Comparison with international guidance N. Kelly (CEC)
Cost-benefit analysis J. Lochard (France) Decision conferences G.S. French (UK)
Summary N. Kelly (CEC)
Conclusions P. Hedemann Jensen Rapporteur's Report of Session 6
K. Duncan (UK)
DISCUSSION
S.T. Belyaev (USSR): While Task Group 5 was working, a Committee in the USSR was formulating a new concept of living conditions for the people in these territories.1 We are grateful for the influence of the Task Group on discussions which helped us to prepare this concept. It has now been accepted officially, but in some sense also rejected officially. I would like to describe the main features of this concept for safe living.
Ideally, it is purely radiological protection policy and it is very simple if no other factor exists. But the Cher-nobyl situation, which we have been studying for four and a half years, is very different. First of all, there were inadequate decisions on countermeasures and incom-plete information. All this produces a post-accident syn-drome, with negative health effects. It all goes round, one factor influencing another. This was the situation.
1 "Concept for habitability of the regions affected by the Chernobyl accident."
So what would be the approach to introducing this con-cept for living? First of all, how many people are we looking for? Then, let us say, the two levels we have been hearing about: 'no action' and relocation limit.
If we think about it, the number of people is very sen-sitive to this 'level', because a little push moves you from say 800 to 4 million and so the question suddenly arises: what population group are we dealing with? This is the first problem, how to choose this 'no action' level.
We certainly need it, and we always tend to push this level lower and lower and include more and more people somehow connected with Chernobyl. That is the first problem. Now, how to proceed? First of all, when we introduced the countermeasures, we reduced the doses in each place and somehow pushed the line to this point.
That is a good policy. Without any relocation, we just make the total dose lower and lower. Now we have quite a different position. We have not only dose, but we have sociopsychological effects of different kinds. These include the excitement, the stress, of people living in different territories. There is a spectrum of excitation,
Session 6 and experts here have already mentioned this stage of
excitation or stress. It does not depend very much on dose.
Sometimes the people living in a certain area become excited at more or less the same degree and even higher.
Now, what kind of countermeasures should we introduce? Of course, the ideal policy would be just to push for some settlement, or group of people living in these conditions, at a certain dose and with a certain excitement. This would be the ideal. How can we achieve it? Suppose we decide on relocation of popula-tion. Well, it may go from large dose to great excite-ment. It should be understood that it may be more dangerous to health to be in one place than in another.
How do we start to undertake the kind of counter-measure suggested? First, we have already decided to take into account the annual programme of all relocation below 40 Ci/km2 (1.5 MBq/m2) and even below this.
Our first statement is that no more mandatory reloca-tion is needed! Our first premises, the radiological, non-radiological, and sociopsychological factors and, of course, the negative health effects of relocation, are con-sidered. The first and main principle is that no additional mandatory relocation is needed. We understand that some countermeasures, which somehow mean restric-tion of life-style, of agricultural producrestric-tion, and so on, produce some excitement (stress, anxiety), so some countermeasure should already be agreed. We have one very good countermeasure: just to improve agriculture.
These are the main principles and criteria. First, we introduce a 'no action' level, which we take as 1 mSv per year (about 5 Ci/km2 or 185 kBq/m2). The total number of people living in this territory would be a little less than one million. Then we introduce, not the reloca-tion level, but the control level, which I would like to explain. Suppose we eliminate some countermeasures and some restrictions; then perhaps there is less social anxiety but a little higher dose (but how far can we go in this direction?) and then we introduce this control level. Control level means that the dose should be not more than 5 mSv per year. That is the essence of this concept and it has been approved. The concept was a compromise with almost all of the scientific community and most government institutions, but it was approved by the Committee of the Supreme Soviet and was admit-ted as a basis for the law. In this law, the level of 5 mSv per year is now considered to be the level for mandatory relocation.
It is my own opinion of course, that if I myself am living in a certain place and do not want to move, then mandatory relocation is just a violation of human rights.
That is my opinion.
L.A. Buldakov (USSR): Mankind has fallen into the trap which mankind itself had set. Experts know that, among the various harmful factors, the radiation factor is perhaps the least harmful. But this is not known to the
public at large, who do not want to reconcile themselves to the fact that for 50 years they have been fed false-hoods. They hold on to their firm belief that any radiation which is slightly higher than the background is fatal. It is very difficult to make them change their minds. Therefore, when we developed the 'safe living concept' and concluded that such a level would be a lifetime dose of 350 mSv, it was not a random value.
This value was based on world experience in radiology, which shows that, in the case of short term irradiation, doses below 1000 mSv produce no noticeable effects.
