Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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we've been struck by the strangeness of many of the defects that
we've witnessed there. These are defects that we've never encountered
in American neonatal wards, even in some of our urban areas
and industrial areas, where one might expect to find some of these
kinds of severe defects.
Dr. Valery Kuznetsov, the Director of the Neonatal Division at
the Institute of Pediatrics in Kyiv, has noted that, since Chornobyl,
the number of birth defects has increased, but, also, that the number
of children with multiple defects has also increased noticeably.
Arguably, these are anecdotal reports, but they deserve much
broader follow-up.
Many Western scientists, particularly those involved with the
International Atomic Energy Agency, have been eager to dismiss
widespread reports of these problems by ascribing them to
radiophobia, a supposedly unfounded fear of radiation and psychological
stress. Without even looking at the population in question,
some researchers have adopted the posture of the Soviet government
in the early days following the accident, accusing the Western
media of exaggerating the problems.
We, and a lot of our colleagues in Ukraine, really find this stereotype
of hypochondria quite offensive. That is largely because, as the
Ambassador of Belarus mentioned, these are both countries that
have undergone a really staggering history of oppression and suffering,
and, if anything, have shown a great deal of resilience and
political maturity in the process of achieving their independence.
The kind of bias which had been expressed by many of the health
researchers from the West really is antithetical to the principles of
scientific inquiry. The experience with thyroid cancer, in which
many of these early reports were just dismissed out of hand, really
needs to be examined. Now that the link between Chornobyl's fallout
and thyroid cancer has been conclusively established, we believe
that the scientific community needs to assume a more openended,
open-minded posture toward other health concerns expressed
by Ukrainian and Belarusian physicians.
In 1992, when the president of our foundation and other health
experts testified on the Chornobyl aftermath before the Senate
Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, there were grave concerns expressed
about the lack of research focusing on the highest-risk population,
that is, the clean-up workers and the families which were
evacuated from some of the most highly contaminated zones. Regrettably,
there still has been very little progress in studies of
these critical populations. We still do not really know the number
of casualties among the clean-up workers, most of them men in
their twenties and thirties, at the time of the accident. We still do
not know the leukemia cancer rates among, for instance, the 11,000
Ukrainian children who were brought to Cuba in the days of the
former Soviet Union for treatment.
We believe that there are several large clusters of Chornobyl
evacuees living in the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv, and other settlements
around Kyiv and Minsk, who would be easily accessible and
of prime interest for long-term health studies. We're mystified as
to why more effort has not gone into studying their condition.
Regardless of the continuing debate over Chornobyl's ultimate
health impact, the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund and our col-