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.
The Editor
The Advertiser
The privatised electricity industry is going to inflict higher costs on the public in the name of reducing peak demand (The Advertiser, 9/2/15), a noble and worthwhile aim.
There are two problems with believing that the electricity industry has turned over a new leaf. Firstly, there is no mention of household generators of electricity receiving comparable tariffs to those being asked by the industry. Secondly, there is no guarantee that those who do not have electricity guzzling air-conditioners will not be hit by the higher tariffs supposedly targeted at those who do.
The new scheme takes money from the public for “smart meters”, imposes “cost-reflective” pricing on household users but not household suppliers, and the new user’s tariff cuts in at a level that is likely to include a typical energy conservative user.
The energy conserver will be paying more, the household solar generator will be getting less, and every household will be paying for a new meter that is of no benefit to them.
Dennis Matthews