We made a correction for the particular sensitivity of children, by a factor of about three, divided these figures and obtained the value of 350 mSv. From the standpoint of radiology and not from that of radiation protection alone, we understood that the effects could appear in the case of very long exposure over a lifetime and therefore decided on the new term 'lifetime dose' — 350 mSv. However, this value raised a storm in our country. We were accused of being inhuman simply because the concept that the action of radiation had no threshold had been ignored. Unfortunately, we had taken a step beyond what was customary with us, i.e.
we had decided on some threshold (350 mSv), meaning that the risk was much smaller than the benefit. In our country human life and health are regarded as the most valued treasures, and nobody will let you calculate in terms of money when it is a question of human health.
Thus, having accused us of inhumanity, all the other opponents of this concept began to lower the dose, and therefore Boris Yeltsin and Neale Kelly are both right in taking us to task for choosing too low a dose for decision making. But the situation was such that it was impossible to take a really meaningful dose, for example 1000 mSv.
We are grateful to Task Group 5 for its criticism of those who adopted 350 mSv. However, it must be made clear that this value was adopted on the basis of radiobiologi-cal parameters, considering the possible risk, although we realize that it is negligibly small and cannot always be determined.
One other thing I should like to add. Here today there were references to the state of health — that there are actual data confirming that such levels of radiation did not affect the genetic or carcinogenic structures. At low radiation doses the mechanism of action is quite differ-ent; this was reported in Paris at Professor Duboire's conference. But it is very difficult for us to prove this, to prove what nobody wants to believe. If the Technical Report and the Overview had very clearly given such values or such conditions, I am sure it would have been a great help to our people.
V.F. Demin (USSR): I have some comments on that part of the report of Task Group 5 which deals with the analysis of the effectiveness of the countermeasures, and I speak as a person who was involved in the USSR in the preparation of similar and other scientific data used in 52
Protective Measures: Discussion
taking decisions on protective measures. It has already been pointed out here that not only the radiological but also the non-radiological risk factors must be taken into account. This point is very important. When we include other risk factors, the scope of optimum decision making becomes wider and the possibilities are greater but, at the same time, the task becomes more complex because of the multiplicity of factors and the need to prepare much more additional data. Task Group 5 has already referred to the paucity of their data. This reflected the actual state of affairs in the USSR at that time. It was not the case, as has been noted by one of the other groups, that they had approached the wrong organization. But it should be clear that these data are of exceptional practi-cal significance. The price of such accurate data is meas-ured, in the best case, in thousands of millions of roubles and, in the worst case, in tens of thousands of millions of roubles.
To demonstrate what is essential, I should like to refer to data obtained recently. The collection of data on the effectiveness of the various countermeasures is continuing; unfortunately the work is proceeding slowly in spite of its great importance. As for the effectiveness of some countermeasures — this does not apply to all factors — we have used here the well known assumed relationship between man-rem and man-days lost. Here are some extremely generalized, simplified ideas about the data which have now appeared. I want to refer to two items which are highly relevant to what has been dis-cussed here: agricultural measures and measures related to improvement of medical care. These measures, espe-cially the agricultural ones, are highly specific; specific to the region and specific to the characteristics of development of the USSR national economy. They are highly effective. If we had been able to formulate a correct strategy, the effectiveness of these countermeas-ures would have enabled us to improve our decision making strategy substantially and to reduce to some extent the total costs mentioned. The data available to Task Group 5 were very limited and sometimes I thought they were below some threshold of significance. In evaluating the results achieved by this Task Group, I must say that they handled and utilized most brilliantly the small amount of data at their disposal, made the max-imum number of recommendations and, above all, they demonstrated what the risk analysis technique currently available to the international community was capable of.
There is still a lot of work to be done before this tech-nique can yield results of practical importance.
Two numbers are given [ш a slide which cannot be reproduced here]} in the estimate of economic losses:
20-25 and 30-40. The former was obtained from some models based on some concept of optimality. The latter value is the result of an attempt to assess those trends which, if they persist, would lead to such values. It must be emphasized that this is not the arithmetic sum of all costs and detriments but values adjusted for 1986. The
arithmetic sum may be much higher. People who know economics will understand that this is how it should be done. The cost of ineffectiveness may be reckoned in thousands of millions and even tens of thousands of millions of roubles.
J. Jovanovich (Canada): I have been most impressed with this Conference and with all the conclusions, and I would like to add something concerning cost and benefit. We understand what cost is and we understand benefit as a benefit to the health of a population.
Whenever I, as a nuclear physicist, come to a gathering like this, we always talk about the nuclear physics, about the radiation; we never talk about the air pollution.
Just two weeks ago, at an international conference in Anaheim, it was reported that air pollution in American cities has accounted for an estimated 60 000 deaths a year, making it among the nation's top killers. This is not a crackpot report and it is nothing new. I have already heard it from the Office of Technology Assess-ments of the Congress of the USA nine years ago where, using linearity hypothesis, familiar to us, they have been estimating 51 000 deaths per year. Now, if I have 10 billion dollars or 10 billion roubles and want to improve the health of the population, I have to decide whether to spend that money on relocating people because of the 100 mSv or on cleaning up smoke stacks.
