Two sets of ABCC-sponsored investigations focused on congenital malformations among the children of pregnant women at the time of the blasts. The first involved 205 almost-five-year-old children exposed in utero to the bomb blasts. Clinical examinations without a control group showed that twenty-four (12 percent) had anomalies, including six (3 percent) instances of microcephaly associated with mental subnormality. Another set of studies focused on mental retardation. They included information on microcephaly but did not focus on congenital malformations. The study group consisted of 1,613 children exposed to the atomic blasts during various states of gestation. Significant effects were evident among those who survived infancy and were exposed at eight to fifteen and sixteen to twenty-five weeks after ovulation, namely, reduction in cognitive function, severe mental retardation, and reduction of head size or obvious microcephaly.
In 1987, it became possible to assign updated dose estimates from a database known as DS86. The analysis estimated a decrease of 25–29 IQ points per gray[1] of uterine absorbed radiation dose. Doses as low as one thousandth of a gray impact the migration of brain neurons. One gray is almost the equivalent of a sievert and a thousandth of a gray, or millisievert, is the unit often used to express safety limits of exposures to radiation. In Europe, the limit for people exposed as part of their occupation is 20 millisieverts per year and 0.3 millisieverts per year for the gonads and uterus respectively. Implicit in these limits is that the gonads and the embryo are at least a hundred times more sensitive to radiation damage than other cells of the adult body. Also implicit is that the exposure is external to the body.
In Polissia, exposure comes through the inhalation and ingestion of radioactive elements, which promptly reach the blood that nourishes the rapidly growing embryonic tissues. It is logical to consider that the high rates of anencephaly, microcephaly, and microphthalmia are likely to be caused by the long-term internal exposure of embryos to low radiation levels in Polissia. This is supported by observations made shortly after the Chornobyl accident. A series of clinical observations indicated a rise in the frequency of congenital malformations, especially anencephaly. Other investigations showed that congenital malformation rates were not elevated among populations residing in regions of Western Europe remote from Chornobyl.
There are two U.S. studies and one British on ionizing radiation exposure from nuclear power plants. The U.S. studies were conducted by the same reputable scientists sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Both these studies sought to determine the teratogenic impact of ionizing radiation near the Hanford nuclear complex in Washington State. One study detected higher neural tube defect rates in two counties near the nuclear complex and the other demonstrated higher rates of neural tube defects in parents exposed in their occupation to low levels of radiation. The scientists considered the studies to be sound but rejected the results as “falsely positive conclusions.” Among the reasons for this was that the results contradicted those of the ABCC-sponsored studies.
The British study looked at fathers employed at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex in Cumbria in northern England. The results showed a positive association between the total exposure to external ionizing radiation before conception and a higher risk for stillbirths with a congenital anomaly and for stillbirths with neural tube defects.
Two other points deserve attention. In 2013, there were concerns about unusually high rates for neural tube defects in regions close to the Hanford atomic complex, while in northern England and Wales, the frequency of neural tube defects as well as conjoined twins and microcephaly was, after Polissia, among the highest in Europe. The Washington State Department of Health noted twenty-seven confirmed NTD-affected pregnancies from 2010 to 2013 among women residing in a three-county area near Yakima, which is about seventy miles away from the Hanford site. Among the twenty-seven pregnancies, twenty-three were instances of anencephaly, equivalent to a population rate three times higher than the national estimate. This cluster of congenital malformations is under investigation. In Britain, the impact of the Chornobyl radioactive fallout was particularly significant in Cumbria, Wales, and southwest England. The neural tube defects and microcephaly rates in these regions tend to be among the highest in Europe. The central regions of Scandinavia were also heavily impacted by the fallout. Two independent studies, one in Norway and the other in Sweden, showed that individuals most exposed in utero to radiation from Chornobyl demonstrated significant negative impacts on their cerebral functions. These results are consistent with our observations of the reduced head circumferences of newborns in two Polissia counties.
Under the precautionary principle endorsed by medical professionals, those who dictate or advocate policies in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence or consensus have the responsibility to demonstrate that any proposed, imposed, or advocated policies are not harmful to the public or the environment. Official claims that Chornobyl’s ionizing radiation is not teratogenic contradict this precautionary principle. Furthermore, the repeated unsubstantiated denial of Chornobyl’s teratogenic impact or even potential impact discourages attempts to investigate their validity. We hope that through our studies and the events in Fukushima, Japan, will encourage agencies to endorse studies concerned with teratogenic impacts of low-dose ionizing radiation. We also hope that the results of this study provide a starting point for prospective studies of regions impacted by Chornobyl and Fukushima.
12
What Did They Know and When?
Arnold Gundersen
The Fukushima Daiichi accident was made in America. The reactor was designed by General Electric and built by Electric Bond and Share Company (Ebasco). Their engineers made six critical design errors in 1965 that were to doom Japan in 2011:
1. The height of the cliff where the plant was located was reduced from thirty-five meters to ten meters
2. The tsunami wall was too short
3. The diesel generators were placed in the basement
4. The emergency pumps located on the shoreline were not submersible pumps
5. The diesel fuel tanks were placed in the floodplain
6. The flawed Mark I containment was unable to contain the radiation
The first five critical mistakes came from the American engineers’ ignorance of the power of a tsunami. Tsunamis, which are produced by a seaquake or underwater volcanic eruption, can travel thousands of miles across open ocean at a speed of 950 kilometers per hour and a height of up to 50 meters. The tsunami that hit Fukushima Daiichi in 2011 was average in size compared to similar waves that had struck the Pacific coast of Japan over the past 120 years. In 1896, the northeastern coast of Japan was hit by a 40-meter tsunami, and in 1933 by a 28-meter tsunami. The 2011 tsunami, however, was only 15 meters high—similar in size to tsunamis in 1923 (13 meters), in 1944 and 1946 (both 12 meters), and in 1954 and 1955 (all of them over 13 meters), just ten years before Fukushima Daiichi was designed. Yet in the face of that history, the engineers at GE and Ebasco reduced the cliff at Daiichi from 35 meters to 10 meters and built a tsunami wall that was only 4 meters high (later raised to 5.7 meters). A tsunami causes the entire ocean to rise. If you are in a boat, you would not notice a tsunami; it is only when it hits a harbor, or the coast, that its terrifying power is revealed. In 2011, the tsunami was 15 meters high and moving at the speed of sound. The wave, when it hit the plant, crested at about 46 meters—higher than all the buildings in the plant.