The True Consequences of Chernobyl (Guest Article by Alison Katz) - Re-posting

Re-posting on the 39th anniversary of the 1986 catastrophe.
26 April 2025

This guest post is in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Alison Katz is a member of Independent WHO: The organization was created to demand a revision of the “WHA 12-40” agreement signed between WHO and the IAEA. Every working day since 26 April 2007, this organization has maintained a vigil across from WHO Headquarters in Geneva to demand the independence of WHO and expose the truth about the effects of radioactive contamination caused by the activities of the civil and military nuclear industry.

Here is her article:

On the Thirty-Seventh Anniversary of the Chernobyl Catastrophe

On the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe
by Robert James Parsons, Independent Journalist, 26 April 2023

The article below was published in 2016 on the thirtieth anniversary of the catastrophe of Chernobyl. Little has changed since then. The World Health Organization still insists that the catastrophe (the only appropriate word for what happened -- and is still happening) caused a mere 51 deaths.

The WHO's refusal to acknowledge the catastrophe's stupendous implications and ever greater ramifications for the life of the planet as time goes on prompted a civil society organization in France and French-speaking Switzerland (Independent WHO) to set up a vigil at the entry of the WHO. The vigil, which lasted ten years and had at least one person there every working day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., demanded that the WHO end the stranglehold that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has over the WHO by virtue of a legally binding agreement that gives the IAEA veto power over anything that the WHO might wish to undertake in the area of radiation and health.

"Chernobyl, My Eternal Pain": Comment by Liquidator, Natalia Manzurova, on "Chernobyl" Miniseries

Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors of the cleanup of Chernobyl, comments on the mini-series, "Chernobyl". 

“CHERNOBYL, MY ETERNAL PAIN” 

Atomic heritage.files, October 2019

Edited and translated in English by Tatiana Kasperski

Natalia Manzurova, participant in the mitigation of the Chernobyl accident's impact. The HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” has sparked great interest in all countries around the world and made the audience aware of the risks of a massive nuclear disaster. But this is a fictional movie in its essence. Is it based on real events and characters? How is it possible to to distinguish between truth and artistic exaggeration? Natalia Manzurova, a radiobiologist and engineer, worked as a liquidator in the Chernobyl zone from 1987 to 1991. Having been affected by the chronic radiation sickness, she paid dearly for this mission with her health. Natalia considered it necessary to share her comments on the series with the public. Edited and translated in English by Tatiana Kasperski

In place of afterword. 

by Natalia Manzurova

Natalia Manzurova, shown here in 1988

I know what I'm talking about, I was there. I've survived two cancers and now I'm struggling with the third. One day I decided to devote my life to telling everyone the truth about Chernobyl. 

What changed after the accident? They still don't want to tell the truth that the nuclear industry is not so safe. After all, in addition to the factors I mentioned above, natural forces can intervene, like in Fukushima. No matter how many 

times my colleagues and I would go around, telling the truth about nuclear accidents, people listen, get surprised, upset, worried. And then forget. 

But this film was featured to the whole world. There was a shock from the fact that it was so truthful. People can clearly see what happened at that time. They see the heroism and suffering of the Soviet people. They see that the peaceful atom might not be so peaceful! Let there be a lot of criticism. A lot of disputes. But nobody remains indifferent and people reflect on it. Maybe there is no need for lie anymore. The most important is that there is truth! 

The director of the film said that when he made it, he was not against nuclear power. But one doesn't have to be against it. The film responded to the public demand. We have to admit mistakes. It is necessary to analyze and minimize the risks of new incidents. It should be acknowledged that the nuclear industry leaves a heavy legacy in the form of radioactive waste. That we leave our descendants with problems for centuries. We cannot change it anymore - the atom has entered our lives. And if all this is not controlled by the society, the atom itself will come to everyone, as Chernobyl has entered every home. It is necessary to learn to act safely and to be able to protect oneself in case of danger, since it already exists. I am glad that the film was released and I thank the creators of the film on behalf of myself personally and of all my fallen comrades. 

