Study Depicts a Less Dire Chernobyl

Nearly two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread radioactive fallout across much of Europe, a United Nations study has concluded that the health effects have been far smaller than feared.

The researchers confirmed 56 deaths -- nine children from thyroid cancer and 47 emergency workers from acute radiation poisoning or radiation-induced cancer. They projected that 3,940 more people would eventually die of cancer, according to the report released Monday.

Virtually all the deaths are expected to come from among the 200,000 emergency and recovery workers or the nearly 400,000 people who lived in the immediate area. The death estimate is about half of what several recent studies found and a small fraction of the up to 150,000 deaths estimated shortly after the 1986 accident in Ukraine.

The higher projections of health effects resulted in part from miscalculations about the amount of radiation to which many people were exposed, the report says. But a U.N. official said the countries affected by the accident also tried to inflate the severity of its effect to boost the financial assistance flowing to the area.

Kalman Mizsei, an assistant U.N. secretary-general and deputy coordinator on Chernobyl, said there had been “a vast interest in creating a false picture” in the countries involved: initially the Soviet Union, and after its breakup, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

That contributed to misinformation and fear among local residents, who believed they were on the verge of being diagnosed with fatal diseases. Those countries then spent large amounts of money to help presumed victims, helping to create “a dependency culture,” Mizsei said.

There was “a tendency to attribute all health problems to exposure to radiation,” something that “led local residents to assume that Chernobyl-related fatalities were much higher,” concluded the more than 100 scientists, health experts and economists who worked on the study.

Their 550-page report found no evidence of genetic or reproductive problems among Chernobyl-area survivors.

Most area residents living beyond the 19-mile-radius “exclusion zone” around the nuclear plant received minor doses of radiation, lower than the radiation ordinarily found in some regions of the world, the report says.

The exclusion zone will be unsafe for decades because of high levels of radioactive cesium-137. About 350 mostly elderly villagers, however, have chosen to live inside the zone, despite its hazards and meager services.

The study backs earlier estimates of the economic costs of Chernobyl, put at several hundred billion dollars. The costs include sealing the reactor, relocating residents, providing them with social services and cleaning the environment. The report said it was impossible to provide a more exact estimate.

The study is the most definitive look at the effect of the Chernobyl disaster. Its sponsors included the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the governments of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The meltdown of the plant’s reactor spread radioactive particles across 77,000 square miles of Europe, reaching as far as the Arctic Circle.

The vast majority of the fallout was short-lived isotopes whose radiation decayed in a matter of weeks, according to the report. Most of the longer-lasting radiation landed within 62 miles of the plant.

The report recommends further research on long-term radiation effects and urges that most financial aid go to displaced residents, particularly to provide better mental-health care.

Many Chernobyl survivors have remained deeply pessimistic about their futures, said Roy E. Shore, a New York University epidemiologist who worked on the study.

“Radiation has a big dose of fear,” he said. “It’s something you can’t see, you can’t feel, but it affects you.”

In the wake of Chernobyl and in part because of misinformation about the radiation’s effects, “a whole mythology” grew up, said Mizsei, the U.N. official. Many people believed their children would have poor memories as a result of the exposure to radiation. Mizsei described meeting a man who rationalized drinking vodka, saying it would destroy the radiation in his body.

Confusing matters is that male life expectancy in Russia and other former Soviet states has declined precipitously, in large part because of economic losses in the area.

Although people in the Chernobyl region may attribute their life expectancy declines to radiation exposure, it is far more likely that they are due to increases in smoking, drinking, eating poorly and stress, U.N. experts said.

Fred Mettler, a University of New Mexico radiologist who coordinated the health sections of the report, said some government programs had unwittingly exacerbated that anxiety.

For example, former Chernobyl-area residents now undergo elaborate annual medical exams. The exams have found few problems but feed a sense of fatalism among patients, he said.

Misguided aid to Chernobyl victims has also led to what the study calls “perverse incentives.”

Some families, the report notes, returned to contaminated areas to claim increased benefits.

The next step is to get better information to people, Mizsei said. The U.N. will work with local nongovernmental organizations and civic groups to spread the word. It will also try to reach young people via the Internet and other information technologies so they know more about the actual risks, he said.

As for the economic health of the region, the U.N. will invest in encouraging jobs to stem the depopulation that has occurred.

“We have to convince the people that actually, except for the [immediate] area around Chernobyl and some forests,” he said, “the rest of the surrounding territory is safe.”

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Piller reported from Los Angeles and Rubin from Vienna. Elisabeth Penz in The Times’ Vienna Bureau contributed to this report.