We should not forget that we live in a real world, and that there are other technologies more dangerous to the health of populations than nuclear power, including the Chernobyl accident.
A.J. Gonzalez (IAEA): I have just a moment ago received an unofficial translation of an article from Izvestia of the day before yesterday which I believe is very relevant to today's discussion. It states that on that same day a new Soviet law was published, which would establish the following limits for the relocation of people living in areas affected by radiation. It seems that (a) obligatory relocation with full compensation for loss of property should be considered when the average dose exceeds 5 mSv; (b) the population in areas with doses exceeding 1 mSv could stay on or be relocated upon request, also with full compensation for property loss;
and (c) people in areas with less than 1 mSv per year would have special status and be entitled to some bonuses and compensation without relocation.
I ask myself what the consequences of this law would be if the USSR authorities decided, for instance, to con-trol radon exposure in dwelling houses, following a similar policy. The average global dose for radon assessed by UNSCEAR is in the order of 1 mSv and I can imagine that in the cold climate of northern USSR, with airtight houses, the levels can be higher than that.
I do not want to enter into the internal politics of the USSR, but I am very concerned about the implications of this law for radiation protection, and I should like to hear the comments of Task Group 5 on this point.
Session 6
P. Hedemann Jensen (Denmark): I would like to make two comments. The first concerns Dr. Belyaev's statement that "this is a violation of human rights". The statement speaks for itself. Regarding the work done by Task Group 5, we have not evaluated this two-tier system because when we ended our study the work was still in progress. However, our conclusions are very firm. We say that there can be no justification on radio-logical protection grounds for the adoption of a more restrictive policy if consideration is limited to the cost and risk reduction alone. This should be strongly resisted. Secondly, if this new criterion that we have not evaluated is more restrictive, then it could not be justi-fied. But as we have not evaluated it, we cannot be very firm about it at the moment. If it turns out to be more restrictive, then our conclusion is clear: it could not be justified.
Y. Nishiwaki (IRPA): In making a cost-benefit analysis, if all the factors involved are precisely known there would be no problem. But often, as in the case of radiation protection and nuclear safety, many factors are uncertain. In this case it is a problem of decision making in a 'fuzzy environment'. Risk estimated by the expert may be considered to be objective risk, but risk per-ceived by the general public is subjective risk based on subjective evaluation. If a subjective evaluation is made, it very often does not follow conventional binary logic.
When subjective evaluation appears it would be more appropriate to use Lukasiewicz multivalued logic or 'fuzzy logic'. Let us take a simple example. To the expert, anywhere in the world, a dollar is a dollar. In the case of the general public, a dollar perceived by a very poor person is quite different from a dollar perceived by a billionaire. In just the same way, risk estimated by the expert is a totally different concept from risk perceived by the general public, although the same word is used.
We must take this difference into account and we must make a greater effort to carry out scientific studies on the structure of psychological effects in order to solve this problem.
Comment by a participant: There are many coun-tries where a large proportion of the population receives much higher doses than 5 mSv per annum from radon and its daughters. Governments and populations affected by this radon irradiation do not bother about the situa-tion. So we should rather compare the variability of situ-ations in the world, the natural varisitu-ations of doses, and so on, and not look at only one problem. We are living in a complex world and we should take care that people who are relocated are not relocated to regions where they receive more irradiation through radon.
P. Pellerin (France): I would like to support Dr. Nishiwaki's comment. Chernobyl is a very big disaster. It was triggered by the explosion of the reactor, but radioactivity has not very much to do with the present situation. We must recognize that this is perhaps one of the biggest disasters in the history of humanity because the consequences will last a very long time, but perhaps a major error to be avoided is to attribute this disaster to radioactivity. Radioactivity has played its role, but we should perhaps consider now all the socio-economic consequences which cannot be solved by means of technology only.
Question by a participant [referring to the previous session}: There were a large number of interrupted preg-nancies in Europe because of fear of Chernobyl. Did the Task Group ask any questions about interrupted preg-nancies among the population of Chernobyl?
F.A. Mettler (USA): We did not ask specifically how many medical abortions are being done in connec-tion with Chernobyl. As I indicated this morning, there were about five times more abortions than live births, but we did not go into the reasons.
Comment from a (Russian-speaking) participant:
I should like to support the experts' and the Committee's views on how and where the modest resources of our country can be spent more effectively and also where these could be invested much more effectively on
I should like to support the experts' and the Committee's views on how and where the modest resources of our country can be spent more effectively and also where these could be invested much more effectively on