Chernobyl Could Cause 75,000 Deaths Worldwide, Expert Says

The UCLA doctor who treated Chernobyl victims said today that health experts believe that as many as 75,000 people could die worldwide during the next 70 years from cancers caused by the Soviet nuclear plant disaster.

Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow specialist, said a minimum of 1,000 Chernobyl-related cancer deaths are expected worldwide, adding that experts believe that “the truth will lie between the extremes.”

“We are discussing what the long-term implications could be, but unfortunately the range is very broad,” he told the Associated Press. The estimates included projected Soviet deaths, he said.

Gale spoke during a lunch break at an International Atomic Energy Agency conference reviewing the April 26 Chernobyl accident.

Explosions and a fire in the No. 4 reactor at the facility in the Soviet Ukraine released radiation that spread worldwide. Soviet officials said 31 people died from the accident, hundreds were injured and more than 100,000 were evacuated.

Morris Rosen, IAEA director of nuclear safety, said Tuesday that in the western Soviet Union alone, up to 25,000 people could die of cancers caused by the accident.

Gale said today that conference delegates agree on this figure. Rosen and Gale, however, stressed that the actual number of deaths could be much lower.

The American doctor said that 9.5 million cancer cases could be expected in the western Soviet Union over the next 70 years even without Chernobyl and that by comparison the projections about Chernobyl-related cancer deaths are “not . . . mind-boggling.”

Gale also said he disagreed with recent Soviet conclusions that only an insignificant number of Chernobyl radiation victims could benefit from bone-marrow transplants. (Story on Page 12.)

He said that in general, bone-marrow transplants work in 25% of the cases in which radiation has destroyed victims’ bone marrow.