Monday, 18 March 2013

IAEA’s Wrong Assessment for Chernobyl Children



In 1991, Mr. Shigematsu, a former head of the IAEA and his team visited the contaminated area after the Chernobyl disaster.  He issued a “Safety declaration”..  It said that the reasons why children developed thyroid cancer were not enough seaweed (natural source of Iodine) in their diet, i.e. the cancers had no relation to the ionizing radiation.  Mr. Shigematsu brought all his food from outside and didn’t eat any local food while he was staying there.  He only visited hospitals where there were children who developed thyroid cancer.  He also dismissed other sick children with different illnesses.   Ms. Mika Noro, a volunteer worker and a lecturer  (.http://www.kakehashi.or.jp/) who had been helping children from Belarus, said that because of this inaccurate safety declaration, the UN had stopped sending food aid to the contaminated area.  An area where people had to grow their own food for financial reasons.  Consequently their children had to go back to eating the radioactively contaminated food.  It took for 10 years for the IAEA and the UN to admit that it was a wrong assessment.  It was too late by then; the rate of thyroid cancer in children dramatically increased.  Furthermore pro-scientists and doctors only seem to admit that cancer and leukemia are only result of being exposed to ionizing radiation.  However if you look scientifically at how ionizing radiation damage each cell in any living thing, it’s clear that any dose is a risk:  
Since our body can only create a limited amount of enzymes for restoring cells (DNA) damaged by ionizing radiation, at first our immune system becomes weakened to the point it cannot produce enough enzymes to fight.  Our weakened bodies show symptoms such as reoccurring pneumonia, loosing appetite, weakened eyesight, headache, fatigue, painful joints  and so on before developing any serious illnesses such as cancer and leukemia. 
Ms. Noro said in one of her lectures about stories of what’s happening to Chernobyl children.  “Suddently one day children couldn’t see writing on the blackboard in the classroom.”  Then the head of the school contacted the officials to get the level of contamination measured.  They found out that the level of radioactive contamination was high.  In the end the village was closed and all the villagers evacuated.  This was the way one of maps of contamination in Belarus was made.  Now nobody in Chernobyl lives in an area with readings higher than 5mSv/y except for a few who chose to live voluntarily.  (In Japan it is 20mSv/y.)  It took several years for them to evacuate into safer places, but the problem hasn’t ended.  Cancer and leukemia, heart failure and birth abnormalities, continued to 3rd generation in Chernobyl.  The longer they stayed, the longer and more health problems occurred.  Perhaps not many people knew the risk at the time of Chernobyl apart from certain scientists and doctors, but now all the information is out on the internet.  I hope more and more scientists and doctors warn of the dangers.  We shouldn’t allow any more manipulation by the nuclear hosting governments and nuclear power industries.  We shouldn't allow the same mistake to happen again in Japan

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