Food Security Policies and Responses After Nuclear Emergencies (Case of Chernobyl and Lessons for Fukushima) Dr. Alexander Belyakov , Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada Belyakov@ryerson.ca http://fromchernobyltofukushima.com Yale University, October 19, 2013, 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Why do I care about Chernobyl? My personal experience: • Various visits to the affected areas in Ukraine and Belarus in 1992-2011. • Member of the International Chernobyl Research and Information Network (UNDP, IAEA, UNICEF, WHO). • Journalist for the national newspaper “Robitnycha Gazeta” (Worker’s Newspaper), Kyiv, Ukraine, 1993-1997, and the national newspaper "Echo Chernobylja" (Echo of Chernobyl), Kyiv, Ukraine, 1992-1993.
Why do I care about Chernobyl? • Member, Board of Advisors, Chernobyl Foundation, Toronto, Canada. • Charity projects Speaker about Chernobyl at: • Toronto and Region Conservation Authority • Environmental Speakers Club, Ministry of the Environment , Toronto • Seniors’ Political Club at the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services Toronto branch • Bernard Betel Centre, Professionals Club , Toronto • CultureLink, Toronto
Chernobyl: Overview • Introduction • Overview of Chernobyl disaster, its health consequences, aspects of food adequacy (including first of all safety) after the disaster • Governmental management decisions after the disaster • Food safety: control measures • Managing food accessibility and adequacy • Risk communication on food safety and food choices
Overview (cont.) • Changes in perceptions, behavior of population and its exposure to radioactive food after Chernobyl • Perception of population and its specific groups on food safety • Influence of economic and political factors on food consumption • What are the lessons learned from Chernobyl? (and in the Fukushima Case) • Conclusions and recommendations • Future cooperation: organizing a multidisciplinary Working group (format, tasks, open nature of membership)
Overview (cont.) • This presentation reviews: – food security policies and responses after nuclear emergencies, – applicability of definitions, – accessibility and adequacy in a context of food security issues in nuclear disaster management based on the case of Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. • There is also a link to the Fukushima disaster recovery.
Purpose of the research The purpose of the research is to determine: • What issues have emerged with food accessibility and adequacy on affected areas; • How the population was informed on these issues and why uncertain statistics were presented; • How scientists access information about the Chernobyl tragedy; • What management decisions were made by the USSR and Ukrainian governments to address food adequacy and accessibility immediately after the Chernobyl disaster
Purpose of the research • Whether these decisions were adequate in preventing consumption by the population of radioactively contaminated food; • When an immediate response policy or activity after the disaster can be considered as violation of the right to food; • What kind of lessons we all need to learn from the Chernobyl tragedy and how they can help for a recovery after the Fukushima disaster.
Methodology of the research Methodology of the research includes: – literature review, – interviews of Ukrainian and Japanese experts, – personal insights and research findings of the author after his field trips to Chernobyl including visits in 1990s and the most recent trip to affected areas in Belarus (Belyakov 2011, p. 13). The local actions are compared with international ones, including recommendations of experts from other countries.
Overview of Chernobyl disaster Source: http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.html
Overview of Chernobyl disaster • An explosion and fire at Chernobyl sent a radioactive cloud over a large part of Europe. • Signs of pollution also were found in Asia and North America. • The Chernobyl catastrophe had an effect on thyroid disease development in the US (Reid and Mangano, 1995; Gould et al, 1996). • This nuclear disaster also had serious consequences for Canada (Health Protection Branch 1986, Kerr et al, 1992).
Overview of Chernobyl disaster • Medvedev criticized Soviet officials, as no valuable scientific studies have been made public with all collected data. • “It is, therefore, irrelevant to discuss the health impact in figures of possible cancer deaths in the next 70 years which might be attributive to Chernobyl” (Medvedev, 1990, 190).
Overview of Chernobyl disaster • Furthermore, scientists stress: “Official secrecy (until May 23rd, 1989) and irreversible state falsification of medical data during the first three years after the catastrophe, as well as an absence of authentic medical statistics in the former USSR, highlights the inadequacy of materials concerning primary epidemiological consequences of this catastrophe” (Yablokov , 2006, p.5). • Some of these factors explain ignorance among Western scientists of the data gathered by their colleagues in the former USSR countries (Abbott, Barker, 1996, p.658).
Overview of Chernobyl disaster • The way in which numerical risks are presented is also crucial. • At Chernobyl, the same cancer risk could have been conveyed in the following ways: – 131 cancers expected in the lifetimes of the 24.000 people within 15 kilometers of the plant; – a 2.6 percent increase in cancer rate of that exposed population; – or, an increase in cancer of .0047 percent of the population among 75 million people exposed in Ukraine and Belarus (Wilson, Crouch, 1987; Susskind, 1996, 116).
Overview of Chernobyl disaster • Soviet scientists themselves had no access to the accurate data and the whole picture remained unclear for them. • Some Ukrainian scientists including the well-known radiobiologist Grodzinsky had restricted access to their own laboratory equipment. These measures were designed to prevent any independent investigation not approved by the Communist Party. • For about two years, individuals were treated as criminals, if they possessed their own dosimeters (Medvedev, 1990, 149).
Shelter • Soviet crews sealed the most radioactive areas of the destroyed bloc No. 4 with a concrete Shelter (also known as the Sarcophagus). • The Shelter – built in a hasty and poorly organized cleanup – has formed numerous cracks that have been studied by many scientists.
Shelter • “There is also uncertainty in determining the quantity of radionuclides discharged from the reactor: from 50 million Ci (Soviet official data) up to 3,500 millions Ci (several independent estimations)” (Yablokov , 2006, p.5). • Creation of a new construction base on the Shelter begun in 2012. • Another concrete Shelter should be built around the existing one by 2015.
Influential factors affected food security of Ukraine • 1) The consequences of Chernobyl disaster. • 2) The long-term economic consequences of the collapse of the USSR. • As one of the 10 major grain producers and importers, Ukraine has been enormously affected by those factors. • Radionuclide contamination of vast areas in Ukraine after Chernobyl resulted in lower consumption of dairy and meat products, as well as wild berries and mushrooms. • This led to decrease in caloric consumption, fat and protein consumption. • Ingestion of contaminated food is one of the main factors contributing to population radiation exposures.
The right to food • 160 countries including Ukraine are parties of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. • Its article 11 states: “The State Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food ” (OHCHR). • Many governments already reaffirmed the right to food in their national legislation. Our particular interest about adequate food follows the social justice cases after the nuclear disasters.
Governmental management decisions after the Chernobyl disaster Food safety: control measures What was important in terms of governmental decisions on food security and specifically food safety, is that people in affected areas should have been immediately informed (but actually were not) about: • the emergency situation and its possible impacts; • which foods are safe and which are not, which can be radioprotectors (preventing absorption of radionuclides); • what the government did to ensure food safety and what it plans to do next and why; • how to protect one ´ s family and decrease risk of exposure through inter alia educated effective food choices.
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