Manual For Survival: A Chernobyl Guide For The Future, Brown - B

                            In August of 1986, a mere four months after the accident, the USSR published a 'Manual For Survival' filled with lies and inconsistencies. The manual said that only 54 people had died. The objective of this book is to better understand "the medical and environmental effects of the disaster." The author is a noted MIT historian who points out that research into Chernobyl was not only difficult because of Soviet/Russian intransigence, but because all of the major nuclear powers were equally reticent to disclose their own mishaps  throughout the Cold War. "As time passed, doubt and skepticism became a major by-product of the accident. The blown reactor contaminated not only the soil and air but also the political atmosphere and public faith in science."

                              Hospital 6 in Moscow provided the best possible care in the world because the Soviets had over decades built a skilled staff specializing in radiation poisoning. They attended to the first responders starting the night of the accident. Additionally, thousands of people from Ukraine and Belarus made their way to Moscow to be treated at other institutions in the city. It had taken two weeks to evacuate the 30 km. Zone of Alienation and thousands had been poisoned.  The Politburo investigated and concluded 'operator error' was behind it all. "The Ukrainian Communist party....were  the first authorities to realize how dangerous the disaster was and to take action." Ukrainian officials organized a massive medical examination of  500,000 residents in 1986 and the years immediately following. They distributed iodine pills, researched radiation in the food chain and sent their children south into the Crimea for early summer camp. Moscow preferred to cover up the ongoing threats. Politically motivated Soviet apparatchiks ordered people be sent back into the Zone; Belarus complied, Ukraine ignored the order. The Soviet state ordered the liquidation of animals in the Zone, but had them dismembered for distribution. So, the wool from thousands of sheep were sent to a wool plant outside of Kiev and poisoned hundreds of workers, killing many. One Ukrainian public health doctor was able to stop the tanning of hides that would have polluted the  drinking water in his hometown. The Soviet system was unwilling and unable to dispose of or bury contaminated food. They spread it out as far as possible in order to dilute the poison. There was even a procedure for blending contaminated sausage with healthier sources of meat. At every level and by every measure, the radiation and the ruin it created spread far beyond the Zone.

                                 In  1988, the Soviet Minister of Health opened a conference with the statement "Definitely, today we can be certain that there are no effects of the Chernobyl accident on human health." The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supported the Soviets. Of course people were sick and finally in 1990, it was acknowledged that a million Ukrainians had been affected. The Ukrainians made an attempt to grapple with their tragedy. In Belarus, recognizing the crisis took longer. One of Belarus' leading scientists reported alarming amounts of radioactivity and was indicted and demoted for his efforts.  Soon though, the Belarusians were pushing back against the Soviet orthodoxy. Perestroika unleashed the truth.  

                                   A joint western effort led by the IAEA in 1990  began to take an objective look at what had happened, but found that the information on a million Soviet citizens was still controlled by the KGB and inaccessible.  Most assessments of Chernobyl were hamstrung by the US-Japanese studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Receiving a high dose of radiation because of a bomb for a 100 seconds is different than an extended period of low dose radiation that enters the food chain. The IAEA study played down any long-term health issues. The IAEA has long been viewed as a lobby for the nuclear energy interests and the Ukrainians and Belarusians pushed back on its conclusions. They insisted that thyroid cancer in children was epidemic. Today it is recognized as the major medical outcome of the disaster. But, in the 1990's, there was limited interest in correctly analyzing Chernobyl. All of the US materials on the consequences of fallout were classified. After all, between the post-war Pacific and Nevada tests, the US had exposed the world to immeasurably more radiation than Chernobyl. The US had no desire to release information about childhood thyroid cancer.  Endless infighting, jealousy and politics amongt the various international agencies continued into the 1990's.

                               "Now it is clear that most of the foreign experts, global leaders in  radiation medicine, were wrong. WHO, UNSCEAR, and IAEA conceded that, seven years after Ukrainian and Belarusian officials announced the problem, the still skyrocketing increases in thyroid cancer in children were due to Chernobyl exposures."   After the USSR collapsed, the states that followed failed to deliver basic services to their people. There was no longer money for clean food, healthcare or removal from the irradiated areas. Life almost came to a stop. "The 1990's were grim years for Chernobyl research. As the safety network retreated, state and international agencies shifted the burden of managing the post accident risk society onto the shoulders of exposed residents, the people with the fewest resources to manage it." In the decades since, some NGO's have been able to help the victims, but the contamination and untreated illnesses continue, while westerners treat the Zone as a tourist destination.

                                   The text of this book is only 313 pages, but the narrative feels choppy at times. It's worth the effort, if only to better understand the indifference of the nuclear powers to their citizen's health and well-being.