NH #519: Chernobyl Lies, Cover-Up by World Health Organization

Libbe HaLevy

00:00:00

The world health organization tells us there have been no major health consequences from the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl or Fukushima, but then an international expert tells us the,

Alison Katz

00:00:12

The health consequences of nuclear activities, whether they are civil or military or not known to the public. And there has been a very high level institutional and international coverup, which includes governments and national authorities, but also regrettably the world health organization itself.

Libbe HaLevy

00:00:35

When you hear things like that, you know that you are in the seat that we all share

Announcer

00:00:41

Clear hot seat. What are those people thinking? Nuclear hot seat. What have those boys been breaking their hot seat? The car Ms. Sinking, our time to act is shrinking, but the visceral linking nuclear Hotsy, it’s the bomb.

Libbe HaLevy

00:01:10

Welcome to nuclear hot seat, the weekly international news magazine, keeping you up to date on all things nuclear from a different perspective. My name is Leebee Halevi. I’m the producer and host as well as a survivor of the nuclear accident at three mile island from just one mile away. So I know what can happen when those nuclear so-called experts get it wrong. Today is Tuesday, June 1st, 2021. And here is an Encore presentation of one of our most important interviews ever with Alison Katz, head of the Geneva, Switzerland based independent, w H O she’s a sociologist and psychologist who worked inside of the world health organization for 18 years here. Alison dissects, the history, politics, and manipulations of the UN agency. We’re supposed to be able to trust, to safeguard the world’s health, especially in nuclear matters. We originally spoke for nuclear hot seat number one 18th of September 17, 20 13. Talk to us about independent hu health and nuclear power.

Alison Katz

00:02:18

But first let’s explain what the name means. We are asking for the independence, the world health organization. That is what is wh and the world health organization is a specialization. So the United nations, the health consequences of nuclear activities, whether they are civil or military are not known to the public. So we’re talking about things like the accidents of Chernobyl, even three mile island, and of course, Fukushima now, and there has been a very high level institutional and international coverup, which includes governments and national authorities, but also regrettably the world health organization itself as our name independent, who suggests we demand the complete independence of a who from the nuclear lobby and in particular from its mouthpiece, which is the international atomic energy agency. We are demanding that independence so that the who may fulfill its constitutional mandate in the area of radiation and health.

Alison Katz

00:03:25

No, we’re absolutely convinced that if the health and environmental consequences of whole nuclear activities were known to the public, the debate about nuclear power would end tomorrow. In fact, the public would probably excluded it immediately as an energy option. So what really is our gripe with the who the, who provides and how has done for 50 years, really now, a clean bill of health for nuclear activities. Our angle is really public health. We want people to understand that this clean bill of health is not based on serious independent science. In fact, it’s based on a very crude pseudoscience, largely controlled and directed by the nuclear lobby. How does this

Libbe HaLevy

00:04:11

Nuclear lobby meaning the international atomic energy agency prevent the world health organization from telling the truth about nuclear power?

Alison Katz

00:04:20

First of all, the I, so the international agency for energy isn’t is only part of the nuclear lobby. It’s actually only, it’s a month piece. It’s not the most important part, but we’ll talk about that in a minute. The who in practice in reality is subservient to the IAA within the hierarchy of the United nations family and the IAA reports to the security council, which as you probably know, consists of the most powerful notions on with the veto power of these powerful nations. The security council is really the top of the power hierarchy. The world health organization itself is very much lower in the hierarchy and only reports to the economic and social council. And that has very little geopolitical power. I think it might be important to have a little look at the respective mandates that these two United nations agencies and I’ll quickly start with the IAA.

Alison Katz

00:05:17

There are two Monday it’s. One of them is to prevent proliferation of nuclear power. And that of course is a very laudable objective. But the other part of the IAA and Monday it is, is very problematic. Indeed. It is the promotion of the use of the atom peaceful use of the action. But nevertheless, it is promotion of use of the atom. In that way. It is actually an industrial or a commercial lobby, and yet the IAA is responsible and controls the who in everything that concerns health consequences of nuclear activities. That means that what we are looking at is the conflict of interest. The IAA in a nutshell is judge and jewelry and its own industry like to that is under the safety of those industrial activities. Let’s have a quick look now at who is Monday. The world health organization is the leading and coordinating, oh, the authority in the world on all health matters, including radiation and health.

Alison Katz

00:06:19

It sets norms and standards. It coordinates research. It does a lot of job on statistics and epidemiology. It advises member states and it coordinates research and so on, and it formulates health policy. So the debate show should have the competence as regards health consequences of nuclear activities. The IAA has neither competence non-mandated in this area. And yet it is the IAA that is deciding on health policy in the place of who. In fact, it simply dictates this health policy to who and it has done for the past 50 years. The source of all of this is an agreement that was signed in 1959 and agreement between the international atomic energy agency and the world health organization. And basically what happens in practice is that the who cannot undertake any research, cannot disseminate any information, cannot come to the assistance of any population without the prior approval of the IAA. So really it does not fulfill its mandate at all. And it does not fulfill its mandate in an independent way. And we are seeking its independence so that it can fulfill its constitutional mandate in the area of radiation and health.

