Main criticism on the report:
- study excluded from its subject of investigation the liquidators
(estimated up to 600,000)
- study excluded the 30 km contaminated zone
- study excluded the evacuees from the zone (up to 95,000 – 100,000)
- study excluded hot spots
- There is some ambiguousness about the settlements chosen for the
study: it would seem the selection was deliberate and arbitrary
- The report substantially underestimate the amount of exposure, particularly
the lifetime dose. It appears that external exposure is estimated at one-third
to one-fourth, and internal exposure at about one-tenth
- It is not clear how control groups were obtained. Thus, even though
the study recognizes many illnesses and deaths, it was not able to link
them to radiation (tot zover Tagaki, -medies, 21-5-91
- FoE claims that the IAEA scientists are scientifically incompetent
because they draw concrete conclusions on the basis of what they themselves
admit are “not always adequate data”.
- The scientist had little or noaccess to pre-accident health records,
leaving them unable to compare pre- and post-accident levels of disease
and health disorders
- Etc.
According to Greenpeace the only aim of the study was to “produce a
thirty-second sound-bite which is pleasing to the ear of the Soviet authorities
– ‘we didn’t find radiation-induced health effects’ is constructed to avoid
implicating radiation in the disaster