Sixteen years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the head of the Israel Cancer Registry says scientific studies show the fallout caused much less damage to those exposed to its effects than had been expected.
Dr. Gad Rennert, an epidemiologist at the Technion's medical school who maintains records for the Health Ministry on all cancer cases, says the principal harm from the nuclear meltdown has been a significant increase in thyroid cancer in children, which is "relatively easy to treat."
Rennert said low levels of radiation were responsible for the happy news. He believes that increased reports of breast cancer and other conditions in the Chernobyl region are the result of "increased anxiety among residents, who go for checkups; but when we compared the prevalence of various cancers in the affected area with those in Moscow or Leningrad, where there was no radiation, we didn't see a difference."
Rennert insisted: "We have to trust true scientific evidence, and not go by what people say. In fact, no one has yet shown any significant health effects other than a huge increase in thyroid cancer in children there [about 400 percent].
"There is practically no evidence today of genetic damage, although we have found some genetic changes in the children of 'liquidators,' who were immediately send to clean up the reactor, and have since come to Israel. But we found these kids were perfectly healthy and had no symptoms. We didn't even tell them of these changes, so as not to cause them unnecessary anxiety."
Rennert wants to continue to conduct research, "but it is getting harder to find funding, because major Western institutions... are unwilling to give grants since no studies so far have shown significant harm to residents of the Chernobyl region."
There has been an increase in reports of chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the CIS, but every expert agrees that this is one of the few types of cancer that is not caused by radiation, said Rennert. "The higher rate in the CIS, we believe, is caused by worried people going for tests."
CIS health experts, he continued, "are interested in publicity about increased disease due to Chernobyl, because they then get political support... There is no food production in a 30-kilometer zone around the reactor. People quickly knew they shouldn't eat food there, and they don't live there."
But Jay Litvin Chernobyl liaison of the Chabad project that has brought thousands of Jewish children from Belarus and Ukraine to Israel said he disagrees with Rennert on nearly all of his points. Litvin, who has made many visits to the CIS, said that "Chernobyl children continue to be at high risk even 16 years after the accident, and the consequences seem to be worse, not better than expected."
He said that because the Chernobyl accident occurred at ground level, the radiation's effect was even worse than an equivalent amount released from an atmospheric detonation, such as occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "While it is true that radioactive iodine that can cause thyroid cancer has a half-life of only 16 days, cesium, strontium, and plutonium have half lives that last for decades, and in some cases for hundreds of years."
In addition to thyroid cancers, maintained Litvin, "there are reports of serious health consequences in children, both those alive at the time of the disaster and those born after. An increase in breast cancer has been recognized internationally, with a doubling of breast cancer cases in the area of Gomel, Belarus, and others reported to me personally on my visits to Zhitomer, Ovruch, and Chernigov Regional Hospitals in northern Ukraine." Along with reported increases of tumors of the thyroid, lung, stomach, skin, prostate, breast, and uterus of adults and children, there is serious concern for the genetic effects of low-dose radiation both on the children alive at the time of the disaster and those born after. Each year, 2,500 births are recorded with genetic abnormalities, and 500 pregnancies are terminated after testing.
According to Olga Bobylova of Ukraine's health services, "Ukrainian children harmed by radioactive food form a new generation of Chernobyl victims who could pass the accident's tragic legacy on to the next."
Litvin said that "while there is merit in not exaggerating Chernobyl's consequences, there is danger in understating it. Not only do we take risk underestimating radiation's effects, we jeopardize the chances for the contaminated republics to receive the medical aid they so desperately need."