Libbe HaLevy

00:07:43

This is almost painful to hear because whenever an international incident happens, a nuclear accident who statistics and reports are the first to be referenced by mainstream media and use to reassure the public that there’s no danger. And yet it is very clear from what you’re saying, that the statistics that they are coming up with, the reports they’re coming up with are not honest to the existing science yet. They are seen as the ultimate experts.

Alison Katz

00:08:11

They are indeed. And you’ve made a very, very important point that it’s very important for us strategies in our movement of independent duty, precisely because the world’s people have faith in who as indeed they should. If who was fulfilling its mandate, the trouble is that who is very influenced by all kinds of outside bodies. That we’ll talk about that in a minute because it’s a considerable obstacle that people have faith in, who we do need to produce the evidence that they have been heavily influenced. In fact, they are directed and controlled in this particular area by the IAEA. So let me give you a few examples of this evidence. After the Chernobyl accident, the world health organization was absent from CHIRLA bill for five whole years. Now this is really another rash because part of who his mandate is to be there the day after a catastrophe, it would send a team in the days that follow a catastrophe in order to evaluate the exact nature of the crisis and so on and to provide assistance who was not there for five whole years.

Alison Katz

00:09:21

That’s one thing. Now here’s an interesting thing in 1990, the USSR, as it was at the time made a request to the world health organization. It was a request to develop a research project for them. It was not the who that replied. It was the IAA and the IAA indeed designed the research project. And it did something absolutely extraordinary to anybody who knows just a little bit about radiation and it’s dangerous if permitted from its research project genetic effects and it made dental care is a priority. It makes absolutely no sense, no sense whatsoever. It is almost laughable. Now another piece of evidence is that there are no independent reports being issued by who they are all identical to IAA reports, or they’re simply written by the IAEA and then published in the name of who here’s another very important piece of evidence. There were two very important international conferences on Chernobyl.

Alison Katz

01:10:27

One held in Geneva in 1995 and one in care in 2001, the proceedings of these conferences proceedings is just the final report were never published and who has lied about this until extremely recently, they have insisted even to journalists or very major newspapers that these proceedings, these reports were published now, they simply were not, and who cannot produce them. Another interesting example of how we know that the, who simply has not been taking its responsibilities. This is one of its former director generals. It was Dr. Nakajima. This was the Japanese director general, who was for eight years, the head of who he actually very candidly explained that the reason why the two reports hadn’t been published was because of the legal constraints that the agreement with the IAA of 1959 puts on who he actually stated this openly in an interview on Swiss Italian television. So in other words, he was recognizing this subordination, but that is an extraordinary admission from someone who was a former director general, even that is denied by the world health organization today, which is a little bit ridiculous because of course this testimonies is on film. Anybody can consult it. So

Libbe HaLevy

01:11:48

It seems that as regards nuclear, radiation and health, the world’s people have no competent authority to turn to in this critically important area, public health.

Alison Katz

01:11:57

I have to say that, unfortunately, that is indeed the situation. People have no national or international authority to turn to. There are independent scientists and there is a huge amount of information. The public also needs to know is that today the, who has absolutely no competence in this critically important public health area, which is radiation and health. They used to be a department of radiation and health who at least at headquarters, and it was closed about two, three years ago, even when it existed, it was not ideal. There were three units and they’re all very interesting. One of them was on mobile telephones, one on electromagnetic fields and the other on nuclear power. Now all three of these units were highly compromised and there was a director Dr. who had been recruited from industry. And he worked as director in who for 10 years, and then left to go back to industry at the end of it.

Alison Katz

01:12:59

And so we have a classic example of the revolving door, which of course is also a part of conflict of interest. Apparently scientists did complain to who about Dr. Reaper Charlie, about two or 3000 scientists signed that sort of complaint because he was accused of withholding essential evidence on depleted uranium. Unfortunately, this accusation never came to anything, but it’s a reflection of the power of the nuclear lobby. Rapid surely has gone. The department of roads has closed and has not been reestablished. It was one of the questions that we asked to the current director general, which we’ll talk about in a minute. So at the situation today and who that is, that there is no senior radiation scientist or even radio biologist. And it is very, very important that the world’s people do know that at this moment, there is no international authority in this area. It’s quite useful to note that who does not have actually deny these things. And Maria naira, who is the director of a department that’s called public health and environment, and who did very candidly stage two, the newspaper Lamond, which is the major French newspaper that who gets all its information from the IAA.

Libbe HaLevy

01:14:20

It’s clear that who has no competence in the area of nuclear radiation. And that alone is pretty shocking. But what about other authorities and institutions in the world? There must be some competence somewhere.

Alison Katz

01:14:33

Yes, there certainly is. There are independent scientists carrying out medical scientific research, and this is indeed the only source of reliable information. But as you can imagine, they face enormous obstacles. You know, with funding, cutoff research, not published, this is control of academic and resections. Did you expire the lobby, et cetera. And that’s why one of our aims is to bring together citizens and independent scientists, because it’s terrible to say so, but we can’t rely on our own authorities and public institutions. And that is a pretty shocking state of affairs. It’s why we organized a citizen and scientific forum on radio protection in 2012. And we’ll be in organizing another one in 2014 on the genetic effects of radiation. Both of these forums, I should say, are fully supported by the city of Geneva, a hundred finance largely by them because Geneva is quite interesting has an anti nuclear constitution, which is a rare thing.

