Sir, - We are writing in response to the article "Learning lessons from the Chernobyl experience" by Dr William Reville in the "Science Today" column (April 29th). While his article was most lucid in its explanation of the events surrounding the explosion and the subsequent spread of radionuclides throughout Europe, we would take issue with some of his conclusions.
We are a group of homoeopaths who have been working since 1993 with children from the Gomel region of Belarus which was severely affected by the fall out from the explosion. Since 1994, we have been working in conjunction with a group of doctors from Children's Polyclinic No 5 in Gomel.
Dr Reville states that 31 people died during the course of the accident and a further 137 people were treated for acute radiation syndrome. This is, by the way, the official version maintained to this day by the Russian government. While it is true that 31 people died at the time of the explosion, it is completely misleading to imply that these are the only fatalities associated with the explosion. I need only refer Dr Reville to the series of articles on the Chernobyl explosion by Kathy Sheridan in The Irish Times (April 13th to 16th). Of the men sent in to clean up the area after the explosion, known as the liquidators, it is estimated that 13,000 have died and that a further 70,000 are disabled. Only estimates are possible as these men, who were drawn from all parts of the former USSR, were returned to their home areas and little effort was made by the authorities to monitor subsequent health problems. More than 400 000 people have been evacuated from severely contaminated areas of the Ukraine and Belarus and some 1,800 villages have been abandoned. These statistics paint a rather different picture. Certainly our own visits to the Gomel region, together with the information we have received from the doctors and the parents of the children involved, confirm the devastating effect that Chernobyl has had on this beautiful and once productive land.
Dr Reville goes on to say that he has seen estimates that an extra 5,000 people in the former USSR will die over the next 70 years as a result of the Chernobyl radiation. Given that more than this number of the liquidators have already died, one can only wonder at the source of his information.
Towards the end of his article, Dr Reville makes what we would consider his most serious allegation. He states that, apart from the increase in thyroid cancer, no increase in leukaemia, congenital abnormalities, adverse pregnancy outcomes or any other radiation induced disease has been noted in the former Soviet Union. However, Kathy Sheridan quotes a UNICEF study of the children of Belarns which recorded the following increases: diseases of the bone, muscle and connective tissue - up 62 per cent; diabetes mellitus - up 28 per cent; disorders of the nervous system - up 43 per cent; blood circulation disorders - up 43 per cent; digestive disorders - up 28 per cent; disorders of the genito urinary system - up 39 per cent; congenital heart and circulatory disorders - up 25 per cent; bronchial asthma has doubled; malignant tumours - up 38 per cent.
Also, a study of 31,000 evacuees living in Minsk, compared to natives of Minsk, found that the evacuees had five and a half times as many stomach cancers, six times as many lung cancers and a third as many thyroid cancers. Bearing in mind that many of the evacuations from severely polluted areas were not done until some considerable time (in some cases, as much as three years) after the explosion, does Dr Reville believe that these increased levels of illness are unconnected to the fallout from Chernobyl?
Rather than continue trading statistics with Dr Reville, we would instead offer him a simple invitation. We would like him to accompany us when next we travel to Gomel so that he can see at first hand the effects of the Chernobyl disaster. A short visit to one of the hospitals in the region might give a human dimension to the statistics that are so effortlessly bandied about.
Failing this, we would invite him to meet the doctors who will be coming here later this year for homoeopathic training and to hear from them the desperate, almost hopeless nature of the tasks that they face.
It is not for nothing that the people of Belarus now have a new benchmark for measuring time - Before Chernobyl and After Chernobyl. - Yours, etc.,
Chairman,
Chernobyl Homoeopathic
Fund,
Caherawoneen,
Kinvara,
Co Galway.