Risk of low-level radiation

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Risk of low-level radiation
30 years living with Chernobyl its long term
impact Dr. Angelika Claussen, IPPNW Europe
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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• The burning reactor
  
  Source Tschernobyl Interinform

• The exploded Reactor
• Foto taken by Igor Kostin 12 hours after the
  explosion

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• - The largest nuclear
• catastrophe in the 20th century
• - Radioactivity release 200 times that from
  Hiroshima und Nagasaki (WHO/IPHECA 1995)
• - Hans Blix 1986, IAEO
• The nuclear industry can take
• a catastrophe Chernobyl
• once every year.

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The longterm impact of Chernobyl
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The long term impact of Chernobyl
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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Problems in describing the true dimension of
  the catastrophe
• Information to assess the dimension of the
  health effects were kept secret or were falsified
  (USSR) during the first 5 years
• The international bodies, IAEO and the
  Chernobyl Forum (200 Western and 500 Russian
  scientists, also withhelt and falsified important
  findings 1991 no mentioning of the rise of
  Thyroid cancer in children although it was
  proved.
• No health problem can directly be attributed
  to the radiation dose of Chernobyl.
• 1991 the Soviet Union fell apart, the health
  system and the social system declined, the three
  republics Russia, Belarus and Ukraine hat to cope
  with the health and the social effects on their
  own
• Medical discussion on the effects of low
  dose radiation

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Chernobyl health impacts
• Rise of cancer, not only thyroid, but also
  leukemia, breast cancer and other cancers
• Rise of non-cancer diseases (exceeds the cancer
  cases) - blood system, stroke and heart attack,
  thyroid endocrinological diseases, (Basedow,
  Hashimoto, Diabetes), lens diseases
• Genetic effects congenital malformations, rise
  in perinatal mortality, rise of stillbirth

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Thyroid Cancer Rise Belarus
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Thyroid cancer rise incidence Ukraine
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Thyroid cancer rise in Adults

• Studies show specific rise in female thyroid
  cancer
• Ukraine M. Fuzik A. Prysyazhnyuk (2011)
• Russia Ivanov, V.K. et al (2012)
• Belarus Frenzel, C. Lengfelder, E. (2011)
• Czech Republic Mürbeth et al. (2004)
• Specific epidemiologic studies should be
  undertaken in other highly contaminated areas in
  Middle and Western Europe Austria, Bavaria,
  Estonia, Romania

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Chernobyl-related cancers
• Clean-up workers increase in cancer by 20
  (Okeanov,2004) increase in acute and of chronic
  lymphatic leukemia (Zablotska et al, 2012),
  increase in thyroid cancer (Kesmiene et al, 2012)
• Gomel region, Belarus increase in cancer rate by
  55,9
• Belarus overall 40 (Okeanov et al. 2004)
• Increase in breast cancer in contaminated areas
  Gomel Mogilov (Belarus) and Chernigov, Kiev,
  Zhytomir (Ukraine), (Pukkala et al. 2006)
• Increase in leukaemia (children) in contaminated
  areas of Ukraine Significant if the
  contamination is higher than 10 mSv (Noshenko,
  2010) and Belarus (A. Körblein 2013) for babies
  in the first year after Chernobyl
• Increase in number of brain tumours for children
  under 6 years (Ukraine) 5,8 fold (Orlov,
  Sharevsky, 2002)

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Chernobyl, non-cancer diseases
• Prysyazhnyuk et al in-utero radiated children
• Risk of cardiovascular diseases increased
  compared to non-radiated children (57.8 vs.
  31.8, p lt 0.05)
• Prysyazhnyuk, A. Ye. Et al (2002). Review of
  epidemiological finding in the study of medical
  consequences of the Chernobyl accident in
  Ukrainian population. In Imanaka, T. (Ed.),
  Recent Research Activities on the Chernobyl NPP
  Accident in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia,
  KURRI-KR-79 (Kyoto University, Kyoto), pp.
  188287.

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Non-cancer diseases Chernobyl shows adverse
  effects on childrens bloodcells
• Study of 1,251 children from 1993 -1998 in the
  region of Narodichevsky/Shitomir - Ukraine
• Data show a statistically significant reduction
  in red and white blood cell counts, platelet
  counts and haemoglobin with increasing
  residential 137Cs soil contamination
• Stepanova et al Environmental Health 2008, 721

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Chernobyl non-cancer diseases
• Radiation severely affects the human brain
• Dose-related cognitive and neurophysiological
  abnormalities among prenatally exposed children
  after the Chernobyl accident .
• Gestation ages of 8 weeks at gt20 mSv on the
  fetus and gt300 mSv on the thyroid in utero
• Gestation ages at 1625 weeks, abnormalities at
  Doses gt10 mSv and gt200 mSv, respectively.
• K. Loganovsky, Kiew, UkraineDo low doses of
  ionizing radiation affext the human brain?

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Brain effects on adults liquidators health
• Radiation-associated cerebrovascular effects
  (stroke) were obtained at gt150 -250 mSv.
• Dose-related neuropsychiatric,neurophysiological,
  neuropsychological, and neuroimaging
  abnormalities following exposure to gt300 mSv
• neurophysiological and neuroimaging radiation
  markers at doses gt1000 mSv were revealed
• (source K. Loganovsky 2009, 2015)

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Non-cancer diseases liquidators health
• Main cause of death stroke, heart attack
• second cause of death cancer
• Yablokov (2009) looked at studies on liquidators
  from the health registries in Obninsk and in
  Kiev estimates that out of 830,000 liquidators
• 112,000 125,000 have died

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Genetic and teratogen effects on reproductive
  health
• Increase of stillbirth in Southern Bavaria
• Increase of stillbirth in Eastern European
  countries (Greece, Hungary, Poland, Sweden).
  Effects not so clear in central Europe (Austria,
  Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland)
• Sources Scherb et al (1999) European stillbirth
  proportions before and after Chernobyl accident
  H. Scherb, E. Weigelt Spatial-temporal logistic
  regression of the cesium contamination and the
  time trend in annual stillbirth proportions on a
  district level in Bavaria, 1980 to 1993

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Increase in perinatal mortality in Germany and
  Poland corresponding to 137Cs contamination
• Increase in congenital malformations in Belarus,
  Ukraine, Bavaria corresponding to 137Cs soil
  contamination
• Sources D. Lazjuk et al (1997), W. Wertelecki
  (2010, 2014), Scherb Weigelt, 2003
• http//www.alfred-koerblein.de/chernobyl/english/i
  ndex.htm

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Genetic effects
• - Down Syndrom in Berlin (Sperling et al 1993,
  2012)
• - Chromosomal aberrations in children of
  liquidators (Yablokov 2009)
• - Changes in the birth ratio of male/female
  newborns (Hagen Scherb et al 2007 ff)

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Lessons from Chernobyl to Fukushima
• - Prerequisite for elaborated epidemiological
  studies is good data from all the contaminated
  population and workers.
• - Without having data one cannot find anything.

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The long term impact of Chernobyl

• Lessons for Fukushima
• Systematic health check-ups needed for
• All clean-up workers
• All evacuees, adults and children
• All the population remaining in the contaminated
  zones and provinces

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The long term impact of Chernobyl
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