Thank you. Natalia Manzurova

Continue reading:

https://atomicheritage.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/oct2019manzurovacommentschernobylseriesen.pdf

Japan Hasn’t Recovered 10 Years After Fukushima Meltdown

Japan Hasn’t Recovered 10 Years After Fukushima Meltdown

By Arnie Gundersen, Truthout, 11 March 2021

Bags of radioactive soil are gathered on
March 7, 2021, in Futaba, Japan. Yuichi Yamazaki /
Getty Images

On March 11, 2011, a devastating offshore earthquake and ensuing tsunami rocked Japan and resulted in nuclear meltdowns in three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. Until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were placed on a one-year hiatus because of concerns over COVID-19, the Japanese government had portrayed these events as the “Recovery Olympics.” It had hoped to use the Olympics to showcase a claimed restoration of Japan since it was devastated in 2011. But has Japan really “recovered”?

Recently, corresponding author Marco Kaltofen (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), co-author Maggie Gundersen (Fairewinds Energy Education) and I published our second peer-reviewed journal article* analyzing hundreds of radioactive samples from northern Japan that we collected with assistance from Japanese citizens and scientists. Our sampling on five occasions over almost a decade totaled 70 days on the ground. Here are four things we discovered.

France: During Full Confinement, an Anti-Nuclear Association Suffered the Wrath of the Gendarmerie

During full confinement, an anti-nuclear association suffered the wrath of the gendarmerie
by Pierre Bonneau (Reporterre), reporterre.net, 6 May 2020

On April 21, the premises of the Next-Up anti-nuclear association as well as the homes of its leaders were searched despite the confinement. The reason invoked - to recover protective equipment - seems very paltry to the people concerned and their supporters.

Crest (Drôme), correspondence

"They fell on us like in an ambush!" Almost a week after the incident, Serge Sargentini has still not recovered.  Living beside the Drôme River in the small quiet town of Crest, this head of the anti-nuclear association Next-Up did not expect, during full confinement, to be searched, handcuffed, and much of the material of his association seized, and to be held for twelve hours in police custody without respecting confinement measures when he is over 70 years old.

Tuesday, April 21, the septuagenarian spotted four gendarmes arriving by surprise, hiding next to the window of his room. "At 8:40 a.m., as we were leaving with my wife through the back door, they came upon us, announcing the search and entry by force. There were insults, spitting, pushing and shoving. Half of them were not wearing masks or gloves," says the retiree on the phone. The reason for the operation? A requisition of masks.

Interview with Chernobyl Cleanup Survivor, Natalia Manzurova

REPOSTED 24 April 2017 on the occasion of the Grand Vigil of IndependentWHO taking place on 26 April in Geneva in front of WHO.

IN MEMORY OF ALL THOSE AFFECTED BY THE NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AT FUKUSHIMA AND CHERNOBYL:

Natalia Manzurova, shown here in 1988 in the "dead zone"
of Pripyat, is one of the relatively few survivors among
those directly involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl.

Shortly after the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred in March 2011, Natalia Manzurova granted this interview with aol.com. She is one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl. Just after the nuclear catastrophe, the 35-year-old engineer was told to report to the wrecked plant in northern Ukraine. She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. Several years after working there, she developed a benign thyroid tumor. Half the thyroid was removed. Around the time of the operation, the government passed a law saying the liquidators had to work for exactly 4 1/2 years to get their pension and retire. The law concerning benefits kept changing because the government did not want to admit to what extent the liquidators were being affected. It would have looked bad for the industry. “The nuclear industry is dangerous. They want to deny the dangers.” Manzurova became disabled at age 43. Today she is an advocate for radiation victims worldwide.

