Fortunately, Chernobyl health records are now available to the public. They show that people living in the radioactive traces fell ill from cancers, respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders, birth defects, and fertility problems two to three times more frequently in the years after the accident than before. In a highly contaminated Belarusian town of Veprin, just six of 70 children in 1990 were characterised as “healthy”. The rest had one chronic disease or another. On average, the Veprin children had in their bodies 8,498 bq/kg of radioactive caesium (20 bq/kg is considered safe).
For decades, researchers have puzzled over strange clusters of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and birth defects among people living in Cumbria, which, like southern Belarus, is an overlooked hotspot of radioactivity from cold war decades of nuclear bomb production and nuclear power accidents.
Currently, policymakers are advocating a massive expansion of nuclear power as a way to combat climate change. Before we enter a new nuclear age, the declassified Chernobyl health records raise questions that have been left unanswered about the impact of chronic low doses of radioactivity on human health.
Peter,
Saw you on Landline. I was born at Cowell and grew up in Tumby Bay after my father took up a Soldier Settlers allocation. There were Woolfords there I went to school with.
I agree that agricultural land should be preserved. Australia should be promoting a ‘Dining Boom’ not a ‘Mining Doom’.
I joined the RAAF and at times operated out of Woomera.
If the Commonwealth wants to bring its nuclear waste deposits together – as has to happen – then I suggest they do it on Commonwealth Crown Land inside the Prohibited Area at Woomera. That way they can build the repository on land that is arid and stable, and use the existing security systems to secure it.
The Commonwealth should also install a Synroc processor at the site to further immobilize the waste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synroc
Happy to discuss this further if you wish.
Good luck with the campaign.
Kind regards,
Chris Mills