10 Years After the Chernobyl Disaster

Thank you for your acknowledgment of the Chernobyl disaster in your editorial and Op-Ed columns (April 26). What causes consternation is the lack of and misinformation by Robert Peter Gale. The accusation by David R. Marples and John D. Miller that there is an international radiation health establishment pushing nuclear power seems to resonate in the biased column by Gale.

Why are his statistics so different than those of Marples and Miller? Gale states that only 51 deaths resulted from the Chernobyl disaster whereas Marples and Miller state that 6,000 Ukrainian workers died. They report a doubling of the leukemia incidence among workers involved in the cleanup while Gale reports no increased incidence. Based on his perception of the lack of leukemia cases, Gale postulates that there will be no increase of solid tumors.

John Gofman, a formidable scientist, has predicted a massive increase in cancer due to Chernobyl. Comparing the population of Chernobyl with that of Hiroshima is also fraught with error because of the differences in the disasters (atomic bomb effects versus only radiation).

Vladimir Chernousenko, a Ukrainian nuclear physicist who supervised the Chernobyl cleanup, states that “as many as 7,000 died immediately.” He calls Chernobyl “the worst catastrophe that has ever happened to mankind.”

Gale is against nuclear war. Great. Who isn’t? But when he states that “technologies are neither intrinsically good nor evil,” he misses the point. Nuclear power is nuclear war in a diluted form. It cannot be controlled. There is no answer to the waste problem nor to the contamination of the environment nor to the disasters (Three Mile Island) that are statistically bound to occur.

Gale’s assertions of “positive results” from Chernobyl seems to be an attempt to obscure the enormity of the disaster.

RICHARD G. SAXON MD

Encino

* The 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident reminds us of the dangers inherent in the irresponsible use of nuclear energy but it must not be allowed to unreasonably cloud the issue. Nuclear power is a relatively safe, environmentally benign way to generate electricity. When you consider the lives lost in Ukraine and the potential for similar disaster here, please also consider the many more deaths and disasters associated with fossil fuel power generation. We need to build more nukes.

ROBIN SMITH

Mission Viejo