Chernobyl Cleanup Survivor's Message for Japan: 'Run Away as Quickly as Possible'
by Dana Kennedy, aol.com, 22 March 2011

Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told to report to the wrecked, burning plant in the northern Ukraine.

United States: Who Is Monitoring the Health of Populations Around Nuclear Power Plants?

Portrait of Marie Curie and her two daughters,
Eve and Irene, 1908.  Irene experimented with
radioactive materials like her parents and
died at 58.  Eva was a writer and pianist and
died at 102.

"Childhood leukemia, low birth weight, compromised neural development are all associated with exposure to radiation during pregnancy and early childhood... No official body in the United States is seriously investigating these impacts. In fact, the U. S. federal government appears not to conduct public health impact studies of populations around nuclear power reactor sites."

Who is monitoring the health of populations around nuclear power plants?
Cindy Folkers, enformable.com, 11 February 2016

Author’s note: I wrote this blog post with knowledge of the ongoing tritium leaks plaguing a number of nuclear power reactors in the U.S., but before the latest high levels of tritium released from the Indian Point reactor in New York were reported. These recent unplanned and largely unaccounted for releases bring into stark relief the need to measure in real time the releases we DO initially control; further, it is reasonable to request public access to these data.

Humans have known of natural radioactivity since about the turn of the 20th century when Marie Curie carried around vials of radioactive substances in her pocket, admiring the glow-in-the-dark “fairy lights” they would give off. Long-term exposure to these “fairly lights” made Curie chronically ill, physically scarred, and nearly blind from cataracts. At the age of 66, she succumbed to a radiation-induced disease (either leukemia or aplastic anemia, sources differ), as did her daughter and son-in-law. Despite being deeply troubled by deaths of colleagues and radiation workers, the Curies never really admitted radioactivity played a role in their diseases; Marie even recommended sickened radium dial painters eat calf’s liver to combat anemia. Daughter Eva, who outlived her sister by 50 years, died at 102 and recognized the role radiation played in the shortened lives of her female kin.

Cultivation of Strawberries

REPOSTED 31 May 2013:  

Image:  Dragonfly Earth Medicine

Imported strawberries are still appearing in supermarkets in Switzerland from February.  It's not certain that working conditions in Spain have improved all that much since this article was written in April 2011.  There is certainly a very serious environmental crisis:  the strawberry fields are sucking dry the area of Spain where most of the "red gold" fruit is cultivated.  Switzerland imports most of its out-of-season strawberries from Spain. This fruit is cultivated in vitro in central Spain then transported south for planting in soil sterilized by a chemical substance which Saddam Hussein used to kill populations in Kurdistan. The plants are grown on plastic which is dispersed into the environment or burned after harvest. The cultivation of strawberries requires enormous amounts of pesticides which contaminate drinking water and fresh water in a natural reserve for migratory birds. Most of the strawberry field workers are women who are poorly paid and live in unsanitary conditions. Many suffer from respiratory diseases and skin infections caused by exposure to the pesticides used to cultivate the strawberries.

Fukushima: Precious Time Has Been Lost: Article by Dr. Michel Fernex

“The first victims of a serious nuclear accident are and will be children, with an increase in allergies and an aggravation of infectious diseases, which become chronic and involve serious complications...

“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cannot admit that these serious and common illnesses were caused by ionising radiation, because once known, it would prevent the development of the nuclear industry throughout the world. The IAEA… denies the health catastrophe and gives priority to economic considerations; its statutes forbid attributing to, or associating serious illness with, radiation. Incorrect estimates delay the evacuation of communities that have been highly exposed to radiation. It was almost incomprehensible that at Fukushima there was no distribution of stable iodine to the population that would soon be under threat.”

