Please join us for the reception held at Mills College on January 18, 2011, 6 pm – 8 pm. The exposition will last from January 18 to March 11, 2012. For more details, please see: http://mcam.mills.edu/events/

By Whitney Graham and Elena I. Nicklasson
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 26, 2011 (IPS) – On this day 25 years ago, a massive explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine released clouds of radioactive particles into the atmosphere across Russia and Europe. The catastrophe had lasting effects on people’s health, particularly on women and their unborn children. On this sober anniversary, we look back at Chernobyl and the lessons learned to ensure the health of Japanese women as the Fukushima disaster unfolds.

Although slow to address the crisis, the Japanese government recently raised the alert level of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants from a 5 to a 7, the highest rating possible and on par with the only nuclear disaster of this magnitude: Chernobyl. By raising the level to 7, the government acknowledged the grave situation before Japan. What it hasn’t done, however, is delineate clear protocols for how people should protect themselves against radiation, particularly the most vulnerable: pregnant women and their unborn foetuses.

Women of reproductive age are at significant risk from the effects of radiation on their bodies and reproductive systems. Studies show women’s exposure to radiation may harm her future ability to bear children and can cause premature aging. The U.S. Center for Disease Control warns pregnant women that, in the event of exposure to radiation, even at low doses, the health consequences for unborn foetuses “can include stunted growth, deformities, abnormal brain function, or cancer that may develop sometime later in life.”

No one understands the implications of radiation on women’s health better than the Russian women who survived the Chernobyl nuclear holocaust. The amount of radiation levels released into the atmosphere was comparable to 500 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In the two decades after Chernobyl, approximately 200,000 people died. Women living in highly contaminated areas in Ukraine and Belarus were affected by chromosome disorders, leukaemia, psychological trauma, depression, and multiple birth defects in their children. Among women who lived in the affected area, medical studies detected high levels of thyroid and breast cancer. Unfortunately, the former Soviet Union failed to provide timely and continuous information about the effects of radiation on human health.

In light of the unique risk to women’s health caused by exposure to radiation, the Japanese government and international agencies must take immediate action. Yet neither the World Health Organisation nor the International Atomic Energy Association – the two international bodies that monitor health and nuclear security respectively – have provided any information about the effect of radiation exposure to women’s bodies. Even a simple google search on the impact of radiation on women does not yield much, nor are there steps that women can take to mitigate the impact on her health and her children.

Although the transition to safer energy sources is a long road, what can and must be immediately done is the proactive outreach to women. The Japanese government must address the gender-specific health risks posed by its nuclear crisis by encouraging women to have medical evaluations and providing them with available resources on the implications of nuclear radiation on their health and strategies to reduce their exposure.

Our recommendations for women affected by the unfolding nuclear crisis are: first get a medical evaluation, and avoid foods produced locally, including lettuce, milk, berries and mushrooms. Pregnant women, specifically those in their first or second trimesters, must be especially vigilant about what they consume, as radiation passes through the umbilical cord to the unborn fetus.

Most importantly, women in Japan should reach out to the local authorities, contact their representatives, and send inquiries to the state-level medical authorities requesting informational materials about measures to protect women’s health and how the Japanese government is ensuring women’s health rights are protected. They should speak out if they feel misinformed, if their health concerns are dismissed (including continuous fatigue or psychological trauma), or if they are discriminated at a work place or hospital as it relates to them being affected by the nuclear crisis. The right to health and the wellbeing of future generations should be of paramount importance and vigilantly protected.

“It wouldn’t have been so annoying for us to die had we known our death would help to avoid more ‘fatal mistakes’,” Chernobyl survivor and Ukrainian poet Lyubov Sirota wrote about the Chernobyl disaster. Unfortunately, Japan has not learned the “fatal mistakes” of Chernobyl, and the ones who will pay the heavy price are women and future generations.

The Atlanta Consultation III

The purpose of the Atlanta Consultation III was to find consensus on the agenda priorities for the upcoming review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which will take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in May 2010.

President Jimmy Carter was a keynote speaker. Other notable addresses were presented by the Honorable Greta Evans (Australia), Ambassador Libran Cabactulan (Philippines) the 2010 NPT Review Conference President, and the Honorable Sergio Duarte, Chairman of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. All urged an NPT action plan that is “doable and aggressive” and one that will lead to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

The Global Security Institute organized and ran the consultations, as it did in 2000 and 2005, but this year consultation was markedly different in its optimism for new advances and consensus amongst the global community lead by the United States on the need to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles worldwide and strengthen nuclear nonproliferation.

The Fund for Peace Initiatives was invited to participate in the consultation as a guest non-governmental organization, and was represented by Mr. Les DeWitt.

For more information please contact mpi-ny@gsinstitute.org or visit http://www.gsinstitute.org/

Moderator Melanie Greenberg is president and founder of the Cypress Fund for Peace and Security.
Greenberg was director of the Conflict Resolution grantmaking program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Prior to joining the Hewlett Foundation, Ms. Greenberg served as the associate director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, and deputy director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. In her work on international conflict resolution, Ms. Greenberg has helped design and facilitate public peace processes in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Ireland.  She is a member of the United Nations Advisory Committee on the Prevention of Genocide. Ms. Greenberg holds an BA magna cum laude from Harvard, and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Listen to Melanie Greenberg talk about the goals of Cypress Fund

Sidney D. Drell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor of theoretical physics (emeritus) at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where he served at deputy director until retiring in 1998. An arms control specialist, he has advised the executive and legislative branches of government on national security and defense technical issues for more than four decades. From 1983 to 1989, he was the founding codirector of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Listen to Sidney Drell’s 15 minute talk

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory.

Listen to David’s 20 minute talk

Questions from the audience

Ambassador Graham is one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear terrorism and proliferation.  He will walk us through the dangers of today’s nuclear landscape – and suggest strategies for countering them.