Review Essay - "Chernobyl" by Serhii Plokhy

David Cratis Williams is Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Florida Atlantic University. His scholarship focuses on argumentation, rhetorical theory, and criticism; he is a recognized authority on Kenneth Burke. His work on Russian political discourse began during a meeting in Russia in January 1992. David Cratis Williams, Marilyn J. Young, and Michael K. Launer Michael K. Launer is Professor Emeritus of Russian at Florida State University. In 1987 he interpreted for the first group of Soviet scientists visiting the US following Chernobyl. A State Department certified technical interpreter, he supported Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy assistance programs through 2012. The Rhetorical Rise and Demise of “Democracy” in Russian Political Discourse Vo l u m e 1 The Path from Disaster toward Russian “Democracy” Marilyn J. Young is the Wayne C. Minnick Professor of Communication Emerita at Florida State University. Her research has focused on political argument with an emphasis on the development of political rhetoric and argument in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. She remains an active scholar in retirement. The Rhetorical Rise and Demise of “Democracy” in Russian Political Discourse w w w. a c a d e m i c s t u d i e s p r e s s . co m The essays in this book examine the arguments and rhetoric used by the United States and the USSR following two catastrophes that impacted both countries, as blame is cast and consequences are debated. In this environment, it was perhaps inevitable that conspiracy theories would arise, especially about the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan. Those theories are examined, resulting in at least one method for addressing conspiracy arguments. In the case of Chernobyl, the disaster ruptured the “social compact” between the Soviet government and the people; efforts to overcome the resulting disillusionment quickly became the focus of state efforts. Vo l u m e 1 The Path from Disaster toward Russian “Democracy” David Cratis Williams, Marilyn J. Young, and Michael K. Launer Contents Acknowledgements List of Interviews Note to Readei-s Preface Introduction to Volume One. Image and Reality: Discourse The Declining Role of Evidence in PuЬlic Part One: КАL and Cracks in the Rhetorical Wall Route R-20- Terry Graves Illustration Takahashi-Novosti Satellite Мар Ogarkov DouЬle Loop МарТhе New York Times 1. Did the United States Suppress Ground-to-Air Communications~ 2. КАL 007 and the Superpowers: An International Argument 3. The КАL Tapes 4. BCAS Correspondence: "Flight 007: Was There Foul Play!" 5. The Need for Evaluative Criteria: Conspiracy Argument Revisited 6. Soviet Media Tactics and the Body Politic: Prevention and Diseases Treatment of ComunicaЬle 7. When the Shoe Is on the Other Foot: Comparative Treatments of the КАL 007 and Iran Air Shootdowns 8. Of Mighty Mice and Meek Men: Contextual Reconstruction of the Iranian Airbus Shootdown 9. "007"-Conspiracy or Accident~ 10. Flight 007 11. Carlos the Jackal Attacks RFE/RL! vii ix xiii XV xxxi 1 2 3 4 5 23 58 74 83 109 136 163 183 188 195 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control Plaque at the entrance to the Chernobyl AES adrninistration building (1989) The Original Sarcophagus (1989) Interior access door to the sarcophagus at Chernobyl (1989) А Billboard at the Rovno Nuclear Station (1996) The New Secure Confinernent (2019) 12. Chernobyl in the Soviet Media: Unintentional Ironies, Unprecedented Events 13. Redefining Glasnost in the Soviet Media: The Recontextualization of Chernobyl 14. Chernobyl: From the Ashes а New Society? 15. Nuclear Power in the USSR 16. Civilian Nuclear Power in the Commonwealth of Independent States: А Case of Cognitive Dissonance 17. Soviet News Media: Uncertainty in the Throes of Change 18. Nuclear Power and Ecological Debates in the Soviet Press, Mid-1988 to Mid-1989 19. The Final Days: The Development of Argumentative Discourse in the Soviet Union 20. Ukraine Nuclear Power Struggles for Survival 21. Nonrational Assessment of Risk and the Development of Civilian Nuclear Power 22. Ukraine, Russia, and the Question of Nuclear Safety 23. Soviet Bureaucracy and Nuclear Safety 24. Review of Two Books Ьу David R. Marples 25. Review of Plutopia 26. Review of Plokhy, Chernobyl 27. Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History 28. Confronting Climate Change: Assessing the Role of Nuclear Power Afterword ВiЬlography Index 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 208 234 236 248 261 265 286 303 311 327 366 375 380 384 393 410 413 415 443 CHAPTER 26 Review of Plokhy, Chernoby/ Michael К. Launer Provenance: Originally puЫished (Spring 2019): 119-125 . in The Slavic and East European Journal 63, по. 1 Copyright Holder: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), used Ьу permission Description: Even thirty-five years later, Chernobyl continues to Ье an event that people find both fascinating and frightening. This chapter and the next provide critical analyses of recent books about the accident: the first is а review of Serhii Plokhy, Chernobyl: The History of а Nuclear Catastrophe (New York: Basic Books, 2018). F ew events in modern history have been discussed as thoroughly as Chernobyl: the name generates 12,500,000 hits on Google! Professor Serhii Plokhy-a distinguished scholar specializing in the history of Ukrainenow adds his voice in а fascinating, well-researched study regarding the devastating accident, but also covering the last two decades of Soviet rule. This is а curious choice of subject matter for someone who does not have а technical background in nuclear physics or engineering, someone whose research interests have encompassed the broad range of Ukrainian period. Howhistory and culture back to, and even beyond, the Кievan ever, his emphasis is focused on the people most directly affected Ьу the tragedy, and-not surprisingly for anyone familiar with his scholarshiphe is primarily interested in the cultural and political relationships between Ukrainians and Russians, as embodied here in the Communist Party leadership in Moscow. Currently director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard, Dr. Plokhy emigrated to Canada in the l 990s to assume а position in the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. At the time of the accident, however, he was teaching in Dnipropetrovsk-about Review of Plokhy, Chernobyl 1 three hundred miles southeast of Кiev, and nearly four hundred miles from Pripyat, the company town that supported the power plant. Не first visited the accident site only recently-something drew him there as а tourist!