ONLY 56 people have so far died directly as a result of the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986, including 9 children with thyroid cancer. In the end, perhaps up to 4,000 people will die from radiation-caused illness.

Those figures are much lower than many would guess, if they were asked. After the accident, some predicted that tens of thousands would die. But the new United Nations report this week, discussed at a Vienna conference ending today, blows what you might call a breath of fresh air on to nearly two decades of fears about the world’s worst nuclear accident.

The report comes as Britain and the US are considering a revival of nuclear power, driven by a new sense of urgency in combating global warming.

For those prepared to hear reassurance about the risks of nuclear power, this report offers plenty. Its most sober warning is about the threat to health from the mere fact of living within the former Soviet Union. For that misfortune, it offers no comfort at all. It is compiled from the work of 100 scientists on behalf of the Chernobyl Forum: a collaboration of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, the World Health Organisation, six other UN agencies, and the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

It does the best job so far of sifting out the real impact of Chernobyl from the cloud of claims — a task that was difficult, controversial, and highly political from the start.

In 1993, I went with a group of European Union scientists to Chernobyl and the most contaminated areas near by, on one of the first missions to try to judge the impact on health.

In the Belarus hospitals to the north, the rooms were full of thin, white-skinned children with pale brown hair, many suffering from thyroid problems from contaminated milk. But the senior EU doctors, while deeply sympathetic to the patients, said that blaming all manifest illness on radiation would be wrong. The underlying level of health and nutrition was abominable; there was every interest in exaggerating the impact to get aid money; the Soviet culture had never been shy of using science for political ends.

One doctor also noted that people in Western countries also often underestimated the normal level of abnormalities and illness in newborn children, because they were so quickly and privately “fixed”.

The UN report notes these difficulties. But it has finally concluded this:

Total eventual deaths due to radiation could reach 4,000, including those of evacuees, a statistical prediction based on estimated doses they received. But, “as about a quarter of people die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl radiation, the radiation-induced increase of only about 3 per cent will be difficult to observe”.

Kalman Mizsei, a UN Development Programme director, said “the impact was much smaller than anybody could have predicted”, adding: “The danger of radiation has largely passed.”

Environmental groups have condemned the report, saying that it whitewashes the impact and will encourage people to move back into dangerous areas. But the report is not insensitive: quite the opposite. Mental health has suffered most, it concludes — largely because people have been too fearful of the contamination.

It says that people in the afflicted areas have suffered paralysing fatalism, attributing all illness to radiation and convinced that their lives will end soon. It also says that a culture of dependency on aid has grown up, and that this is holding back their development.

The most serious threats to health in the region remain smoking, drinking and lack of basic healthcare, it notes.

The report argues that “it is crucial to note that adult mortality has been rising alarmingly across the former Soviet Union for several decades. Life expectancy has declined precipitously, particularly for men.”

It adds that “the main causes of death in the Chernobyl-affected region are the same as those nationwide — cardiovascular diseases, injuries and poisoning — rather than radiation-related illnesses”.

Those deaths, like the poor safety standards and ageing equipement at Chernobyl itself, are a symptom of a greater problem: a second-world government, and its secrecy, incompetence and lack of accountability. The proper conclusion is less of that kind of government — not necessarily less nuclear power.

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