Chernobyl to Fukushima - It All Lies

Natalia Manzurova: 1988 in the Chernobyl "dead zone"

The last twenty five years of biological study around the site of Chernobyl reveals as much about science as it does about radioactive disasters.

About the biological effects there are a few certainties: The radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl fire (containing plutonium, cesium and other radioactive isotopes) have spread their damage over a wide area.  For example, winter wheat seeds taken from this area (see this Wired article) produce endless strains of unstable genetic mutations and pine trees suffer far more than birch trees from radiation.

Beyond a these few items there is little scientific agreement about the consequences of the disaster at a biological level - even twenty five years later.

A small number of researchers have studied these areas and published papers.  Unfortunately a number of the papers and authors have been called into question for a variety of reasons:


Anders Møller - Sweden - did a number of studies on barn swallows in the area beginning in 1991.  These studies showed significant damage to this population by the radiation.  However, Møller was censored by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty in 2001 for unrelated discrepancies in papers about asymmetry in oak leaves.  However, subsequent investigation revealed no intentional manipulation of data.



Timothy Mousseau - USA - a collaborator of Møller - wrote a subsequent paper on declining bird brain sizes from the contaminated area which drew the attention of the Ukrainian government.


Other scientists, such as Ron Chesser and Robert Baker, both biology professors at Texas Tech University, and Sergey Gaschak, deputy director for science of the Chernobyl Center’s International Radioecological Laboratory, come to completely different conclusions.  In particular, that animal life is "thriving" in the area.


 Gaschak, Møller, and Mousseau have also collaborated on research in the area over the years.


One cannot know the truth about these animal claims one way or the other for a variety of reasons:


First, these studies are not based on a systematic analysis of the populations over time.  Immediately after the accident the area was off limits to research.  After a few years researchers began studying the area but there was little comparative population data about wildlife to compare post accident findings too.  (For example, observing a lot of elk today does not mean elk are thriving today unless you know how many elk were present before the accident.)


Second, there isn't enough scientific interest in the subject of the accident.  This means that funding for research is limited.  And while there certainly are measurable effects of the accident they are not dramatic (no large herds of three headed elk have been observed, for example).  This means that there is little motivation for followup research.


Third, according to Wired the Ukrainian government is not fond of scientists publishing negative scientific findings about the area.  This translates into government travel restrictions for researchers that further hamper study.

Fourth, the human survivors paint a far, far uglier picture (see this article about Natalia Manzurova pictured above) of the damage that radiation can cause and its effects on human life.   Many involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl are now dead.  The few remaining survivors have not fared well health-wise.



I see also that all of this is very uninteresting to the new, "green" environmentalists that would like to see nuclear power replace CO2 emission.  Certainly these results, whatever the truth is, paint an unflattering picture of commercial nuclear energy.


The truth is that governments - whether Russian, United States, or Japanese - lie to their populations about radiation.  The do this for a variety of reasons: ass covering, liability, financial.   The lying has gone on systematically since the early days of atomic testing.

Clean safe nuclear energy...


Companies and governments take great care to ensure that there is no financial liability for the companies that design, build, install and operate nuclear power plants - and for good reason as Chernobyl has demonstrated - because the cost of any significant disaster would be far beyond what any insurance plan could cover.