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Lost Opportunities From Chernobyl
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10198 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1986 |
1,820 Words |
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Rosalyn S. Yalow
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The secretive Soviet handling of information about the Chernobyl reactor accident regrettably prevents the scientific world from participating in what would have been an important learning experience concerning reactor safety and radiation biology.
The failure of the Soviets to have provided details about the design of the reactor, the nature of the containment vessel, if any, the cause of the violent explosion, and the precipitating episode makes it difficult to determine whether the accident holds any lessons for American reactors.
However, of even greater concern to me is that this very unfortunate accident could have permitted an enormous increase in our knowledge in the field of radiation biology: the immediate and long-term consequences associated with exposure to radiation at different doses and dose rates.
Much of what we have learned about late radiation effects in humans has come from the Hiroshima-Nagasaki experience. Even now, 40 years afterward, attempts are being made to recalculate the acute radiation doses received by the 82,000 survivors. Certainly, retrospective analysis could never provide the accurate dosimetry that would now be possible if one could study the population in the environs of the Chernobyl reactor.
Based on the studies of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) and its successor, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), it has been estimated that, added to the 4,500 cancer deaths normally expected through 1978 among the Japanese survivors had they not received radiation from the bomb, there were only 250 extra cancer deaths that could be attributed to their mean external radiation dose of about 25 rem (250 times natural yearly background radiation).
When effects are so small, the addition of new information with accurate dosimetry and prospective follow-up of the exposed population would be highly significant.
Although the Soviets have not been communicative, it is obvious that a substantial group received exposures in the 400-1,000 rem range or they would not have been chosen for bone marrow transplantation.
Follow-up studies needed
Did the USSR have the facilities to determine the radiation doses and dose rates of the many thousands obviously exposed to levels lower than the lethal range but still greatly in excess of natural background? Newspaper and television pictures of residents being scanned with Geiger counters are not convincing evidence of plans for systematic dosage determinations. Are they prepared for follow-up studies, such as those carried out by the ABCC and the RERF over the past 40 years, which could enormously enhance our knowledge of the effects of internal and external radiation doses delivered at different dose rates?
What were the numbers and species of animals that were also exposed? What immediate and late radiation effects will be observed among them as well?
It would be a tragic loss of knowledge, important to the entire world, if the Soviets have not performed the
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