Alison Katz

01:15:35

Let’s first look in terms of competence at the nuclear establishment. And just a word about why I prefer to call it the nuclear establishment to the nuclear lobby. A lobby really suggests only a commercial or industrial interest, but what we have to remember that the nuclear establishment actually includes our own governments and our own national and international authorities. And therefore it’s truly an establishment, which sort of has a veneer of respectability. Now within the nuclear establishment, the IAA is only its mouth picks the power behind all of that is the international commission on radio protection. The ICRP, this is the body that sets norms and standards and radio protection. But since it was set up public health experts, I’ve really been absent from the ICRP and it’s a closed incestuous family. The nuclear establishment it’s made up of the ICRP on the skier. That’s the UN body IIA national authorities, like the one in the USA, which is the BIR your biological effects of ionizing radiation you’re at in Europe.

Alison Katz

01:16:44

And then of course there’s a British national territory, the nuclear establishment, the ICRP bubble, as I said, it’s a closed and insects, just family and their point members among themselves. And in addition to the directing industry, the ICRP and its family also control these academic and research institutes, even in the area of medical radiology, which is really a terrible, terrible thing. So what situation do we have in terms of competence? Public health specialists have been excluded from the beginning who are these ICRP members, they’re all from the military or the nuclear industry or from the medical radiological societies as Rosati Patel. Who’s a, the most fantastic writer on nuclear matters have said the ICRP is actually a club of users. It is not a neutral objective body. In fact, they almost a nuclear physicist members of the ICRP. There are no public health specialists. There are no radio biologists. There are no molecular biologists. And remember that extremely important when we consider that ionizing radiation is mutagenic. It always causes mutations and causes damage at the cellular level. So the very idea that we do not have molecular biologists in the body that determines radio protection, norms and standards, it is another action and no other body, not even the world health organization can place one of its people on the ICRP standard

Libbe HaLevy

01:18:18

Policy.

Alison Katz

01:18:19

Absolutely. It is. It’s very, very shocking. You don’t know who is to the marginalized. And I think the world’s people needs to know that so that they can defend their international health authority, because it is their international health authority. I could add to all of that, but what happens in the international level, unfortunately, is we produced at the national level, whether it’s the USA, the UK or Europe, the nuclear authorities dictate to the health authorities. That is a pretty terrible situation,

Libbe HaLevy

01:18:49

Completely backwards. I want to move this over to the relationship between independent who and what we might refer to as dependent who, how much contact has there been between the two and what, if anything has been the response of those who work for the world health organization?

Alison Katz

01:19:08

Well, the world health organization does admit, and even states that all its information comes from the IAA, it simultaneously claims to be completely independent, but how it explains that a, that contradiction might have no idea. We have had two long meetings with the who, but I won’t talk about the first one because we didn’t meet the director journals, but we did meet with the director general in 2011. In other words, just after Ashima. And we met with five of the highest ranking officials and who, so if you’d like, they really did give us full attention. We were accompanied by the mayor of Geneva because as I’ve said, Geneva, the city of Geneva, but it has actually an anti nuclear article in its constitution. The main outcomes of that meeting was that we have concluded that who has totally abdicated its responsibilities. So in a way we don’t, we don’t seek any more to gain any changes in who, but our meeting with Dr.

Alison Katz

02:20:07

Chan, that is the name of the director. General was extremely interesting. And she did concede a number of very important points. And I might say that because she is not an expert in any way on nuclear power, she may not be aware of the significance of these concessions that she made. But for example, she did state that all radiation causes damage. Now it might be very surprising for you to learn that, but that has been denied in the past. In other words, there is no safe threshold. She also finally conceded that there is a difference between internal radiation and external radiation. And that is one of the major scientific controversies that has the efforts to expose health consequences. So her recognizing the distinction between internal and external radiation was quite something. She said that she didn’t believe herself, that only 50 people had died following the Chernobyl accident.

Alison Katz

02:21:03

And that is quite an admission considering the ductal now. And it’s all it’s documents. That is the final total of deaths that who was attributing to the Chernobyl accident, which of course as it is, it is an nonsense and an absurdity and has been perceived as such by the public in a way we’ve given up on the world health organization. That doesn’t mean we’ve given up our Hippocratic vigil in front of the who in Geneva. In fact, we’re into our seventh year, which is a permanent presence, but we’re no longer interested in persuading, the current office holders and who there’s no point nothing is going to happen. This is not where the power is. So that’s why today we’ve sort of shifted our focus to the responsibilities of individual members states. They are the governing bodies. And in fact, it’s the ministers of health. So we have started a vigil in Paris in front of the French ministry of health. Obviously we would like to start one in various capitals of the world.

Libbe HaLevy

02:22:02

Tell us about this vigil, the protests that you’ve been running in front of who headquarters in Geneva for seven years. That’s quite impressive.

