Critical Times

“The price of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. … Chernobyl opened my eyes like nothing else: it showed the horrible consequences of nuclear power, even when it is used for non-military purposes.”
Mikhail Gorbachev, 17 April, 2006.
“Chernobyl represents a major chronic human health disaster” according to Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. “Our leaders must heed the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who led the response to the world’s worst ever industrial accident”.

Dr Ruff welcomed the recent release of the Greenpeace report on the health consequences of the 1986 radioactive explosion (The Chernobyl Catastrophe), which evaluates new studies from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine which conclude that over 90,000 people in the surrounding region will die of cancers directly attributable to Chernobyl’s radioactive pollution. The Greenpeace report accuses the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of gross over-simplification and under-estimation.

“Recent attempts by nuclear proponents to downplay the scale of the catastrophe are morally repugnant and scientifically spurious”, said Dr Ruff. “Claims of 50 total deaths caused by the Chernobyl disaster are inaccurate and a gross misinterpretation of the evidence”.

Dr Bill Williams, Vice President of MAPW, emphasized the social and mental health consequences: “Millions of lives have been damaged, hundreds of thousands of people evacuated – many forever. All of these people are wondering if they are the ‘lucky ones’ whose DNA survived the radiation undisturbed”.

The implications of the disaster are pervasive and persistent.

“Tens of billions of dollars have been spent on damage control … and remember that we aren’t even halfway through the first generation of victims and the clean-up is still proceeding. Large areas of agricultural and forestry land will remain off-limits for generations. And every dollar spent on monitoring, screening and mopping-up is a dollar that won’t be spent on ‘normal’ civilian requirements – schools, hospitals, business investment”.

Referring to an earlier United Nations Mission Report (2002), which emphasised that ‘it is vitally important that the whole world learns the lessons of Chernobyl’, Dr Williams remarked: “One lesson the nuclear industry likes to ignore is that Belarus cancelled its nuclear power program as a result of the accident.” But the fundamental lesson for healthcare is enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath: ‘First, do no harm’.

“The Chernobyl emergency continues to beam its flashing lights, its howling sirens throughout the world: the nuclear industry has been a deadly mistake. The time is up for nuclear reactors and radioactive waste – and for Australia’s uranium industry”.

As stated by Mikhail Gorbachev last week: “We should also start seriously working on the production of the alternative sources of energy.”

For further comment, please contact:
Dr Bill Williams MAPW Vice President 0419 327 251
Assoc Prof Tilman Ruff MAPW President 0438 099 231
See also:
http://www.mapw.org.au
http://www.geocities.com/olympicdam