Fukushima: precious time has been lost
by Dr. Michel Fernex, Emeritus Professor, Basel Faculty of Medecine and Former Consultant, World Health Organization, 2 August 2012

Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (Geneva, 29 November 2014)

Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionizing Radiation
IndependentWHO, 8 December 2014

On Saturday 29th November 2014 in Geneva, “Independent WHO – Health and Nuclear Power”organised, with the support of the City of Geneva, a “Scientific and Citizen Forum on the Genetic Effects of Ionising Radiation”. Six internationally renowned experts in the field (from Japan, the USA, Finland, England, and Germany) were invited to present their research. Ruth Stegassy, producer of the radio programme Terre à Terre on France Culture, chaired the event. More than 150 people attended this forum including a number of French and Swiss health professionals and journalists, as well as elected politicians, ecologists, members of health movements and associations, organisations concerned with food health, and anti-nuclear activists.

Fukushima: Leak at Nuclear Plant Threatens Dangerous Meltdown

March 10, 2014 - File photo of men wearing protective suits and masks
work in front of welding storage tanks for radioactive water, under
construction at Tepco's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. (Reuters)

"If no new cold water is pumped in at this rate, it will reach the dangerous threshold of 149 degrees (F) in roughly the next week. Such temperatures would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and more radiation leaks in the plant."

Leak at Fukushima nuclear plant threatens dangerous meltdown
FoxNews.com, 7 July 2014

Trouble is looming at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, as a leak has forced the shutdown of a cooling system that could cause temperatures to exceed dangerous levels.

Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to switch off the cooling system at Reactor Unit 5, after engineers discovered it had been leaking water. If the system is not repaired within the next nine days, temperatures are expected to soar, Russian news site RT reported Sunday.

The Crime of Chernobyl - A Model for Fukushima

The crime of Chernobyl – a model for Fukushima
by Wladimir Tchertkoff, author of “The Crime of Chernobyl: the Nuclear Gulag”
April 2013

For a quarter of a century a systematic crime against humanity has been perpetrated by people in senior positions at the heart of Europe. The people living in Western Europe, so advanced technologically, remain indifferent and largely disinformed. In order to preserve the consensus around the military and civilian nuclear industry, the nuclear lobby and the official medical establishment have, for the past 26 years, knowingly condemned millions of human guinea pigs to an experiment on their bodies with new diseases in the vast laboratory provided by the territories contaminated by Chernobyl. Children are being treated like laboratory animals, under observation from French and German scientists, and French NGO’s like the CEPN, Mutadis Consultants, ETHOS and CORE, who must take their share of the responsibility. (Translator’s note: CEPN is the Centre d’étude sur l’Evaluation de la Protection dans le domaine Nucléaire ; Mutadis, ETHOS and CORE are all offshoots of the French nuclear industry, financed either through Electricité de France or the Autorité de Sureté Nucléaire.)

Photo 2005: Suffering from thyroid cancer, Oleg Shapiro, 54, and Dima Bogdanovich, 13, receive care at a thyroid hospital in Minsk, where surgery is performed on a daily basis. As a liquidator, Oleg was exposed to extreme levels of radiation. It was his third thyroid operation. Dima’s mother claims that Chernobyl’s nuclear fallout is responsible for her son’s cancer, but his doctors are more cautious: Belarusian officials are often instructed to downplay the severity of the radiation. Ref: National Geographic, March 2014.

The same fate awaits the Japanese people and their children living in areas contaminated by the Fukushima disaster because the same strategy is being put in place in Japan with the same players, the same pseudo-scientific justifications and under the aegis of the same authorities.

Fukushima Continues to Spew Its Darkness

On the third anniversary of Fukushima, the nuclear plant "continues to spew its darkness" - for decades to come.

"While a depleted, discredited and disorganized nuclear utility moves to restart its other reactors, its stricken units at Fukushima continue to hold the rest of us at the brink of apocalyptic terror."

Fukushima Continues to Spew Its Darkness

by Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams, 25 July 2013

Radiation leaks, steam releases, disease and death continue to spew from Fukushima and a disaster which is far from over. Its most profound threat to the global ecology—a spent fuel fire—is still very much with us. 

