国連科学委員会議長の福島第１原発事故の人体に対する影響の見解

国内ではなぜかまったく報道されていませんが、２月６日づけ英国ロイターの報道によれば、国連科学委員会（（ＵＮＳＣＥＡＲ）のウォルフガング・ワイス委員長は福島第１原発事故の人体への影響について「深刻な被害をもたらすとは考えられない」という見解を述べました。

なお国連科学委員会は、１９５５年に放射線の影響を研究するために作られた国際機関です。国からの独立性とイデオロギーからの自由が強く謳われている国際機関です。

このワイス委員長のコメントは、昨年のものと内容的に変わりありません。以下、私のコメントなしで転載します。

　　　　　　　　゜。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。゜。°。°。°。

［ウィーン　２０１１年４月６日　ロイター］　国連放射線影響科学委員会（ＵＮＳＣＥＡＲ）のウォルフガング・ワイス委員長は６日、東京電)福島第１原子力発電所の事故について、現時点の情報では、人体に深刻な被害をもたらすとは考えられないと語った。

　ワイス委員長は、環境への影響という観点から、この事故が１９８６年に旧ソ連で起きたチェルノブイリ原発事故より環境への影響が小さいものの、１９７９年の米スリーマイルアイランド原発事故に比べると、環境への影響が「はるかに深刻」との見方を示した。 

　一方、福島での事故による健康への被害については、「現在分かっていることからすると、（放射能）レベルが低いため皆無だ。食物においても、年間１ミリシーベルトや５ミリシーベルトなどと話題にされているが、この程度では健康への大きな影響はない」と説明。 

　また、日本の当局が原発周辺地域で子どもの甲状腺被曝（ひばく）調査を始めたことを評価した。

ロイター記事英文　２０１２年２月１日
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-japan-fukushima-health-idUSTRE80U1AS20120131

No big Fukushima health impact seen: U.N. body chairman

Reuters) - The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday.

The fact that some radioactive releases spread over the ocean instead of populated areas also contributed to limiting the consequences, said Wolfgang Weiss of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).

"As far as the doses we have seen from the screening of the population ... they are very low," Weiss told Reuters. This was partly "due to the rapid evacuation and this worked very well." 

Weiss was speaking on the sidelines of a week-long meeting of 60 international experts in Vienna to assess for the United Nations the radiation exposures and health effects of the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years. 

The March 11 disaster caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima plant on the coast north of Tokyo, triggering a radiation crisis and widespread contamination. About 80,000 residents fled a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone. 

Weiss said Japanese experts attending the meeting had told him that they were not aware of any acute health effects, in contrast to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. 

"What we have seen in Chernobyl - people were dying from huge, high exposures, some of the workers were dying very soon - nothing along these lines has been reported so far (in Japan)," he said. "Up to now there were no acute immediate effects observed." 

Several thousand children developed thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure after the Chernobyl disaster in the then Soviet Union, when a reactor exploded and caught fire and radiation was sent billowing across Europe. 

Weiss said a few workers at Fukushima had received high radioactive doses, but "so far the initial medical follow-up of these workers who had high doses, as far as the Japanese colleagues told us, was OK." 

A preliminary report on the radiation effects of Fukushima will be presented at UNSCEAR's annual meeting in May and a final document will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in 2013. 

"We are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, evaluating the exposures of the general public, of workers, and radiation effects, and looking for the missing pieces," Weiss said. 

The U.N. committee, which has published reports about Chernobyl, groups scientists from 27 countries. 

Asked whether he was optimistic that the overall health effects would be quite small, Weiss said: "If we find out that what we know now is representing the situation, then the answer would be yes ... the health impact would be low." 

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by David Stamp)

■本日は休載とした記事を初めに出しましたが、国連科学委員会の記事速報と差し替えました。