-and he felt compelled to write this book. Accordingly, I believe this very personal study is an attempt Ьу the author to achieve both catharsis and some sort of atonement for having departed his homeland to begin а new life in the West. The story begins in Moscow in January 1986, at the TwentySeventh Party Congress, where Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would embark upon the accelerated development of civilian nuclear power production to provide the economic impetus for his new revitalization program consisting of perestroika, glasnost, and uskorenie. The congress also marked the pinnacle in the career of Viktor Briukhanov, Director of the V. I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, who was among those representing the Communist Party of Ukraine at the congress. One of the six plant officials who would bear the brunt of legal responsibllity for the accident, Briukhanov was ultimately sentenced to ten years in prison (following more than а year in KGB detention): as everyone in the Soviet apparatus knew, the buck always stops at the desk of an individual in order to shield the system from ultimate responsibllity for any calamity. Chernobyl provides an extensive description of the accident itself and the courageous actions of the plant personnel, firefighters, and emergency workers (the "liquidators"), who committed what I would call "patriotic suicide" while trying to determine what, exactly, had happened and what, if anything, they could do about it. But Professor Plokhy is more concerned about the bureaucratic aftermath of the disaster: how the central authorities in Moscow and the regional authorities in Kiev (Kyiv) interacted; how-ultimately-the "Chernobyl disaster made the government recognize ecological concerns as а legitimate reason for Soviet citizens to create their own organizations, which broke the monopoly of the Communist Party on political activity." (363: xv) 1 As has been stated elsewhere То а great extent, debates over ecology served as а convenient and legitimate battleground for expressing center-periphery tensions that already existed in Soviet society, but which had no discursive outlet. (489: 451) 385 386 1 Part Two: Ch ernobyl, Eco-Nationa lism, and Loss of Rhetori cal Cont rol Thus, Chernobyl opened up rhetorical and argumentative space for environmentalists and the Soviet puЬlic at large to question the motives and competence of those in power. Indeed, the final section of this study (363: 285-350) details how eco-activism soon turned to eco-nationalism: "Nuclear power plants were depicted as embodiments of Moscow's eco-imperialism:' (305) Plokhy observes Ву the late summer of 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence Soviet Union ... , few believed that Briukhanov, from the crumЬling Fomin, and Diatlov [others who had been convicted and sent to prison] were the main culprits responiЬl for the disaster. (321) As in Czechoslovakia, where the independence movement was spearа writer (Vaclav Havel), leaders of the anti-nuclear/proheaded Ьу environment movement in Ukraine included Ivan Drach, Borys Oliynyk, Dmytro Pavlychko, Yuriy Shcherbak, and Volodymyr Yavorivsky. In 1988 Oliynyk called Soviet domination "an insult to national dignitY:' (294) Ukrainian intellectuals found in Chernobyl а "new cause to add to their previous agenda of political freedom, human rights, and the development of the Ukrainian language and culture" lt was the issue of Chernobyl that allowed the dissidents and the rebel intellectuals to break the common front of the communist authorities, pitting regional elites against their bosses in Moscow. (299) Of course, it was the devastating health consequences and societal upheaval engendered Ьу the accident that served as the wellspring for this dissent. In the 1960s, Ukraine's Communist leaders jumped on the of modernity. Nuclear power, it was nuclear bandwagon as an emЫ said, would Ье the key to modernization of life in the Ukrainian SSR. At the time, Soviet officials claimed that reactors were so safe one could Ье built on Red Square with no adverse consequences. Ironically, in the early days some of these same dissident writers had hailed the arrival of nuclear power in Ukraine (in censor-approved puЬlicatons) as the means to remedy the poverty endemic to Ukrainian life and, particularly, the backwardness that encompassed its rural, agricultural areas. However, as the author points out in one of his starkest anti-Soviet/ anti- Russian statements Review of Plokhy, Chernobyl 1 Writers were prepared to overlook the fact that modernity was coming to Ukraine in the garb of the Russian language and culture, undermining the cultural foundations of their imagined modern nation. (289) Throughout the Soviet period, and beyond, all physicists and nuclear engineers were trained at Russian Federation academic institutions such as the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), Tomsk PolytechRussian was the nic University, and in Akademgorodok near NovsiЬrk. language of nuclear technology even during the first decade of Ukrainian independence: most of the safety regulations promulgated there had an authorization cover letter written in Ukrainian followed Ьу pages and pages of technical information in Russian for the simple reason that equivalent technical terminology in Ukrainian did not exist. But the health effects of the nuclear accident changed these questions of national or ethnic identity. Professor Plokhy devotes consideraЬl attention to the aftermath of Chernobyl as it impacted both the liquidators (600,000 of whom were dispatched from all over the Soviet Union) and the approximately one hundred thirty thousand Ukrainian citizens displaced Ьу the radiation that spewed from the damaged reactor. Because of this emphasis it is worth considering the controversy that still rages over this issue. There have been several thousand longitudinal studies, funded Ьу agencies in Western Europe or the United States and conducted Ьу teams of domestic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian) and foreign researchers, that in the more than thirty years since the accident, but have been puЬlished mostly beginning at the ten-year anniversary. Many of these studies have attempted to gauge the number of radiation-related deaths that will accumulate through the first forty years-the latency period for certain solid cancers-and beyond. For example, а significant number of children in the affected populations developed thyroid cancer well into their thirties and forties Twenty years after the accident, excess thyroid cancers are still occurring among persons exposed as children or adolescents, and, if external radiation can Ье used as а guide, we can expect an excess of radiation-associated thyroid cancers for several more decades. (385: 502) 2 387 388 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control In 2005 the World Health Organization estimated that the total number of Chernobyl victims would ultimately reach five thousand. Greenpeace International cited а figure of ninety thousand. Actually, the ultimate total is unknown and unkowaЬle, because it depends on who is doing the counting and who qualifies as а "victim:' and mortalEpidemiological research concentrates on disease morЬidty ity (who gets sick and who dies), which consists of а comparison between affected individuals and а baseline expectation absent an event such as Chernobyl. The fact of the matter is this: genetic mutations and diseases such as thyroid cancers, leukemia, female breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and strokes occur spontaneously. Researchers therefore focus on excess relative risk (ERR), the number of additional occurrences directly atribuЫe to the event under consideration. Given the absence of basein the Soviet lirie data-due to the lack of а modern medical estaЬlihmn Union as а whole and the obvious desire of Communist officials to conceal such information-many of these studies exclude а large number of potential subjects or struggle to validate their data. Societal understanding, for better or worse, is completely different. For example, using hypothetical numbers, if а certain cancer strikes five hundred victims in every one hundred thousand persons among the general population, but six hundred victims in а cohort under study, here is how those numbers will Ье understood from different vantage points • • • Researchers will say that the event caused one hundred deaths. However, which specific deaths can Ье attributed to the event when other factors such as are unknown except probaЬilstcy dose loads are considered. Physicians in the field will treat all six hundred patients. How the cancer arose is essentially irrelevant for the physician. But identhem or their tifying patients as Chernobyl victims will еnаЫ surviving relatives to qualify for special government