Alison Katz

02:22:12

We’re quite amazed that we’ve lasted this long. It started in 2007 on the 26th of April, which of course, if the date of the terrible accident in 86, 19 86, our group, as you can imagine is, is well over middle age, we’re all over 63 middle-aged protesters with some vegetable boards stood at the main reception of the world health organization headquarters in Geneva. And then there was a group of about 20 pacifist protestors who came up from town to join them. And if I tell you that the Geneva police were called by the world health organization, and when we arrived, there were barricades, there were even anti riot vans. It’s kind of exaggerated response to pacifist, to middle aged protests.

Libbe HaLevy

02:23:00

We had the exact same thing here on the first anniversary of Fukushima demonstration at the Santa Ana free nuclear power plant. They had the Marines on call at camp Pendleton helicopters overhead, and I swear, police outnumbered the middle aged protestors by a factor of two or three to one.

Alison Katz

02:23:19

It just absolutely extraordinary the overkill. But I have to say that the buddies in Geneva were actually very sympathetic to us and they have helped us ever since, you know, the Hippocratic vigil is the symbolic part of our action. We’ve been there as I say for seven years, where there every working day from eight o’clock in the morning until six. So all the employees, but also visitors coming to who see us, we are extremely, and we’ve got a very, very large notice boards with signs that have quite strong messages on them, such as complicity in a scientific crime focus, humor, the same cover up as for Chernobyl, that kind of thing people might say, well, what does who care if you are outside in a silent protest and you are all passive protest as a, you might well say, sir, but in a way we take our inspiration from, to the mothers of the Plaza.

Alison Katz

02:24:12

They might look at what happened in Argentina after the dictatorship, when many young people and young political dissidents were just disappeared by the regime that mothers held, one of these silent pacifist protests in a square, in, in, in Argentina. And they were there for 10 whole years and they did win their case. So, you know, we have to be patient, but there are other aspects of our action. I mean, we work with the United nations. Human rights spot is particularly with the special rapporteur on the right to health, the special rapporteur on the right to food. And we work with member states. They would their missions in Geneva. And of course we write articles and we try to get as much media attention as possible. There have been many, many short TV reports, but for the moment, what we would be hoping for, obviously as a documentary, we’ve had many offers of documentaries, none of which have materialized so far, if I don’t think they will. And then on the 26th of April, and now, unfortunately the Fukushima, every 11th of March, there are special actions. And we coordinate these with Japanese groups in Japan,

Libbe HaLevy

02:25:17

As someone who was one mile away from three mile island, what had happened, I would encourage you to also include March 28th as one of your signal days to commemorate the fact that three mile island happened and that there have held consequences from that that have again, been suppressed much as all the ill health information has been suppressed by.

Alison Katz

02:25:38

Absolutely. It is incredibly important that people understand this. This is not history. None of these things are sort of anniversaries. In fact, anniversary is a bit of an inappropriate word. It’s the same for three mile island. I’m quite sure that what we should be saying is that the health consequences are continuing. And in terms of genetic effects, they are increasing. It’s a very terrifying thing. And it’s sort of difficult to take that on board, but the sorts of studies that have been done on genetic effects, and it must be the same around three mile island and indeed around any nuclear reactor, the genetic effects far from diminishing with time, they increase. Now, we don’t quite know, or scientists don’t quite know the reasons for that. But the research that has been done around Chernobyl is indeed showing that these are in fact, the animal experiments they’re in, they’re in mice or field voles and thing.

Alison Katz

02:26:27

And then, and breaches like that, that the genetic effects after 28 or 30 generations are much, much worse. So it’s not only, it’s a continuing catastrophe, but it is a worsening catastrophe. Yeah. I think that what strikes people, when we tell them that we have been in front of headquarters for seven years, it is just the very fact of a permanent presence in front of the headquarters of who, in other words, it doesn’t matter that the people who’ve never been to Geneva and never believe been to the headquarters of WHS, it doesn’t matter just that they know that there is this protestor and husband there for nearly seven years now. I think it is quite impressive to people. What does say about Chernobyl and what is the whole truth? Let’s look at what, who hoped would be the final word on a Chernobyl. I think what happened was that the nuclear establishment began to be a little bit worried that there was controversy over the health consequences.

Alison Katz

02:27:28

And so they organized what they called the churnable forum, which produced its report in 2005. This forum was designed to end the debate. That is what they hoped it hasn’t of course now incredibly the who on the IAA and on scare, which is the UN body. And so on. They still maintain today that 50 people died as a direct result of the accident that you can see that there are 4,000 cases of fibroids cancer. They claim that 99% of them have been successfully treated and they then admitted, but then maybe maybe a further 4,000 deaths from other cancers in the future. And they do underline that these are potential deaths. So the, what they’re trying to do is to sort of end the debate and say, that’s the final turtle, even worse and who and the nuclear establishment dismisses any health problems at churnable as the results of radio phobia.

Alison Katz

02:28:29

In other words, it’s just because people are afraid. They fear, they believe they have been subjected to radio contamination. In other words, it’s all in their imagination. It is hard to credit. Now, here is the final conclusion of the Chernobyl forum from a whole group of UN organizations, including the who, including the AIA, including UMDP it’s in the charitable forum, which is their definitive document. It says the mental health impact of churnable is the largest public health problem unleashed by the impact on individual and community behavior populations in the effected areas, exhibit strongly negative attitudes and self-assessments of health and wellbeing, and a strong sense of lack of control over their own lives associated with these perceptions is an exaggerated sense of the dangers to health of exposure to radiation. Now just make a couple of comments if they are really claiming that radio phobia is the main problem and that mental health problems are the main problems.

