AS the 10th anniversary of Chernobyl approaches, the nuclear power industry throughout the world is doubtless planning a new and costly offensive to offset the damning revelations pouring out of Eastern Europe. It may be losing the battle to disprove the link between thyroid cancer and Chernobyl, but it will have plenty of other, less clear cut issues on which to trot out the old lines.
Now that the radio isotope Iodine 131 is grudgingly accepted as the probable culprit in thyroid cancers, Belarussian doctors are taking a closer look at another isotope made readily available by Chernobyl: man made Caesium137. This has a half life (the time taken for the radioactivity to fall to half its value) of 30 years, is mistaken by the body for potassium and concentrates in the muscles, bones and other organs. There has never before been a Caesium accident, so its effects are unknown.
Strontium 90 is yet another "gift" sent winging across the world by Chernobyl. With a half life of 28.2 years, it fools the body into accepting it as calcium. Distributed throughout the bone structure, it has been associated with a number of cancers and leukaemias. Scientists now know that there are significant - and increasing - amounts of soluble caesium and strontium in much Belarussian soil.
They also believe the problem of plutonium contamination (Pu-239 - half life 24,000 years; Pu-241 - half life 14.4 years) has been under estimated. The most toxic substance produced by man, it mimics iron and is distributed through the blood system. Health officials are convinced that the presence of these elements in agricultural land and the water supplies of Belarus and Ukraine is responsible for the vast bulk of the ongoing radiation doses to the populations.
No visitor to Belarus, especially to the contaminated areas, can deny the evidence before their eyes of an ailing, listless population. But, the sceptics argue, adults all around the world - given time and a receptive ear - will probably come up with complaints about joint pains, headaches, stomach problems - failing eyesight, constant tiredness.
Not children, though. In homes throughout Belarus, children are complaining of these and other problems. To account for this, the sceptics have coined the word "radiophobia" to describe a sort of nuclear hysteria among the populace in which they convince themselves that they are ill - a dismissal described by someone as rather like telling a shooting victim that it is not the bullet that threatens his life, but the loss of blood.
Stress and fear - as relevant an element of Chernobyl's fall out as iodine or caesium - are endemic. The average lifespan of Belarussians has fallen by up to four years since 1986. The birth rate has dropped consistently since Chernobyl and in 1993 was outstripped by a climbing death rate. More than half the entire population of the Gomel region suffers some form of ill health, according to the Belarussian Ministry of Health. They report significant increases in incidences of lung and stomach cancers and problems with the urinary system.
In Ukraine, health officials' have found a 30 per cent higher morbidity level among people in the contaminated areas, taking into account age, working and living conditions. Among the children of Belarus, UNICEF notes significant increases in many health disorders in just four years between 1990 and 1994:
. a 62 per cent increase in disorders of the bone, muscle and connective tissue systems;
. a 28 per cent rise in diabetes mellitus;
. a 43 per cent increase in disorders of the nervous system and sensory organs and the same in blood circulation illnesses;
. a rise of 28 per cent in digestive disorders;
. a rise of 39 per cent in disorders of the genito urinary system;
. a rise of 25 per cent in congenital heart and circulatory diseases;
. incidences of bronchial asthma have doubled since 1991;
. malignant tumours have increased by 38 per cent since 1988.
Lest these figures be dismissed on the basis that pre Chernobyl, epidemiology in Belarus was virtually non existent, controlled studies have been done among the 31,000 evacuees now resettled in Minsk. Compared to Minsk natives, this group has five and a half times as many stomach cancers, over six times as many lung cancers and more than a third as many cases of thyroid cancer. Not only has the incidence increased, say doctors, but a whole range of cancers has begun to behave more aggressively. A further sinister development is the appearance of a syndrome known as Chernobyl AIDS, which is causing serious concern to doctors in every specialty. Valentina notes, for example, that after thyroid surgery the scars often heal so slowly that the "holes" in the children's necks are open for weeks.
IN spring 1987, Russian and Belarussian paediatricians examined 3,120 children aged between one month and 16 years living in the most heavily affected areas. Ten per cent of these were found to have severely compromised immune systems. If anything, the problem has worsened since then, exacerbated by contaminated food and financial hardship.
Spontaneous abortions in the first trimester are becoming more frequent. Lack of money means that women cannot afford the so called "clean" food in the shops, so they continue to buy in the cheaper markets, many of which are Unmonitored. (In any event, scepticism is rife about the "purity" of the tested food.) They are often under nourished during pregnancy and have more difficult deliveries. Under weight babies are common.
"Babies are sick from the day they are born," says the head of Gomel Regional, Dr Edourd Rusakov. "Pneumonia is a major challenge because of lowered immunity in babies with lung problems. We are also seeing most severe incidences of kidney disease, heart, stomach and liver malfunctions." Other doctors - doctors who have not been paid for several months, in some cases - describe a terrible sense of isolation at the coalface of this catastrophe. "It just gets worse and worse, said one. "And we are alone with our trouble."