subsidies. Society-particularly uneducated members of society-will see six hundred victims of the event and will, regardless, want their child or mother or husband to Ье certified as such. Additionally, lost in such discussions are а number of other factors. For example, according to Soviet statistics the number of murders and Review of Plokhy, Chemobyl 1 suicides increased dramatically in the first years after Chernobyl, whereas the number of poisonings and accidental deaths did not. 3 Depression due to the strain of having one's life totally turned upside down is welldocumented throughout the world; one need only look at the opioid crisis in the United States for confirmation. Should some fraction of the suicides among liquidators and people living in or displaced from contaminated areas (above the previously expected number) Ье considered victims of the accident? Society will believe that all of them should. Ifl had to hazard а guess at the final death toll I would choose а number in the tens of thousands-certainly more than the WHO estimate, but far below the inflated claims of organizations such as Greenpeace. That said, it is а pleasure to read Serhii Plokhy's prose. His writing is the most elegant English from а nonnative speaker I can remember since Viktor Erhlich's Russian Formalism, (146) which I read in graduate school quote from Professor Plokhy's nearly fifty years ago. As an example, let те August 16, 2018, review of Anne Applebaum's remakЫ study, Red Famine, (48) in the New York Review of Books Anne Applebaum walks into the minefields of memory left Ьу Stalin's policies in Ulaaine and multiple attempts to conceal, uncover, interpret, and reinterpret the Holodomor. (362) Nevertheless, it is obvious he does not know technical English. This is hardly surprising, given his background, and the puЬlisher did not provide the requisite editorial support. I found about thirty terms or expressions that should have been changed. Some are sort of funny: what should have соте out as "Workers of the world, unite!" is rendered quite literally as "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" Legislators who choose not to vote on an issue are "abstentions;' not "attendees" (prisutstvuiut). There are а number of other literal translations from obvious Russian phrases: for instance, "first program" instead of "Channel One:' On а more serious level, enrgoЫk (reactor unit or power unit) is not 'Ъlock~ or "energy Ыосk:' The aktivnaia zona reaktora (reactor core) is not the "active zone of the reactor:' The venttruba (ventilation stack or vent stack) is not an "exhaust pipe:' Finally, zapusk reaktora (reactor startU:p) is not the "launching of а reactor:' Also, Professor Plokhy consistently confuses nuclear "safety" and nuclear "security" -two quite different concepts. 389 390 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-National ism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control Several of the engineers at the power plant-whose job title was nachal'nik smeny enrgoЫka (unit shift supervisor)-are variously idenof (the) shift;' tified as "shift leader:' "leader of the control room:' 'Ъеаd "chief of the night shift;' and "chief of the [Unit 4] shift:' For most readers, these terminology issues will go unrecognized. Much more important, however, are а consideraЫ number of technical statements that are simply incorrect. For example, despite what is stated in .the book • • • • • • RBMK (Chernobyl-type) reactors have no reinforced concrete containment structures. (86) There are no water pumps inside the reactor core. ( 107) The accident resulted from а steam explosion, not а nuclear explosion. ( 143) It is not true that there were ten RBMK reactors in Warsaw Pact countries. (258) There were no RBMK reactors in Ukraine other than at Chernobyl. (304) Other than in Lithuania and at Chernobyl itself, it is not true that "old Soviet-era RBMK reactors have been decommissioned:' (348) In fact, four such units continue in operation near St. Petersburg, there are three at the Smolensk plant and four at the Kursk plant. From twenty-five years as an interpreter specializing in nuclear technology issues, I have become friends with а number of technical and medical specialists, whom I consulted in preparation of this review. These individuals decried several of the more alarmist statements made in this book • • • Even if the other three reactors had been damaged Ьу the exit is not true plosion of Unit 4 (unlikely, but not imposЬle), that 'Ъardly any living and breathing organisms would have re mained on the planet:' (xii) Although the expert commission sent to Chernobyl was concerned about the status of the nuclear material remaining in the damaged reactor, it is not true that it could "lead to another explosion, wiping the plant, the nearby city, and the members of the commission off the face of the earth:' ( 128) It is unlikely that the stillblrth suffered Ьу а pregnant woman who visited Кiev around the time of the accident was caused Ьу Review of Plokhy, Chernobyl 1 • • • the level of radiation in the city. She was too far along in her pregnancy for that to Ье the case. (187-88) It is estimated that approximately ten percent of the reactor core 'Ъаd been Ьlasted into the atmosphere:' However, it is not true that "the remaining 90 percent might Ье hurled thousands of kilometers from Chernobyl, making the first explosion an overture to а global disaster" (197-98) or that "Ukraine and Europe as а whole would become а desolate wasteland:' (198) It is not true that "we are still as far from taming nuclear reactions as we were in 1986:' (346) Nor is it true that "the chances of another Chernobyl disaster taking place are increasing:' (348) Given the hundreds of works cited in the notes to this study, academics will regret the absence of а comprehensive Ьilography. In addition, two works in particular should have merited mention. One is the 1991 report issued Ьу the Soviet nuclear regulatory agency, Causes and Circumstances Surrounding the Accident at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl NPP 26 April 1986: Report of the USSR Gospromatomnadzor Commission. (182) Known as the "Shteinberg Commission Report" after its chairman, Nikolai Shteinberg, this report Ыuntly repudiated the nuclear ministry and the design bureau responiЬl for the RВМК reactors. 4 The report's final statement, prior to the "Conclusions" section of the report, констаирвь, что аврия, подбная reads as follows: "необхдим Чернобыльскй, была неизбжой" (it must Ье stated that an accident similar to the one at Chernobyl was bound to happen). The second is а book Ьу Shteinberg and Georgy Kopchinsky-a physicist and formerly а science advisor to the Politburo-that appeared at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accident: Chernobyl: What Really Hap pened: А Warning. (256) Also very personal in nature, this book describes the immediate aftermath of the accident and the entire course of the recovery effort over the next several months. study that continThese caveats aside, Chernobyl is а remakЫ ues Serhii Plokhy's lifelong inquiry into Ukrainian history and into the center-periphery tensions that characterized Ukraine's place and situation within the Soviet Empire. These tensions continue to this day. Because of his background, he has the knowledge needed to contextualize the accident and its aftermath both politically and culturally. It is highly recommended. 391 392 \ Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control NOTES 1. · Unless otherwise specified, internal page references relate to the Plokhy book. See also (131; 145). 2. 3. 