Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

113
those involved in 1986 and part of 1987. There are reports of increased death rates, but no completed
scientific study is yet available to determine if any of the reported deaths are radiation related, or what doses
were absorbed. The continual publicity on this Issue cannot be ignored, and it is important that a credible
dose reconstruction and health survey be performed.
This contributes to the next issue as well.
Another issue today Is related to the level of distrust and confusion associated with the real and
imagined radiation exposure of the public.
This has Induced a massive "epidemic" of radiophobia. a fear
of what the radiation may have done, but which is not yet manifest.
This psychological effect is not to be
ignored, because to the people it is very real, and fear is possitjiy Increasing as a result of misinfomnatlon.
disinformation, lack of correct Icnowledge. etc.
Reports of predicted extra cancer deaths from the accident have used a variety of models and
assumptions. Basic to ail Is the fact that most late effects of radiation appear many years after exposure.
and are yet to "be counted." In addition, the risk models for extra cases over the next 45 years or so predict
anywhere from about several hundred to a third of a million.
In discussing radiation risks, I choose
to use a concept of risk increment. There is no dose so small
as to have no associated risk, i.e.. there is no threshold of safety. That is. whatever a person's lifetime
cancer risk may be. a dose of radiation adds an increment to it.
A common value in western countries is
that about one in five people die of cancer; the risk is 1 /5 or 20%. Assume that a radiation dose equal to
50 years of natural tiackground radiation increases ones cancer risk by 1%. i.e., about 1 % of the 20% cancer
risk can lie ascril^ed to natural background radiation.
This is about the value most responsible scientists
seem to accept. With few exceptions, the thyroid being the dominant exception, almost no one in the
Chernobyl down-wind areas received such a dose. Even the very best epidemiology study cannot
distinguish between two such groups, no matter how large the groups studied. Therefore, we are faced with
the problem of micro doses to mega populations, a situation where direct measurement can only confirm
that the doses were small, but not that absolutely no health consequences resulted.
My current conservative estinr^te is that no more than 5,000 to 10.000 additional cases could be
caused by the acckJent; the same model also states that the possibility of zero extra cases is not ruled out
statistically. The truth will likely lie in between, closer to zero than the upper value. But this is not a
certainty; it is an estimate based on my understanding and evaluation of doses and risks.
There f»ve been reports of a spectrum of alleged health "effects." most of which were likely not to
have t>een caused by Chernobyl's radiation. The task of separating the real from the alleged Is formidable.