The latest steam leak has raised fears around the planet. A worst-case scenario of an on-going out-of-control fission reaction was dismissed by the owners, Tokyo Electric, because they didn’t find xenon in the plume. The company says the steam likely came from rain water being vaporized by residual heat in one of plant’s stricken reactors.

The Giant Lie About Fukushima

Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, has said: “The health impacts to the Japanese will begin to be felt in several years and out to 30 or 40 years from cancers. And I believe we’re going to see as many as a million cancers over the next 30 years because of the Fukushima incident in Japan.”

At Fukushima, “We have opened a door to hell that cannot be easily closed—if ever,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at the U.S.-based group Beyond Nuclear last year.

The Giant Lie About Fukushima
by Karl Grossman, counterpunch.org, 3 March 2014

With the third anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe coming next week, the attempted Giant Lie about the disaster continues—a suppression of information, an effort at dishonesty of historical dimensions.

It involves international entities, especially the International Atomic Energy Agency, national governmental bodies—led in Japan by its current prime minister, the powerful nuclear industry and a “nuclear establishment” of scientists and others with a vested interest in atomic energy.

Deception was integral to the push for nuclear power from its start. Indeed, I opened my first book on nuclear technology, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, with: “You have not been informed about nuclear power. You have not been told. And that has been done on purpose. Keeping the public in the dark was deemed necessary by the promoters of nuclear power if it was to succeed. Those in government, science and private industry who have been pushing nuclear power realized that if people were given the facts, if they knew the consequences of nuclear power, they would not stand for it.”

Fukushima: Three Years On: Lives in Limbo: Stories of the Shameful Treatment of Fukushima Victims

Victims share their personal stories on how the Fukushima
disaster affected them.  Photo:  Greenpeace

More than 150,000 people were made victims by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.  Most are still victims. But there is little coverage these days of their daily lives and the problems they continue to face.

They have compelling stories to tell. To learn about the stories, and to expose the shameful neglect of victims, Greenpeace Japan brought six international witnesses to tour the Fukushima area this week and to meet five victims.  Following is the report by Dr. David McNeill, Japan correspondent for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Three Years On: Lives in Limbo
by Dr. David McNeill, Greenpeace International, February 2014

In March 2011, Kaori Saito watched the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster unfold on TV from her living room in Fukushima City, roughly 60 kilometres away. When the government instructed her to keep her two young children indoors to avoid radiation, she asked her husband if they could move away. He said no and refused to discuss it further.

Fukushima Cancer Rates Spike Despite Nuclear Industry Denial

These materials only offer protection from external (alpha, beta, gamma)
radiation.  When people breathe, drink, eat or wear clothes
contaminated with radionuclides, there is no protection.

This article, written by a captain in the Royal Australian Medical Corps, who is now a health scientist in medical imaging, goes into the health effects of exposure to radiation following the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear catastrophes. It contains 7 videos on the subject.

Fukushima Cancer Rates Spike Despite Nuclear Industry Denial

by Capt. Graham Bates, Guest Writer for Wake Up World, 

14 February 2014

There’s been a spike of thyroid cancer cases in the Fukushima, like there was in Chernobyl after its nuclear disaster. And like Chernobyl, the nuclear industry is trying to deny the events are related.

On 11 March 2011, the world witnessed another Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) disaster, this time involving the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. An earthquake, followed by a tsunami, created the worst nuclear disaster on Earth.

The mainstream media has been relatively quiescent about the continuing Fukushima disaster. This is about to change.

France – Germany – Switzerland : Naoto Matsumura, Victim of Fukushima, Will Talk About the Nuclear Catastrophe – March 2014

Naoto Matsumura

France – Germany – Switzerland : Naoto Matsumura, Victim of Fukushima, Will Talk About the Nuclear Catastrophe – March 2014

Naoto Matsumura : victime de Fukushima, résistant à Tepco et témoin vivant de la catastrophe nucléaire
Summary of article by Pierre Fetet, 

16 February 2014

Naoto Matsumura’s travel schedule follows this summary of Pierre Fetet’s article.