4. Dr. Elaine Ron, who died in 2010, worked in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Data from the Russian National Medical and Dosimetric Registry. See (323; 376). Shteinberg was the reactor engineer in charge of restarting the undamaged units at Chernobyl in late 1986 and early 1987. Having spent nearly а year at the site, he joined agency after receiving а radiation dose too great to allow his future the regulatшy presence at any power plant. CHAPTER 27 Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History Michael К. Launer Provenance: Previously unpЫished Copyright Holder: Author Description: This extended review of Kate Brown's Manual for Survival: А Chernoby/ Guide to the Future (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019) critiques the his- torical methodology manifested in the book and the lack of scientific knowledge displayed Ьу its author. А very brief review appeared in The S/avic and East European Journal 64, no. 4 (Winter 2020): 738. F ull Disclosure Statement: From 1987 through 2012 the author of this review was а technical translator and conference interpreter for utility companies and US government entities in the nuclear complex. Specifically, in 1994 he served as the interpreter for representatives of the State Department and Department of Energy during the first set of negotiations with the Ukrainian government regarding the future decommissioning of Chernobyl's undamaged reactor units. Kate Brown is а prolific scholar and an engaging writer. Her first two books А Вiography of No Place (86) and Plutopia (87) earned multiple awards from the academic community. In her third book Dispatches from Dystopia (88) she refined her personal approach to writing history, her to place events "in the moment" -not in the moment which enaЫs when they transpired, but rather in the moment when she is writing about them. 1 This approach imbues her most recent study with а sense of urgency concerning the impending disaster she sees facing humanity in the nuclear age. Clearly, Professor Brown is not your average historian. In fact, she is defiantly not your average historian. 2 Rather, she is part ethnographer, part cultural anthropologist, part memoirist, part intrepid explorer, part victim rights advocate, part inquisitive tourist, 3 and part conspiracy buff. She 394 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control is an aggressive investigator, pushy interviewer, compassionate listener, and а persistent, perceptive researcher. Brown is passionately involved on а personal level in the study of nearly current events- 'Ъeing there in the nartive:ч What she is not, unfortunately, is an epidemiologist, health physicist, or classical Sovietologist. What follows is an analysis of Manual for Survival (89), which has been mostly praised Ьу scholars in the humanities and mostly pilloried Ьу scholars in the sciences. In this review I will attempt to demonstrate that it is the historians who are mistaken-that, in fact, what Professor Brown has offered is an elegant example of conspiratist rhetoric 5 in opposition to all things nuclear-not only nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation, but even nuclear medicine. How else is one to interpret the following statement made Ьу Brown regarding an international conferin Мау 1988 and sponsored Ьу the International ence (498) held in Кiev Atomic Energy Agency-one of the prime suspects in Brown's conspiracy narrative? If Soviet scientists could prove that large-scale exposures to "low" doses of Chernobyl radiation harmed only а few dozen firemen, then they could show that even the worst nuclear accident in human history had no effect on human health. And if that were true, then the fallout from nuclear testing, the seeping radioactive waste from bomb factories, the civilian reactors that daily emitted radioactivity, the widespread use of radiation in medical treatments, and the exposed bodies of workers, patients, and innocent bystanders in secret medical tests could Ье forgotten. (89: 152-153; emphasis added) This is not meant as exculpation for Soviet mendacity, which has been well known in academic and diplomatic circles for decades, and which Brown documents beyond any shadow of а doubt. But it does speak to а lack of objectivity one might reasonЬly have expected from an historian. What, indeed, is one to make of а situation in which this highly acclaimed historian, who has no actual scientific knowledge (Ь) (а) relies on the field research of а scientist who has been censured Ьу а national body in his home country for falsifying the results of his research; 6 makes three claims that violate certain laws of physics; 7 Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-Hist ory 1 (с) relies on а compilation of studies that has been disparaged Ьу internationally renowned experts writing in one of the world's leading scientific journals; 8 and, (d) references, often without clear attribution, sources who are well known in the nuclear complex for being raЬidly antinuclearbut Brown conveniently fails to cite the incendiary titles of books and articles these individuals have written "Behind the Cover-Up: Assessing Conservatively the Full Chernobyl Death Toll:' (68) "Chernobyl: An UnbelivaЬ Failure to Help:' (69) Poisoned Power: Тhе Тhre Case Against Nuclear Power before and after Mile Island. (178) Mad Science: Тhе Nuclear Power Experiment. (292) Population Control Тhе Тhroug Crime of Chernobyl: Тhе Nuclear Pollution . (421) Nuclear Gulag. (423) For all her copious research, Brown almost completely ignores the massive epidemiological literature that has accumulated as а direct result of the Chernobyl disaster. There have been-literally-thousands of research on related topics. Nearly all of them are the work of studies puЬlished international teams including researchers from the United States, the UK, Western Europe, the Baltics, Japan, plus Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Interested readers might consult these reviews of multiple studies: Elizabeth Cardis et al. (thirty-one co-authors) (100); and Е. J. Bromet, J. М. Havenaar, and L. Т. Guey. (85) Brown's difficulty in this regard is obvious: had she acknowledged the existence and the results described in the epidemiological literature, she would have had trouЫe reconciling this information with her reliance on Bertell, YaЬlokv et al., and Tchertkoff or to square it with her claim that the West has abandoned people living in the contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine to their cruel fate. The narrative in this book is based on the following premises 1. The nuclear age- particularly, aboveground testing of atomic and thermonuclear weapons conducted from the late 1940s through the early 1960s-has poisoned the earth; in this context, 395 396 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control 2. 3. the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is merely an inflection point-what Brown terms an "acceleration" 9 -in the degradation of the blosphere. There was-and continues to this day-a vast conspiracy among the nuclear states, international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), commercial nuclear power interests, and from learning about the academics to prevent the general puЬlic devastating medical consequences of Chernobyl, including hundreds of thousands of fatalities that (supposedly) have been, and caused Ьу the radiation that spewed from reaccontinue to Ье, tor Unit 4 in April/May 1986. Rather-so the conspiracy goesaside from an astounding number of children who contracted thyroid cancer and an unexpected number of cleanup workers ("liquidators") who contracted leukemia, the conspiratists want the world to believe that the primary health effects suffered Ьу the populace сап Ье ascribed to psychological causes (what the Soviet government derisively termed "radiophЬ'). In order to continue this coverup, international entities have refused to conduct а long-term study of the effects of chronic exposure to low doses of amblent radiation similar to the Life Span Study of Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was begun in 1948 and continues to this day. 10 The danger, of course, when writing in the moment is to view events from the reality of that moment-and not the reality in which the events being described actually occurred. Brown fell prey to that danger to а certain extent in her otherwise remakЫ study Plutopia. 