Alison Katz

02:29:40

How do they health effects in children, in rodents, in insects, in plants? It is the most extraordinary city plain, but unfortunately it is still banded about, and it’s being banded about that in Fukushima. The major problem is rodeo phobia. It really is an absolutely dreadful it’s almost criminal. And I would like just to point out one particularly odious aspect of this is that when they talk about a mental health impact, I mean, of course people are worried, of course people are anxious, but it isn’t because to say that they have imagined that they have been subjected to radio contamination, they have been subjected to radio contamination. And so naturally they are anxious. And on top of that in amongst all the enormous numbers of health effects is very serious neuropsychiatric damage there’s damage to every little system, including the neurological system. So not surprising that you are going to have an, an enormous increase in your neuropsychiatric disorders, but to put that down to radio verbiage rather than to the fact that radiation actually has damaged the neurological system, it is an unspeakable dishonesty.

Libbe HaLevy

03:30:58

We’ll hear more from Alison cats in just a moment, but first, a reminder that nuclear hot seat is listener supported and relies on your donations to keep us in production. Please give what you can to support our work by going to nuclear hot seat.com and clicking on the big red donate button, whatever amount you can offer is deeply appreciated. Now, back to Alison Katz of independent, w H O

Alison Katz

03:31:24

Let’s have a look at the massive discrepancy between the figures that emanate from independent researchers and the figures that emanate from the nuclear establishment, there is an order of a hundred or even a thousand times larger when they emanate from independent research. Now such a massive discrepancies is far, far larger than we would accept as a sort of normal margin of scientific controversy. In fact, it is indicative of a cover and of course, the very low figures all emanated from the establishment and the much higher figures all emanate from independent researchers. So I think we’re quite obviously looking at a coverup, the figures, as I’ve said, from who peer absurd, even to quite a large section of the public journalism is even recognizing that knowledge is the world’s worst industrial accident with emissions of a several hundred times greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get, I could give you one example of the real absurdity.

Alison Katz

03:32:26

Let’s have a look at the liquidators, the liquidators, just to remind your listeners where the men and women who were brought into initially to fight the fire that took 10 days to extinguish at the reactor. And then for years and years afterwards, they were involved in the cleanup operators. They are known as liquidators, which is a terrible name, but, but there we are, there were about 800,000 liquidators from the former USSR. And there were men and women, they were large the recruits from the army. And so they were very young average age of 33. I think that’s important to take into account. When you look at the mortality, the chief medical officer of the Russian Federation already reported that 10% of its liquidators were already dead by 2001 similar figures, 10% were reported by the Ukraine and Belarus as well as the Russian Federation. So if you’re talking of 10% of 800,000, that is already 80,000 liquidators dead, that’s just in the group of liquidators. We’re not talking about the group of the most contaminated people or the group of evacuees. And so the figures of 50 become even more ludicrous. How can

Libbe HaLevy

03:33:42

These massive discrepancies be

Alison Katz

03:33:44

Explained? It’s very important question because of course that’s what the public wants to understand. They are just confused by these huge, massive discoveries. And I don’t blame them. The emissions, the floors, the manipulation of data. These are the most important part of the explanation is simply that the who and the IAA only take into account three various specific population groups in the three most effected countries. There is absolutely no scientific or moral justification for emitting from consideration the rest of the population in those countries, the rest of Europe, which was very serious to contaminated and the rest of the world. It’s very important for us to remember that 57% of the fallout came down outside those three countries that were most effected by the reus Ukraine on the Russia in 13 European countries, 50% of the territory, it was dangerously contaminated. So how is it that the, who has no interest whatsoever on reporting on health consequences in European countries? You could say, why is it not interested in reporting and all countries, including the USA. And there are reports from the USA of effects, even though the USA, the Americas in general, where are the continents that were the least affected, but there have been extremely well designed studies in the USA, but probably Joseph Mangano. I believe you, you, you talked to the other day, actually

Libbe HaLevy

03:35:15

Talking with you as part of a two-part series. I have a long interview with Joe completely on the epidemiology of the who I, a connection where he goes into great detail about the studies and about how the statistics have been raised.

Alison Katz

03:35:29

This is the kind of evidence that actually could not be refuted where it known to the public. Another reason for, you know, heart Kennedy’s discrepancies be explained is that who only considers cancer and then more or less only thyroid cancer. And I just want them to say something about thyroid cancers and children, because when they claim that 99% of these have been cured, it is a disgusting, the dishonest thing to say, tyroid cancer in children, even if they have had, or the malignant tumor removed, even if they are taking by Roxanne to compensate, it is an extremely serious condition in children. And if they have hearted as children, knowing the long latency period of development of cancer, they are going to have extremely serious health problems, all of their lives. And it is a disgraceful thing for who to claim 99% of these are cured.

