Chernobyl ‘distortion’ in anti-nuclear argument

LIKE Patrick L O’Brien (Letters, April 5), I have experience working in the Ukraine on an EU project — in my case for seven months between 2000 and 2003.

During that period I found the level of distortion in the Irish media over Chernobyl and its effects to be very disturbing.

For instance, I can recall reading in an Irish newspaper on a plane to Kiev that 13% of the Ukrainian population was suffering from radiation illness — a figure equivalent to one-and-a-half times the population of our Republic. The true figure was that 13% of the 4,000 most active in the Chernobyl clean-up were showing effects of radiation illness.