11 But she succumbs to the danger in Manual for Survival. Consider, for instance, this comment about Soviet agriculture The sleepy farm communities of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus had not fully kept расе with the postwar trend, led Ьу American farmers, in industrializing agriculture. (89: 112) This romanticized vision of rural life might lead an uninformed reader to think that the USSR in 1986 was almost а normal Western country, Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-Histo ry 1 when the reality was quite different. Brown, however, seems oЬlivus to the actual state of the Soviet economy in the years leading up to the dissolution of the Union and in the nearly thirty years thereafter in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. This despite the fact that she has proudly conducted interviews in dilapidated housing in Kyshtym, sat with Kazakh peasants in their yurts, and gathered berries on radiation contaminated land near Pripyat. In contrast, professionals in the Slavic field will not find surprising any of the following statements-culled from the writings of Murray Feshbach, the preeminent scholar who spent his career studying the nexus between the Soviet economy and demographic analysis • • • • • • • • '\nflation rate of 2,539 percent (officially) in 1992:' (156: 3) "Considering the shortage of . . . single-use syringes and needles, and the large number of injections given, the potential for а medical disaster is manifest. How do Soviet rural district hospitals perform such sterilization if about 80 percent do not have any hot water at all, 25 percent do not have sewage treatment, and 17 percent no piped water of any sort?" (157) "Some Soviet scientists assert that 75 percent of all illness is related to the use and consumption of polluted water:' (157) "contributing to the shortfall in medications and their supply is the qualitative issue of laboratory standards. No laboratories in Russia [met] good management practice and good laboratory practice even as late as 2000:' (159: 299) "700 major [petroleum product] accident spills ... occur every year in Russia .. . these losses are the equivalent to about 25 Exxon Valdez spills per month!" (159: 301) "lead pollution levels in children (BL-Ьlod lead levels) above 5 mcg/ dl may affect as many as 12 % of all Russian children:' (159: 301) "In part, the inadequacies of rural medical facilities are а reflection of the perennial backwardness of the countryside:' (160: 5) "In the Ukraine, according to а September 1988 disclosure, the asphyxia, pneumonia, respiratory-disorder syndrome and very premature Ьirth that ranked as the principal causes of death among newborns were 'directly related to the inadequate skills' of the medical personnel in attendance:' (160: 7) 397 398 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control • • • • "medical deprivation of the countryside and its acute shortage of so many modern amenities ..." (160: 70) "overworked and underqualified doctors in underfinanced and badly equipped clinics and hospitals" (160: 183) "the all-but-universal horror of maternity ward conditions" (160: 209-210) "estimated Soviet GNP down Ьу 4 to 5 percent in 1990 and 8 to 10 percent in the first half of 1991 . ..." (160: 258) Brown's naivete-whether genuine or feigned for narrative effect-is stunning. Here are just а few examples • • • • The Politburo "rarely dwelled on the contaminated territories or the people exposed in them .. .. То my surprise, that concern was left to others:' (89: 55) "The Ukrainian party leadership was under pressure. Waiting on orders from Moscow, they had delayed evacuating Pripyat. They had held the Мау Day parade because Moscow commanded it so. They stalled on giving out iodine pills because Ilyin told them to wait. All of that was bad advice:' (89: 62-63) Ukrainian health officials "stayed on message" until 1990, when they started to release information about medical impacts on the population and about the true scope of radiation contamination"I tried to sort it out. Somebody, at some point, was lying. I tried to make sense of the contradictory evidence:' (89: 164) "I could not get access to the KGB case files:' (89: 234) Particularly given the first-person nature of Brown's narrative, it is legitimate to examine the manner in which stylistic choices within the text support the thrust of her conspiratist argument. 12 Again, а few examples, chosen from many similar instances in this text • • "Residents' households became the spleen where radioactive isotopes moored." (89: 109; emphasis added) "Mousseau and M0ller are practicing the kind of science left to post-human landscapes, а science that is tedious and hazardous, as much as it is creative and invigorating:' (89: 131; emphasis added) Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History 1 • "Poorly welded fuel rods [in Chernobyl's first reactor unit] popped inside the reactor like corn kernels in hot oil." (89: 136; emphasis added) People living in contaminated areas "rarely had just one disease but had instead а complex of illness swarming their bodies like а murder of crows." (89: 163; emphasis added) The WHO sent а "commission of well-dressed scientists ... on an itinerary that included а number of suffering communities:' (89: 211; emphasis added) "[T]he UN's Vienna International Center, а complex of glass, steel, and convenience" was an edifice in which "men and women in f ashionЫe suits and impractical shoes glided оп polished floors:' (89: 225; emphasis added). • • • • "Behind the international diplomats trailed the scent of cologne and good health." (89: 22; emphasis added) And what is perhaps the most outrageous sentence in the entire book Filmmakers walked right into the buzz saw ofWesterners' arguments about failed Soviet medicine and the alleged graft and incompetency of the socialist system. (89: 288; emphasis added) When it suits her purpose, however, Brown conveniently contradicts her own hyperbole The [Chernobyl children's charity] programs were plagued with corruption. (89: 296; emphasis added) But the true test of any historical study is the manner in which the historian selects and utilizes existing sources. As noted earlier, Kate Brown is а remakЫy persistent researcher: Manual for Survival contains, in its endnotes, (89: 319-320) а list of twentyseven archives around the world she utilized while preparing her manuscript and forty personal interviews she conducted, either in person or Ьу telephone, with various figures relevant to her story. The number of government documents-previously unknown to academe or the general puЬlicthat she cites is truly outstanding. At one point in the book, in her own inmtaЫe fashion, Brown addresses her readers directly: "Even 399 400 1 Part Two: Ch ernobyl , Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorica l Contro l if you are not one to look at footnotes, you might turn your attention to this one:' (89: 195) Check it out: footnote sixty-eight оп pages 366-367 lists more than two dozen previously secret documents. sources Beyond that, however, it is important to discuss the puЬlic Brown relies on, the individuals whom she cites in а positive or derogatory manner, the extent to which discrepant information is ignored or distorted, 13 and the readily