Health effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and the need for stronger international action
Recommendation 1208
(1993)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 5 February 1993 (29th Sitting) (see Doc. 6731, report of the Committee on Social, Health and Family Affairs, Rapporteur : Mrs Ragnarsdóttir). Text adopted by the Assembly on 5 February 1993 (29th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
1. The state of health, today and in the coming years, of children and adults in the areas of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine contaminated by Chernobyl radiation is of very great concern.
2. In 1990, when a request came from the Government of the Soviet Union to assess the environmental and health situation and to evaluate measures already taken to protect the population, the international community responded swiftly.
3. The International Chernobyl Project, co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was part of this response.
4. The Assembly salutes the project as an invaluable contribution to the management of a disastrous situation. In regard to criticism made of the project report published in May 1991, the Assembly considers that the scientific and technological community must feel free to publish their findings and interpretations of data in the form which seems to them most responsible and appropriate. It is the responsibility of media professionals - and, indeed, of parliamentarians - to convey the right messages to the general public, and to sustain the quality of the debate.
5. Essential complementary action to monitor medium-term health effects - including psychosociological effects - has been defined within the framework of the Council of Europe's Partial Agreement on Co-operation for the Prevention of, Protection against, and Organisation of Relief in Major Natural and Technological Disasters. Co-ordinated with the Commission of the European Communities and the Radiation Unit of the European Centre for Environment and Health of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the SIEAD Chernobyl Programme (System of Epidemological Information and Assistance for Medical Decisions — Open Partial Agreement) seeks to establish a computerised network in eight hospitals across the contaminated area (including one in north-east Turkey) with a telecommunication link by a satellite of the European Space Agency.
6. The Assembly considers that this action is fully in line with
Recommendation 1153 (1991) on concerted European policies for health, to which the Committee of Ministers has responded positively.
7. Accordingly the Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers :
7.1 invite governments to support and accelerate the SIEAD, not only for the practicalities and substance of the programme itself but as an expression of European sympathy and concern for the predicament of the affected population ;
7.2 instruct its Steering Committee for Health to report on implementation of this programme and initiate action on the basis of its findings in regard to nuclear safety, in the context of its co-operation with the World Health Organisation and with reference to the findings and conclusions of the International Chernobyl Project.
