would have to be an international consortium with international cooperation. A single country cannot do this.

The Interview was conducted by Dr. Ute Watermann, Spokeswoman of IPPNW Germany

Many scientific questions arising from the disaster "have been largely ignored," according to Keith Baverstock, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) radiation scientist.

In man ways, the story of the scientific response to Chernobyl reads like an intellectual echo of the disaster itself. Soviet efforts to cover up the disaster prevented immediate collection of basic data, while its failed efforts to relocate people from radioactive areas in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine left 200,000 people still living in the affected areas today. In 1989, its credibility shattered, the Soviet government invited the UN-sponsored International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to review health impacts. Working with inadequate Soviet data, in 1991 the IAEA reported that no health problems could be linked to the disaster. And yet, according to Baverstock of the WHO, in 1990 the IAEA experts knew of twenty cases of rare childhood thyroid illness in Ukraine.

Next came the WHO, backed with $20 million from Japan to gather data and address thyroid disease, blood disease and brain damage in utero. But funds ran out in 1995. An international thyroid project launched by the WHO and the European Union in 1992 had similarly stalled, as did later efforts by other international bodies, including the G7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Baverstock notes that about the only interested party that has never participated in Chernobyl research is the nuclear industry itself.

The latest piece of bad news comes from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, which, while charged with monitoring Chernobyl science, appears to be disintegrating. UN funding slashes meant UNSCEAR had to cancel its annual meeting last year, and commission member Lars Eric Holm warns that cuts will "seriously affect" future research. Governments in Japan, the United States, the Netherlands and Germany all currently support worthy short-term studies, mostly focusing on thyroid cancer. But with decades of impacts ahead, and local officials concerned that breast cancer and genetic irregularities are emerging, there remains no concerted long-term research plan. Nor have governments in the directly affected countries helped much. Russia recently declared its radioactive zone "clean," despite high radiation readings in many populated areas. In Belarus, the government's approach is to try to lure people back into the radiation zones with tax breaks. Ukraine is investing in new Russian reactors while ignoring calls for more research.

Last year, UN Undersecretary General Kenzo Oshima expressed the hope that "the international community may be moved to action by a healthy combination of compassion and enlightened self-interest." But nobody has committed any cash in response. At the Bryansk diagnostic center in Russia's radioactive zone, chief geneticist Nikolai Rivkind said recently, "The Chernobyl experience--tragic as it is--should be a goldmine for world science." Standing in a threadbare lab where Internet access is as severely rationed as every other research tool, he added, "We've got maybe two years at most left to get organized. I'm losing hope."