avilЬe puЬlished reports that she studiously avoids. Brown has her heroes and her villains. Chief among her heroes is Keith Baverstock, а specialist in chemistry and molecular genetics who worked for the WHO during the 1980s and '90s and who now serves as а senior researcher in Finland; her Ьеt noir is Fred J. Mettler Jr., а physician, board certified in both radiology and nuclear medicine, and а mem ber of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP)- one of the other governmental entities that figures in this narrative. There is more about each of them below. Throughout this book Brown quotes or cites а large number of individuals, who- although usually not identified Ьу more than their nameare actually well known in the "nuclear world" as fervent opponents of nuclear power and/or nuclear weapons. То mention just а few • • Joseph Mangano- Radiation and PuЬlic Health Project, "an independent group of scientists and health professionals dedicated to research and education of health hazards from nuclear reactors and weapons:' Further: "In Mad Science, Joseph Mangano strips away the near-smothering layers of distortions and outright lies that permeate the massive propaganda campaigns on behalf of nuclear energy." 14 John Gofman (deceased 2007)-formerly at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, а physician and professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at Berkeley; founder of the now defunct which was formed as а Committee for Nuclear ResponiЬlty, "political and educational organization to disseminate antinuclear views and information to the puЬlic " -claimed in 1991 that а ''health-Holocaust" was occurring at Chernobyl. - а specialist in Ьiometry and Rosalie Bertell (deceased 201) а founding member of the International Institute of Concern Health, whose mission is described as "concern for for PuЬlic 1 5 • Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History 1 human survival on an intact planet." 16 Dr. Bertell is the intellectual wellspring for Brown's conspiracy theory and her belief that hundreds of thousands of people will ultimately die as а direct result of Chernobyl. As noted above, Brown's beliefs about the diseases resulting from Chernobyl radiation are based on books written Ьу Wladimir Tchertkoff and Ьу Alexey V YaЬlokv et al. Originally puЬlished in French, Tschertkoff's book compilation of studespouses the conclusions promoted in the YaЬlokv ies. Tschertkoff's translator and sponsor, Susie Greaves, recently wrote that "[t]he nuclear industry in the West was perfectly aware of RBMK reactor technology and there is no evidence that the West ever warned that an accident was waiting to happen:' (183) 17 On the contrary, the United States had until the Soviet government delivvirtually no knowledge about the RВМК ered its inaccurate and misleading report to the IAEA in advance of hastily scheduled meetings in Vienna in August 1986. Accordingly, in order to preа team pare for the Vienna meetings, the Department of Energy asemЬld consisting of а dozen technical translators, brought them to the DOE facility in Germantown, Maryland, and sequestered them over а long weekend as they compiled the first English language information regarding either the reactor design itself or the events that had occurred. 18 Mikhail Balonov, who has written extensively оп the medical consequences of the 1950 Techa River and 1957 Kyshtym events, states that YaЬlokv et al. • • • • "[S]uggested а departure from analytical epidemiological [cohort or case-control] studies in favour of [studies based on group averages]. This erroneous approach resulted in the overestimation of the number of accident victims Ьу more than 800,000 deaths during 1987-2004"; (56: 181) 19 That they make "uncorroborated claims of mass mortality in emergency and recovery operation workers ('liquidators'), of abnormalities in newborns, and а host of other supposed effects of radiation"; (56: 182) That the book "is full of doubtful claims of 'new methodology' research" and "contains numerous factual errors"; (56: 182) That "the denial of the analytical approach and the unconditional trust in the ... geographic methodology with primitive 401 402 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control • statistical tests puts an end to the crediЬlty of any conclusions" (56: 185); and, That "[t]he value of such а review is not just zero, but negative, as its lack of balance may only Ье obvious to specialists, while inexperienced readers may well Ье misled:' (56: 185-186) estimation of popuBalonov's ultimate conclusion is that "YaЫokv's lation mortality due to Chernobyl fallout of about one million before 2004 ... transports this book from science to the realm of science fiction. Clearly, if such а mass death of people had occurred as а consequence of Chernobyl, this would never have passed unnoticed:' (56: 185-186) Finally, Balonov states categorically that "[t]here are no reasonЬl grounds to suspect the modern community of experts of concealment of the facts:' (56: 188) As noted above, Brown almost completely ignores the massive epidemiological literature that has accumulated as а direct result of the Chernobyl disaster. But she does highlight two articles puЬlished in the journal Nature in а context that, according to her reading of the situation, clearly shows academics conspiring with their governments to attack contrarians. Specifically, Brown discusses these brief notices • • Keith Baverstock, Bruno Egloff, Aldo Pinchera, Charles Rechti, and Dilwyn Williams. (63) Vasili S. Kazakov, Evgeni Р. Demidchik, and Larisa N. Astakhova. (245) Baverstock and Kazakov, who visited Minsk on а WHO mission, reported а dramatic increase in the incidence of childhood thyroid cancer starting in 1990, just four years after Chernobyl, and attributed this fact to the huge doses of iodine-131 that had been deposited over а wide swath of land in Belarus. This dramatic news was met with skepticism, in part because radioactive iodine had not previously been implicated in thyroid cancer and in part because Western radiation epidemiologists had no prior experience with what had been up to then а very rare phenomenon. In fact, these were not the first academic indications of an upsurge in thyroid cancer. In November 1991 an international team ofUkrainian and British researchers puЬlished an article in Тhе Lancet, а highly respected continuously since 1823 British medical journal that has been puЬlished Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History • Anatoly Prisyazhiuk, О . А. Pjatak, V Reeves, and Valerie Beral. (370) А. Buzanov, Gillian К. Nevertheless, the notices in Nature, а widely read international journal, spurred medical examinations that ultimately identified cancer in more than four thousand children-many of whom had been afflicted with an unusually aggressive type that was often characterized Ъу а specific gene ). (Fortunately, thyroid cancer is very treaЬl: fewer than а mutation (RЕТЗ dozen of these children had died from their disease through 2006-twenty years after the accident and about fifteen years since the outbreak beganalthough that cohort continues as adults to suffer from new cancers.) Indeed, against а worldwide baseline incidence of this cancer on the level of 0.5 per million children per year, the most thoroughly contamiultimately recorded а prevalence above one nated areas in Gomel oЫast hundred thirty cases per million children per year.20 Thus, the Baverstock and Kazakov teams ultimately were vindicated. Accordingly, it might not Ье an exaggeration to state that the unanticipated outbreak of childhood thyroid cancer precipitated а paradigm shift-a fundamental change in the basic concepts and practices of radiation epidemiology-as belated acceptance of this reality compelled researchers to develop new methodologies of dose reconstruction in the face of inadequate records about the impacted individuals.21 of these two notices, Almost immediately following the puЬlicaton three responses from world-renowned however, Nature puЬlished epidemiologists • • • Valerie Beral and Gillian Reeves. (67) I. Shigematsu and J. W Thiessen. (407) and Arthur В. Schneider. (386) Elaine Ron, Jay LuЬin, Beral, а radiation epidemiologist at Oxford University, has authored more Lancet beginning in the 1970s. Reeves, than one hundred articles in Тhе Shigematsu her colleague at Oxford, is а professor of radiation Ьiometry. has been а leading figure in the Life Span Study for many years. Thiessen was а medical doctor working in the US Department of Energy. 