On the occasion of the third anniversary of the Fukushima catastrophe, Naoto Matsumura, called “the last man in Fukushima”, will arrive in Paris on 4 March 2014. His journey in France will last 10 days and will include a visit to Fessenheim. At each stage of the journey, he will talk about what a nuclear catastrophe is really like: loss of his land, the disappearance of his community, the abandonment of animals and respect for life, the deterioration of health, exile without the possibility of return.

Voices are being raised in France, criticizing his trip and trying to stop him from coming. Because Naoto Matsumura has disobeyed the Japanese Government by refusing to evacuate the contaminated zone of Fukushima.

The Pandora's Box of the Nuclear Industry

"Remember Chernobyl?  Hanford? Bikini Atoll?  Rocky Flats? Windscale?  Three Mile Island? And now Fukushima?  It seems that pro-nukers have conveniently forgotten."

The Pandora’s Box of the Nuclear Industry
by Ethan Indigo Smith, Contributing Writer for
Wake Up World,

30 January 2014

Twisted Comparisons

As a preliminary to my discussion of the latest pro-nuclear sewage spill, “Pandora’s Promise”, we have to get down to the basics – in part because pro-nukers prefer to make things hyper-biased and convoluted with complexity, factual omission and total bovine scat.

Remember, not all Bequerels are created equal. We learn in middle school you can’t compare apples to oranges, and yet pro-nuclear “scientists” continue to compare bananas to cesium, plutonium and uranium. The decay rate of radioactive potassium in bananas is absolutely harmless and will not cause death by a thousand cuts like the hyper-excited elements in industrial nuclear experimentation. You can’t compare bananas to a triple meltout, including one MOX fueled reactor among them!

Switzerland: 4.6 Million Inhabitants Will Receive Iodine

4.6 million inhabitants will receive iodine.
AR.G.with ats, Tribune de Genève, 23 January 2014

The Federal Council is drawing lessons from Fukushima. It is tripling the number of persons who will receive iodine. Vaud is concerned.

The preventive distribution of iodine in order to combat the effects of a nuclear accident will be considerably expanded in Switzerland. The Federal Council yesterday widened the perimeter of distribution to persons living within a radius of 50 kilometers from a nuclear plant, instead of the current 20 kilometers. The area includes Moudon and Yvonand but not Yverdon; 4.6 million persons will thus receive a stock of iodine tablets, three times the 1.2 million citizens currently concerned. The distribution will begin next fall. Who will take charge of this? “It will be done through the post,” says Daniel Dauwalder, spokesperson at the Federal Office for Public Health. How much will it cost? 30 million francs [$33.5 million], all to be borne by the operators of nuclear plants.

Thyroid Cancer Rates on the Rise in Japanese Children, Experts Warn Residents to Evacuate Koriyama

Thyroid cancer rates on the rise in Japanese children, experts warn residents to evacuate
by L.J. Devon, Staff Writer, Natural News, 

8 January 2014

(NaturalNews) When Japanese Professor Toshihide Tsuda of Okayama University sat down with leaders from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, talk about citywide evacuation near the Fukushima nuclear breakdown site began. Deeply concerned about rising thyroid cancer rates in Japanese children, these leaders believe that it's time to evacuate the city of Koriyama.

When the two spoke to Japanese government officials, their concerns were downplayed.
The Japanese government remains reluctant to evacuate the city, not wanting to scare citizens, but Professor Tsuda has begun urging residents to evacuate Koriyama anyway.

The epidemiology professor reports, "An incident rate of thyroid cancer on children in Fukushima are from several times to dozens times higher than usual. This is a rash of disease. There is a possibility [it will] increase more in [the] future and we need a countermeasure."