The ICRP states in the document that a whole-body activity of 1,400 becquerels is equivalent to an exposure of 0.1 millisieverts per year. The ICRP radiation models, used by radiation health physicists to convert this level of internal absorbed dose to millisieverts, do not predict serious health risks from such exposures. The models predict that it is safe to have ten times this exposure level.[24]
There is, however, strong evidence that the ingestion of these levels of “low-dose” radiation is, in fact, particularly injurious to infants and children. Research done by Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky and his colleagues and students in Belarus from 1991 through 1999 correlated whole-body radiation levels of 10 to 30 becquerels per kilogram of whole-body weight with abnormal heart rhythms, and levels of 50 becquerels per kilogram of body weight with irreversible damage to the tissues of the heart and other vital organs. Their findings were first published by a Swiss medical journal in 2003.
One of the key discoveries made by Bandazhevsky was that cesium-137 bioconcentrates in the endocrine and heart tissues, as well as the pancreas, kidneys, and intestines. This finding goes against one of the primary assumptions—that cesium-137 is “distributed uniformly” in human tissues—presently used to calculate millisieverts from internal exposure.
Bandazhevsky’s “Chronic Cs-137 Incorporation in Children’s Organs”[25] compares the radioactivity measured in thirteen organs of six (autopsied) infants. Very high specific activity—levels of radioactivity up to twenty to forty times higher than in other organs and tissues—was found in the pancreas, thyroid, adrenal glands, thymus, heart, and intestinal walls.
Bandazhevsky summarized his nine years of research in his study “Radioactive Cesium and the Heart.” It was never properly translated or publicized, in large part because shortly after Dr. Bandazhevsky presented it to the parliament of Belarus, he was summarily arrested and imprisoned on charges of accepting a bribe. No proof of this, however, was ever produced. Government agents also went to the Gomel State Medical University, where Bandazhevsky was director, and destroyed his archived slides and samples accumulated during nine years of research. Virtually all of the staff who had worked with him on this research were then fired. Some were also prosecuted. Bandazhevsky was replaced with a new director, who denounced Bandazhevsky’s work.
After Bandazhevsky was released from prison, he was held under house arrest. It was during this time that he wrote “Radioactive Cesium and the Heart” in an attempt to preserve the findings of his research, knowing that he was likely to soon be imprisoned again for a very long time. He subsequently spent more than four years in a work camp, where he was subjected to torture.[26] Just as Soviet physicians were forbidden to diagnose a radiation-related illness following Chornobyl, the Belarusian government acted to suppress Bandazhevky’s work because he had been protesting government efforts to retain and resettle people in the land badly contaminated with cesium-137 (23 percent of Belarus was contaminated by fallout from Chornobyl).
In “Radioactive Cesium and the Heart,” Bandazhevsky also correlated the amount of cesium-137 in live children with their heart function. He worked with the BELRAD radiation safety institute, which conducted more than 125,000 whole-body counts on Belarusian children, measuring the amount of internally ingested cesium-137 in each child. From 1996 through 1999, these medical checkups showed that at levels of cesium-137 accumulation over 50 becquerels per kilogram of total body weight, pathological changes in cardiovascular, nervous, endocrine, immune, reproductive, digestive, and excretory systems could be registered.[27]
There were so many contaminated children in Belarus that it was difficult to find any who had not bioaccumulated cesium-137 within their bodies. This indicated just how contaminated the general food supply had become. Figure 5.7 illustrates that only those children with less than 10 becquerels per kilogram of body weight had normal electrocardiograms (ECGs). Thirty-five percent of children with 11 to 37 becquerels per kilogram of their body weight had normal ECGs, 20 percent of children with 37 to 74 becquerels per kilogram of their body weight had normal ECGs, and only 11 percent of those with 74 to 100 becquerels per kilogram of body weight had normal ECGs.
Figure 5.8 illustrates the averaged results from hundreds of human autopsies done during 1997 and is also taken from “Radioactive Cesium and the Heart.” Note the very high concentrations of cesium-137 in the thyroid gland. While we generally worry about radioactive iodine concentrating in the thyroid, Bandazhevsky’s work shows us that cesium-137 is likely to play a major role in thyroid cancer, too.
I want to point out again that the currently accepted medical and legal understanding of cesium-137 is that it is “distributed fairly uniformly” in human tissues. The autopsied human tissue samples analyzed by Bandazhevsky clearly show that this is not the case. This new understanding needs to be incorporated into the way we understand how internally ingested radionuclides act upon the human body.
Two million people in Belarus reside on lands severely contaminated by cesium-137. Less than 20 percent of the Belarusian children who live in these contaminated lands are considered to be healthy, although 85 percent to 90 percent were considered healthy before the nuclear power plant at Chornobyl exploded in 1986.[28] Fourteen years after Chornobyl, 45 percent to 47 percent of high school graduates had physical disorders, including gastrointestinal anomalies, weakened hearts, and cataracts, and 40 percent were diagnosed with chronic “blood disorders” and malfunctioning thyroids.[29] Death rates in Belarus increased dramatically after 1986, while birthrates plummeted.
Twenty-five years after the Chornobyl disaster, the contaminated regions of Ukraine also suffered similar consequences. Dr. Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine, has stated that the population of Ukraine has experienced declining life expectancies and has decreased by 7 million people. In a 2006 interview, Dr. Omelyanets said, “We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident… this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They’ve not said why they haven’t accepted it.”[30]
Dr. Evgenia Stepanova of the Ukrainian government’s Research Centre for Radiation Medicine said in 2006: “We’re overwhelmed by thyroid cancers, leukemias, and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which were practically unknown twenty years ago.”[31] In 2011, Stepanova stated that in the contaminated regions of Ukraine, only 5 to 10 percent of the children are considered to be healthy, while most have a variety of chronic illnesses.
The workers exposed to high levels of radiation at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are likely to become severely ill, just as 90 percent of the 830,000 “liquidators” who worked to contain and clean up the Chornobyl disaster did. According to figures given by the Russian authorities, at least 740,000 Chornobyl liquidators became invalids. They aged prematurely, and a higher-than-average number developed various forms of cancer, leukemia, and somatic and neurological psychiatric illnesses. A very large number of them developed cataracts. A significant increase in cancers is to be expected among them in the coming years due to the long latency period of cancer. Independent studies have estimated that 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died by 2005.[32]
24
ICRP, “Application of the Commission’s Recommendations to the Protection of People Living in Long-Term Contaminated Areas After a Nuclear Accident or a Radiation Emergency,”
25
Y. Bandazhevsky, “Chronic Cs-137 Incorporation in Children’s Organs,”
26
There is an excellent documentary,
27
The Institute of Radiation Safety “BELRAD” website, “General Overview” (www.belrad-institute.org/UK/doku.php).
28
A. Yablokov, V. Nesterenko, and A. Nesterenko, “Chernobyclass="underline" Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” in
29
United Nations Development Program,
30
J. Vidal, “UN Accused of Ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl Deaths,”
32
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, “Health Effects of Chernobyclass="underline" 25 Years After the Reactor Catastrophe,” April 2011.