22 Ron (deceased 2010), а senior investigator for the Radiation Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute, was one of the world's foremost experts in radiation epidemiology and in the causes of thyroid cancer. 23 1 403 404 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorical Control None of the comments challenged the accuracy of the numbers published Ьу Baverstock and Kazakov. Rather, Beral and Reeves suggested that, because the reported numbers relied on histological examination of asymptomatic subjects, it was posiЬle some of the cases may have been "occult" nodules "which are indolent clinically" and might "never progress to frank symptomatic disease:'(67: 680) Shigematsu and Thiessen stated that the data in the reports "are limited and preliminarY:' and that "studies of these consequences must Ье carefully pursued and based on scientific methodologies." The Japanese specialist offered the support of the Hiroshima-based Radiation Effects Research Foundation in conducting such studies. (407: 681) Ron and her colleagues argued that "carefully controlled epidemiological studies are needed to understand the true impact of the accident:' (386: 113) То this reviewer, Brown's contention (89: 251-252) that these scholars were part of an international conspiracy stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. In particular, since Beral and Reeves were members of the international research team that first identified thyroid proЫems in children impacted Ьу Chernobyl (370) , their critique of the methods employed Ьу the Kazakov and Baverstock teams should Ье considered dispositive. Brown, unfortunately, provides no indication that she is aware of these facts. Brown also uses innuendo and exaggeration as stylistic tools to support her main thesis. Some examples James Asselstine The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) puЬlished а study saying Chernobyl could never happen in the United States. (111) Internally, however, one of the five NRC commissioners, James Asselstine, argued the same accident could indeed occur in the United States and that the NRC was not prepared for it.24 His concerns dismissed, Asselstine left the NRC that month. (89: 247) Asse1stine's term as an NRC Comшisner came to an end а month after this report was released, so he was scheduled to leave in any event, and he returned to the private sector. There is no evidence adduced that his departure was somehow related to release of the report. Nevertheless, Brown allows the reader to infer that Asselstine resigned in protest, which is simply not the case. Pseudo-Sci ence and Potemkin-History 1 Gordon Mcleod The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was а true meltdown of the reactor coretechnologically а much worse event than the steam explosion that destroyed Chernobyl's Unit 4. Citing Joseph Mangano (291), Brown writes When Pennsylvania State Health Commissioner Gordon McLeod announced nine months later that child mortality in а ten-mile radius around the plant had douЫe, the governor did not order an investigation of the proЬlem, but instead fired McLeod. (89: 60) Brown sees this as just another indication of the nuclear estaЬlihmn' indifference to suffering among the population. But McLeod's statement . In the first place, а grand total of fifteen was completely iresponЬl (!) curies of iodine-131 was released beyond the grounds of the power plant- not enough to cause any harm to flora, fauna, or humans (62); 25 and, as а matter of fact the accident caused no medical casualties. However, alarmed Ьу national news coverage and the local media, many mothers of small children evacuated the area around the power plant needlessly. As а result, they suffered а version of PTSD that was still affiicting them ten years later. (135-See also 84; 85) David Marples Marples, а history professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, has puЬlished extensively on topics related to Belarus, Ukraine, and nuclear power safety. Не is no friend of nuclear power. Brown, while discussing the fact that in 1990 "Soviet doctors were well aware of а new trend in thyroid cancers among children" (89: 242), cites Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe (299) in footnote eleven on page 379. Brown writes: "Marples reports the first jump in thyroid cancers in Ukraine in 1986:' Here is what Marples actually wrote Among children prior to Chernobyl, there were seven cases of [thyroid cancer] in the repuЬlic. Between 1986 and 1989 а small increase in [thyroid cancer] was detected among children: two cases in 1986; four in 1987; and five in 1988. However, in 1990, 29 cases were suddenly detected. Ву 1991 the figure had jumped to 59. (299: 104) 405 406 1 Part Two: Chernobyl, Eco-Nationalism , and Loss of Rhetorical Control Apparently, one person's "small increase" is another person's "first jump" in thyroid cancers. Brown must not Ье aware of the five- to ten-year latency period of thyroid cancers, or she would have realized that any cancers in 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1989 already that became clinically identfaЫ up. 26 In informal logic the fallacy here is existed before Chernobyl Ыеw known as post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this)just because Event В occurred after Event А does not necessarily mean that Event А caused Event В. Coincidences do happen in real life, if not in the mind of conspiratists. It is important to note that а team of scientists from the Research Center of Radiation Medicine or the Research Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism, both within the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, studied four two-year intervals and one one-year interval (86-87, 88-89, 90-91, 92-93, and 94) and made the following rigorous statement: "[W] е have assumed that the consequences due to the Chernobyl accident had not manifested themselves during the first two time intervals:' (418: 742) Fred Mettler Based оп information from Olga Degtiareva, а Ukrainian endocrinologist, and Valentina Drozd, а medical doctor, (140; 141) Brown reports that in 1991 Mettler was shown slides of twenty thyroid Ьiopse, which year later he confirmed to Ье carcinogenic. (89: 260) She continues: "[а] а major article about thyroid nodules among children Mettler puЬlished in Chernobyl territories, but he did not mention the twenty thyroid cancers he had verified:' (89: 261) The article in question was puЬlished in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (317) Given the fact that this study had fifteen coauthors (five of whom were Slavic), it seems а little misleading to write а major article. But, then, he is one of the perpethat "Metter puЬlished" trators of the grand conspiracy. In the text of their article, the Mettler team states that "[t]he purpose of our study was to assess the prevalence, size, type, and distribution of thyroid nodules in the population that had been continuously residing around Chernobyl from 1985 to 1990:' (317: 617) Among the research