GENOCIDAL FANTASIES

At the recent Geneva conference on Chernobyl, the Soviets blamed everything on human error and reported cosmetic changes on their graphite reactors. They did not admit to the root cause, a reactor with positive reactivity, a combustible core, and no viable containment structure (let alone building). Otherwise they were unexpectedly frank, but submitted very deficient data on radiation measurements, most probably because they did not have them.

It is important to realize that the "controversy" about the number of delayed cancers is exclusively due to lack of data, not due to their interpretation. There is no serious objection to the broad dependence of delayed cancers on low level radiation as published in "BEIR III" (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, 3^rd report, Effects on Populations to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: 1980) by the Natl. Academy of Sciences. But there is twofold trouble: there are some very unserious objectors; and the numbers are too small to be checked reliably.

The European part of the USSR has a population of some 160 million; if the Soviet cancer rate is comparable to the rest of Europe and the US, there will be some 32 million cancer deaths among the population now alive. To detect any extra deaths attributable to Chernobyl over the next 70 years, even if they are in the tens of thousands, is virtually impossible. The rates in BEIR III for such low incidences are simply extrapolated. The estimates of the scientists in Geneva varied from a low of 6,000 to a high of 24,000.

Then came the doomsday scholars, knowing that the numbers are uncheckable, with their concocted figures. The record, as usual, came from John Gofman, who ranted about 1,000,000 cancers. This would, of course, be detectable, but not in the old sage's lifetime. The next best canard came from the NRDC's Thomas Cochran: 200,000. "The experts using the low figures," he explained, "get their livelihood from the nuclear industry and are trying to salvage their programs by minimizing the consequences."