Alison Katz

03:36:23

There is no such thing as cure in that sense. These are children with very, very serious health problems. But as I say, thyroid cancer is not at all the only cancer. It is the one that who could not deny because it had increased by, I don’t know, 50 or a hundred fold rather than just doubling who does consider certain congenital malformations. But again, it has extremely carefully defined these malformations in order to reduce the number two is strictly limited, very tiny number. What’s interesting is that the who and the nuclear establishment dismisses all other estimates. Of course, they dismiss other estimates from independent scientists as unscientific, whether it is Greenpeace, whether it’s medical doctors from Russia, scientists, from the whole of the former Soviet union, who would always say, and these are people who they don’t have very high standards of science, but it’s very ironic because actually, if there’s one criticism you cannot make of the former Soviet union, they had extremely high standards of science and medical science.

Alison Katz

03:37:28

And it’s particularly ironic because actually the establishment side is so flawed. It is so full of emissions that it can justifiably be defined as pseudoscience. Can you give us some examples of these flaws and omissions? The most important one is the fact that they are using the wrong model and they have been using the wrong model for health consequences for over 50 years. In fact, since he rushed him or we call it that he rushed him a model, what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Obviously it was a one time massive external exposure. Now after nuclear accidents, the exposure is continuous. It is internal contamination and it is very low dose. The major disinformation relates to the refusal to consider low dose internal radio contamination. These two kinds of exposure are simply in comparable in terms of the biological damage at the molecular level, Dr. Chris Busby, who’s a British scientist has been responsible for denouncing.

Alison Katz

03:38:33

The cover up in the UK has made a fantastic comparison in order to explain to the public. He says, it’s like the difference between warming yourself in front of the coal fire and taking a hot coal from that fire and swallowing it. We have to remember that internal contamination at Chernobyl accounts for 95% of the contamination. And that is because radionuclides are in the soil, they’re in the air, but above all, they are in the soil. And these people are eating food products that have been raised and produced in contaminated soil. So we’re talking about the meat. We’re talking about the fruit, we’re talking about the vegetables. We’re talking about the food from the forest mushrooms, berries. This makes up their diet, and they have been eating contaminated food since 1986. And that gets concentrated inside people’s bodies. And it’s that concentration inside organs that is so dangerous.

Alison Katz

03:39:31

Some particularly of course, in children, because children are so much more vulnerable to radio contamination. Although for years, the nuclear establishment denied any difference between internal and external radiation today, they recognize they have to, they would be laughed at because all nuclear physicists do understand that there is a huge difference between internal and external contamination. And it is the central control seat. Even the ICRP recognizes that there’s no state of safe threshold for analyzing radiation. And how could that be? Because all ionizing radiation is a mutagenic. There’s a fundamental emission in terms of simple biology of radio contamination. That is that all organ systems are affected. I think I said a few minutes ago that cancer is the only problem that is considered. That is absurd. We all know, well, most of us should know that radio contamination affects the immune system. If it affects the immune system, it affects every organ system, cardiac digestive, respiratory endocrine, molten, skeletal, neurological reproductive. And of course it results in malformations and genetic damage. All of that is in addition to the cancers,

Libbe HaLevy

04:40:48

This is of course devastating information. You mentioned manipulation of the data. Could you explain further about that?

Alison Katz

04:40:57

There’s a huge range of different kinds of manipulation of data, and they sort of range from the flagrant and the outrageous to the subtle undecided, let’s start with the flagrant and outrage. So there has been falsification and suppression of data. There are attacks against independent researchers. And then of course, there’s the example of professor Bunder Chesky, who was a prisoner of conscious of conscience, of amnesty international. He was released in 2005 under international pressure. There’s simple censorship of studies. Well, just cut off the funding. He did thousands of studies from the country’s most just ignored. They’ve never been translated from, from Russian or from Slavic languages. The initial dose has been ignored. It’s been averaged across populations. They have excluded entire scientific domains, such as internal low dose, hot particles. They have studies after 10 years. So that illnesses with a long latency period can be ignored.

Alison Katz

04:41:59

They have claimed decreases in childhood cancers when actually they’d become adults and are no longer in that database and so on. And so on. That has been the most extraordinary manipulation of statistics on cancer in everywhere in the world, whether it’s in the countries concerned, but also in England. And I don’t doubt in the United States in France, absolutely everywhere. There’s another interesting aspect to all of this. And this is a particular despicable sort of reasoning that is used by the nuclear establishment. And unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to deal with. Basically what they say is you’ll never be able to prove it. You will never be able to prove that people’s illnesses are connected to radiation and, and in some ways they are right. It is extremely difficult to prove against the background of so many cancers, for example, because we have cancers that are caused by chemical pollution.

Alison Katz

04:42:55

So it is often extremely difficult to attribute cases with certainty to radioactive rather than to chemical contamination. However, it is not impossible. Professor Yabloko does explain the epidemiological methods that are used in order to relate illnesses to radio contamination very clearly. And basically you hold socioeconomic factors constant, and you compare the illnesses of populations in high, medium, and low radio contaminated areas. This is really very basic epidemiology. It’s easy to do, and he has done it. So to claim that you cannot attribute illnesses to radio contamination is actually it is wrong. It is scientific. And that is why we call it pseudoscience.

Libbe HaLevy

04:43:44

The book that you’re referring to is Chernobyl consequences of the catastrophe for people and the environment. And it was written by professor, who is a previous interviewee here on nuclear hot seat, as well as professor Nesterenko and a Dr. Nesterenko who were all eminent scientists. It was edited by Dr. Janet Sherman. Who’s also been against several times on nuclear hot seat. Talk to us about what that book is and why it is so important.