results was the following statement Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-History 1 bverall, there was no apparent difference in the prevalence of nodules ... between contaminated and control groups; this was also true when adults and children were considered separately. (317: 617) Further, the research team implies that the generally bad health of people in rural areas will make cohort and case-control studies extremely difficult to conduct The large number of adults in unexposed populations with sonographically detected thyroid nodules will confound future detection of potentially radiation-induced nodules and carcinomas in the gen eral population living around Chernobyl. (317: 618- 619) 27 Moreover, they explicitly include the following caveat: "[t]he fact that ultrasonography is not reliaЬ in differentiating between benign and malignant nodules is well estaЬlihd. Consequently, we did not attempt to make .such differentiations:' (317: 618) Accordingly, the study as designed had nothing at all to do with cancer per se, although Brown obviously thinks it should have. Interestingly, however, the research report does statement that might have satisfied а more objective contain an oЬlique observer Since the accident, some local scientists have reported that the prevalence of thyroid disease has increased in the populations potentially exposed to even very small amounts of radioactive iodine. (317: 617) There is more one could say about Manual for Survival regarding issues such as the difficulty in conducting а long-term study oflow dose impacts from radiation when the total population affected Ьу Chernobyl is around five million people-for whom incomplete, incorrect, or simply no dose estimates are avilЫe. However, suffice it to say that as travelogues go, this book is pseudoscience and Potemkin-history. In closing, it may Ье appropriate to quote the first sentence in а review of Manual for Survival Ьу the well-known historian Sheila Fitzpatrick that appeared recently in the Australian Book Review: "This is а very disturЬng book:' (166) The present reviewer would agree wholeheartedly with Professor Fitzpatrick- but for completely different reasons. 407 408 1 Pa rt Two: Chernobyl , Eco-Nationalism, and Loss of Rhetorica l Control NOTES "When I arrive someplace, the fact of ту being there changes the place itself and the kinds of stories I can tel1 about it. . .. And in what voice do I write when I am part of the story?" (88: 3) Brown actually alludes to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle here: ."Scientists have something called the 'observer effect; which refers to the phenomenon of the observer, in the act of watching, altering the state of the object being studied:' (88: 12) 2. . "I ат confused Ьу the notion that referring to oneself in scholarly writing is unprofessional or trivial or renders one's work tautological-'something we don't do"' (88: 11). Further: "Academics recoil from the first-person narrative, in part, because to confess to being there is to call into doubt one's objectivity and legitimacY:' (88: 11) 3. "Without intending to, I have become а professional disaster tourist:' (88: 1) 4. "The first-person voice, I hope, makes my judgments more paltЬe in that it does not truth or utterances from on high :' (88: 13) pass them off as claims to uпiversal 5. "The neologism 'conspiratist' has been created in order to avoid the pejorative connotations of the phrase 'conspiracy theorists' and the awkwardness of repeatedly using 'conspiracy proponents:" (491: 89 passim) 6. The scientist in question is Anders Р. M0ller (see 32; 416) . Jim Smith, who has made dozens of visits to the contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, provided this assessment of M0ller: he was "found guilty of manipulating data Ьу the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty:' (416: 339) 7. Smith describes these gaffes in а section entitled "Breaking the Laws of Physics." (416: 345) 8. Тhе study in question is Y a Ьlokv et al. , eds. (472) This work was reviewed quite argues that the book "reflects а connegatively Ьу Duncan Jackson. (222) Jacksoп spiracy-theory approach which implies time and again that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organisation and others 'completely neglected' or misinterpreted sig11ifica11t information sources when evaluating health effects" (222: . 163) and that the editors "cite information in an uncritical fashion, such as an account of pigs literally 'glowing' as а consequence of contamination:' (222: 163) Another estimation of scientist, Mikhail I. Balonov at the IAEA, had this to say: "YaЬlokv's population mortality due to Chernobyl fallout of about one million before 2004 . .. transports this book from scieп to the realm of science fiction ." (56: 185-186) See also Mona Dreicer: (139) Dreicer is deputy program director for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 9. "I have argued that Chernobyl is поt а п accident but rather ап acceleration on а time line of exposures that sped up in the second half of the twentieth centurY:' (89: 302-303) 10. Although Brown condemns the West for waiting five years to begi11 the Life Span Study, she is simply wrong. The LSS, so 11amed, was initiated in 1948, but in fact the "U.S.-Japan Joiпt Comisп " began studying the medical effects of bomb raditoп in September 1945-less than two months after the war in the Pacific came to an end. See (406). 11 . See (271) . 12. See (491: 91). 13. See (491: 98) . 14. https:/ /www.orbooks.com/joseph-mangano/. 1. Pseudo-Science and Potemkin-H istory 1 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. https:// en. wikped i a.org/wikCmte_fNuc l ear_RsponiЬlty. http:/ /w.cnrog b ertl_Ьio . html. Intellectually, Greaves is to epidemiology what Betsy DeVos is to puЬlic education. Kathy Stackhouse. Personal communication. June 22, 2019. Ms. Stackhouse was а member of the team of translators who worked twelve- to-fourteen-hour days so that the US representatives sent to Vienna could have any information at their disposal prior to the meetings. Brown, for her part, consistently asserts that Chernobyl claimed at least 135,000 lives in Ukraine alone. See (140: 979) . See (260). In а September 1986 Тhе New York Times article, Thiessen is reported to have said that residents in the 30 km Exclusion Zone around the destroyed reactor "could have more than four times the normal number of thyroid cancers because of excess radiation frorri the April 26 accident:' Further, he said that Soviet figures оп the amount of radiation released might Ье "significantly low:' The DOE analysis showed that figures regarding fallout were "several hundred times higher than those suggested bythe Russians, who predicted only а l percent increase in thyroid cancer:' See (136: А28) . In 1985, while working as а postdoc in Israel, Ron authored а classic study of the carfro m cinogenic effect oflow doses of medical radiation used to treat patients sufeгing tinea capitis (ringworm). See (327). In personal communications, several individuals within the Department of Energy, its national laboratories, and the US nuclear industry have indicated that а Chernobyl-type accident cannot ever happen in this country, that the Soviet accident was unique due to the RВMK's intrinsic design flaws and the lack of а reinforced conгet containment at Chernobyl. (272) In comparison, using Brown's own figures, (89: 246) nuclear bombs exploded at the Nevada Test Site released а total of 145 million curies of radioactive iodine, and at least fifty million curies of iodine were released at Chernobyl. "A.fter exposure, the minimum latency period before the appearance of thyroid cancers is 5 to 10 years:' See (217: 180). Some thyroid nodules may Ье cancerous; the vast majority are not. 409