Alison Katz

04:44:13

It’s a huge toe 330 pages, 800 references. It draws on at least 5,000 scientific studies. Although I have to say there are apparently at least 30,000 scientific studies available on the internet for anybody who would like to go and look up, think it would be useful at this point, just to summarize what this book says about the health consequences. It’s a short quote, but I think it’s worth citing in for thousands of independent studies in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation. And in many other countries contaminated to varying degrees by radio nuclides from Charlottesville have established that there has been a significant increase in all types of cancers and diseases of the respiratory cardiovascular, gastrointestinal urogenital, endocrine, immune lymphoid, and nervous systems, prenatal, perinatal, infant, and child mortality, spontaneous abortions, deformities, and genetic anomalies disturbance, and retardation of mental development, neuro-psychological illness and blindness. These increases.

Alison Katz

04:45:24

This is me now commenting on the quote. These increases are not trivial. They cannot be dismissed. They are not increases of a few percent. There is a doubling a trebling quadrupling more in some cases now, why is it so significant? It is a real threat because the world health organization, this time cannot dismiss the New York academy of sciences publication. It is a vulnerable institution, and I would like to pay tribute to Janette Sherman for getting this thing through, because I don’t doubt that there was considerable opposition. It is a major coup that she got it through. It’s very interesting to know that the world health organization tried to pretend that the New York academy of sciences was kind of withdrawing from this publication. This is an absolute nonsense. The New York academy of sciences say it’s itself, that it only publishes material, that it considers her scientific validity.

Alison Katz

04:46:23

So I will dismiss absolutely all of these sorts of slights directed at this publication. It is a publication of the NYAS and it will remain so for the historical record. And that is because they judged it to be scientifically valid. You know, the kinds of criticisms that who has made against this publication, it just said the book is not peer reviewed. And I do want to comment on that because I think it’s very significant. That is crass nonsense, because books are not peer reviewed. What are peer reviewed are the scientific and medical articles that are published in peer reviewed journal. So it is not a book that is peer reviewed. And we decided, because we were so angry at this comment, we decided to actually analyze the respective chapters on mortality in the Chernobyl forum, remember that see final verdict of the nuclear establishment on Chernobyl.

Alison Katz

04:47:22

And we compared it with the NYAS book. And what did we find? 40% of the references in the New York academy of sciences book are from peer reviewed journals. And a very small 18% of the references are from peer review journals in the nuclear establishment book. So when who says that this is not serious science in the NYAS book, they are completely wrong. And if any book could be criticized for not being based on peer reviewed science, it is the nuclear establishment charitable forum book. We only compared the chapters on mortality. There are lots of other chapters. I couldn’t do all of the chapters. It takes far too long. So I decided just to make a comparison of those two respective chapters on mortality.

Libbe HaLevy

04:48:11

Now that we have a clear picture of who you’ve given us background, we have a context for understanding their actions. Talk to us about how, who is dealing with the disaster at Fukushima

Alison Katz

04:48:24

Credibly, given public scepticism, it’s dealing with it in exactly the same way to our astonishment. Two days after the Fukushima accident, who actually stated that there was no public health impact. That is a statement that is based on zero science. There was none as a matter of fact, though, independent research has had already understood that there had been called meltdowns in three of the reactors, and they knew that because of the composition of the emissions and they have been proved, right? Furthermore, many of those independent researchers knew of the terrifying possibility of a much, much worse scenario with the containment pools, holding huge quantities of used fuel. And for that, anybody wanting to know further about that, they just have to go to Arnie Gunderson’s Fairwinds site.

Libbe HaLevy

04:49:19

Arnie was interviewed last week on nuclear hot seat, specifically about the situation in Fukushima and what he would do if he were in charge of the site and making it as safe as is humanly possible at this time.

Alison Katz

04:49:35

Oh, that’s very interesting. And I miss look better, but I’d love to see that interview just to say that a who made this ludicrous statement about no public health impact on the basis of no information whatsoever. And I think what is very important to note is that they had no information and yet information was available from independent researchers elsewhere in the world who has produced two reports now on focus, Sheila, the first one is to evaluate the exposures it’s on the preliminary dose estimates. And the second one, which is simply based on those dose estimates is on the likely health effects. So in fact, they are based on the same data and these reports have been very heavily criticized by all kinds of people, but I’m particularly interested in the critique that was issued by IPP and w which is the international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war.

Alison Katz

05:50:29

And two very excellent critiques have been made by Arctics Rosa. And they are very worth well. Looking at his first criticism is that who is estimates of the amounts of radionuclides admitted are lower. They’re considerably lower. They are low about 50 to 80%. Then everyone else’s estimates, including the estimates of tech. You really do have to say my goodness, who is really trying to give the lowest possible figure. His second criticism is that two critical populations have been ignored. The first of those is the, the people in the 20 kilometers. There is exposure before and during evacuation will have been very, very high. And the other critical population is the workers who were on site during and in the days and the weeks following the accident, those are the two most critical populations who was exposures ought to have been considered. Why were they not considered?

Alison Katz

05:51:29

We have no answer now in WHS calculations. So they use a single estimated dose range. So in effect, they are averaging doses between children and adults. This is a medical and scientific nonsense because children are many, many times more vulnerable. It is absolutely unacceptable to use reference levels for nuclear workers or for the public as if this could possibly apply to children. But that is what they have done most seriously, who has accepted the introduction by the Japanese government of the level of 20 Melissa that’s per year. Despite the fact that the international limit that is set by the ICRP, the international commission on radio production is one Millie civics per year for children. This is criminal. Was this shift in the amount, making it 20 times higher? Did that take place after the accident? Exactly the Japanese government, recognizing that populations were living in areas where the 1 million civets per year couldn’t possibly be respected, knowing that they could not evacuate such a huge number of people, what do they do instead they up the acceptable level, and it is an extraordinary thing to do because the international level is set by the ICRP.

Alison Katz

05:52:50

Yeah. So up to your question is very important. After the accident, it is extraordinary for the who to more or less approve that decision of the Japanese government. Another thing that WWII show is ignoring is the alarming reports of thyroid abnormalities in children with fibroid abnormalities are the first signs of illness that I’ve seen after a nuclear accident. And indeed Japanese researchers have reported that 44% of Japanese children are showing very serious abnormalities. It’s in the form of, and cysts in the firearm gland. And those are precursors possible precursors of firearm cancer. To find this in 44% of children is an extraordinary finding. We should be made public, not just in Japan, of course, but, but internationally, if who does not even mention that and its report on the health effects, it is not doing its job. So we’ve seen the, who has completely uncritical of the Japanese government.

Alison Katz

05:53:54

And it’s interesting to note, thank goodness that someone in the UN a family is doing something. Honestly, the negligence of the Japanese has been heavily criticized by the special rapporteur on the right to health. This is a man called and under Groover, who is currently the special rapport to his documents are also worth going and looking at on the net. He pointed out, for example, the failure to use what we call speedy data. This is data that the Japanese government had at its disposal to understand, to be able to measure the levels of contamination in various districts in Japan, they failed to use that data with this ridiculous result. Populations were evacuated from areas to other areas, even though those areas turned out to be far more polluted than where they had been at home. And that is because they ignored this data from speedy, that showed that the wind had carried the contamination to these areas, to which they were being evacuated.

Alison Katz

05:54:57

So we’re talking about really criminal negligence. There was a failure to distribute IRD in. Everybody knows that you must distribute IRD into children and it must be taken within 24 hours, 48 hours. There’s no point in taking IRD, oh, a week later, the Japanese government failed to distribute IRD in and who had no comment to make on that? Another thing for the who texts is that it appears to suggest throughout that there is a safe level, and this goes against even all nuclear authorities, even the ICRP even the B E I R of the USA. In other words, your nuclear authority we should acknowledge is the slightest amount of radioactivity can cause harmful tissue damage and genetic mutations. So for the Domini rancher to be doing worse than the nuclear authorities of the USA under the ICRP is a real thing. There’s there are some quite amusing examples that are x-rays and sites.

Alison Katz

05:55:55

For example, they were supposed to be sampling the levels of radionuclides in food products, such as eggs. And he reports that a total, the grand total of 17 1 7 17 eggs were sampled in communities around Fukushima. It is prophetic. It is pitiful, but it is also criminal. They ignored the phenomenon of bioaccumulation in fish. These are things that quite a lot of educated people are well aware of that fish is a very important part of Japanese diet. And we all know that it accumulates in fish at the end of the food chain. So these are really very, very terrible criticisms to be, to be being made at the WSU report. Another one is that there’s no mention of ongoing problems at the site. And Alex Rosen finishes his report by reporting to us, but who were the authors of the wht report? Well, it claimed to be 30 national experts. And I don’t doubt that they are the 30 national experts, but every one of them works for part of the nuclear establishment. Most of them for the IAA, and of course, many also work for national regulatory nuclear authorities. And so we’re back to the subject at the beginning of our interview, which is conflict of interest, public health aspects of nuclear activities are being managed controlled and directed by the nuclear establishment. I think there couldn’t be a clear example of conflict of interest. How

Libbe HaLevy

05:57:34

Can we best deal with independent,

Alison Katz

05:57:36

Who I think there are two things. The very first thing to do is to go on to independent, whose side is very easy. You just Google independent w H O and you will find it immediately. It is in several languages, including of course English. And the second thing to do is to take up our public health angle, try to take up the fact that the health consequences have been hidden from the public. That means that the nuclear establishment has deprived the public and the international scientific community of essential medical and scientific information. In other words, that as a scientific crime, the current cancer epidemic is due to pollution, chemical pollution and radioactive pollution. I think that the public understands that they have not been told what are the health and environmental consequences of Chernobyl three mile island Fukushima the functioning of nuclear reactors altogether? I think they would be outraged because they do believe that the truth has been told. I think from the moment that they know that no, the health consequences have been hidden from them. It’s a very useful angle for nuclear activists

Libbe HaLevy

05:58:45

And cats of independent. W H oh, this has been nuclear hot seat for Tuesday, June 1st, 2021. And this is Leiby, Halevi reminding you that we are all in the nuclear hot seat.