Chernobyl and the New York Academy of Sciences

In December 2009 a book like no other in its long history was published in the Annals series of science books that has been in production at the New York Academy of Sciences since 1823. Called Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment it is a translation of a book written by Russian environmentalist and Greenpeace activist Alexey Yablokov, with contributions from two other authors, Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko. This book is an unprecedented publication by the NYAS for several reasons. We believe it should never have been published by any Academy of Science. Firstly, it denounces the methods used by the mainstream scientific community as giving marked underestimates of deaths and sickness from the Chernobyl accident. International scientific consensus through painstaking work over many years - is that the accident killed perhaps 56 workers and no members of the public. This book, by contrast, claims that nearly 1 million deaths can be attributed to the accident, using methodology that peer-reviewed literature does not accept. If both the methods of science are not to be trusted and the peer-reviewed literature is not to be used, then by definition this book cannot claim credibility as a scientific work. Secondly, the intellectual provenance of this book lies in research paid for by Greenpeace International whose goal is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and the shutdown of existing plants. Political ambitions and scientific discovery are not good bedfellows. It is hard enough to control observer bias in science without adding the pressure of campaigners fired by absolutism. Thirdly, there was no review of the contents of the book by academics whose judgment was uncontaminated by emotional anti-nuclearism. The only Consulting Editor of the book is someone who has long campaigned against nuclear power, with a track record of publishing work about radiation and health that has not been accepted in the wider scientific community because of its flaws and who holds no academic position, unlike other Editors of the Annals volumes. Aside from biologist Dr. Tim Mousseau, who had proposed the book to the NYAS as an Annals volume, no other academics with special knowledge of Chernobyl were asked to review the work before publication. Fourthly, the authors overthrow conventional scientific protocols and assumptions, and challenge the disciplines of radiobiology and epidemiology because they claim the accident at Chernobyl was too catastrophic to allow those methods and those disciplines to be used. Without any sense of nuance and insight as to how the accident came to be called a catastrophe, they rationalize that only their self-made explanatory model is appropriate, and they force data of many kinds into it. They adopt post-hoc pattern-seeking using just one variable instead of a more sophisticated multi-variable
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approach, justifying this with the claim that no one knows how large the release of radionuclides was, plus other obfuscating claims. They dismiss the possibility that radiophobia, ignorance and poverty have played any part in perceptions of health issues. They do not examine the possibility that decision-making that affected many people in the path of radioactive plumes could have been mistaken. Very significant political history of that part of the world, with attendant high emotions, was also not given consideration. One look at the number of consultants from Ukraine that contributed to the book, compared with the much lower number for Belarussia and none at all from Russia, gives cause for concern, however. See the Preface to the book for these names. Fifthly, in response to protests about the publication of this book by an Academy of science, the NYAS has sought to justify their action by saying that those who wrote and who contributed to it believe they are doing valid science. This is the only interpretation for a statement put out April 28 2010 on the Annals section of the website, saying that the Academy is committed to publishing scientific content deemed valid by the general scientific community. Since the work draws heavily on sources written in Slavic languages which have not been translated into English and their content could not have been checked for accuracy and professionalism anyway, this claim by the NYAS that the people involved in this book are scientists working in ways recognized by the general scientific community is nothing more than a leap of faith. Lastly, activists and certain media outlets have exploited the NYAS name to claim that this work is the baseline study on Chernobyl effects because it was published by the New York Academy of Sciences. This use of their academic and scientific standing for anti-nuclear campaigning appears of no concern to those responsible at the Academy. That the NYAS stamp of approval has been applied, with heavy consequences, to outrageously false information propagated to the public worldwide, is also of no concern apparently. On the contrary, they have taken steps to ensure that this book is replicated widely through issuing a special License to the authors to reprint and republish wherever they like. They have also allowed the original file used for printing at Wiley-Blackwell to circulate freely on the Internet, contrary to the copyright regulation. That file includes the frontispiece list of names of eminent people who serve as Governors of the NYAS who were never consulted about this book in advance of publication. By whose hand these things have happened it is not known but it surely arises as a consequence of the management of this project from the very beginning. It appears that someone senior in the NYAS wanted this book to be given credibility. For all these reasons, it seems that those responsible for publishing the Chernobyl Consequences book at the New York Academy of Sciences have crossed the line of the Academys own constitution and mission. Both professional and scientific misconduct
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seems to have occurred. Since there has been no straight answer provided to questions put to them about their decision to publish this book and to allow its wider circulation, a collection of papers about this publishing event has been assembled on the writing website Scribd.com by Theodore Rockwell and Caroline Webb to enable public scrutiny of their decision-making. Our critique leads to the following suggestions: 1. An independent inquiry should be conducted into how this anomalous publication has occurred. 2. The book is removed from the Annals series and NYAS website. 3. The license to republish given out to the authors should be revoked. The Collection on Scribd.com includes four different documents, including this one and may be seen at: http://www.scribd.com/collections/3229384/Chernobyl-and-theNew-York-Academy-of-Sciences BACKGROUND TO THE BOOK As described in the Preface written by Alexey Yablokov, this book was first assembled as a Greenpeace International report called: The Chernobyl Catastrophe Consequences on Human Health, published on the 20th anniversary of the accident in 2006. Dr. Yablokov served as General Editor of that report, hired by Greenpeace. This report was not only to mark an anniversary however. It was created in response to another report that had been published in 2005 by a group of UN agencies called The Chernobyl Forum. Greenpeace International strongly disputed the findings of the Forum and set about creating an alternative narrative that could produce a large number of deaths, illness and general misery, as fits their fundamentalist belief about nuclear energy and about low-level radiation, namely that no ray of radiation could be safe and no nuclear power plant is safe. They called in many consultants to provide them with data, most of them from Ukraine. The Greenpeace report was then developed by Dr. Yablokov and the Nesterenkos (father and son), into a book in Russian with more references than had appeared in the 2006 version and it got published by Nauka science publisher in Russia in 2007, without any review from the mainstream scientific community. This manuscript is what was then translated into English at the New York Academy of Sciences and published as Annals Volume 1181 in December 2009, also without any independent review process by acknowledged experts in the field. ******************* THE STORY OF PUBLICATION The project was first recommended to the Academy by Dr. Timothy Mousseau , an American academic at the University of South Carolina who has done field work in the
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Chernobyl-affected areas as a biologist and who edits a series published through the Annals of the NYAS concerning Evolutionary Biology. Based on a sample chapter sent to him by Alexey Yablokov in 2007, Dr. Mousseau proposed to his contacts at the NYAS that they publish the entire book in the Annals series. These contacts may not have known that Yablokov had worked closely with antinuclear activist Chris Busby on the first version of the book put out by Greenpeace, and nor may Tim Mousseau have known, but the general approach of the Chernobyl Consequences book fitted closely with Mousseaus own work on Chernobyl and the NYAS trusted him so the wheels for publication of a special Annals volume rolled into action. Come December 2009 it was launched as Volume 1181, available as a paperback book through Wiley-Blackwell and the NYAS Annals web page, with copyright owned by the Academy. Seven hundred copies of the book were printed and sold at $150 each. According to Douglas Braaten, current Annals Executive Editor, Mousseau worked in collaboration on this book throughout the publication process. He states in an email to Caroline Webb that it was the previous Annals Editor who accepted the project and who recruited Janette Sherman to be its editor - see Correspondence document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/63975527/Email-Correspondence-by-Caroline-Webb-reNYAS-Chernobyl-Book. In a video on the internet however, Janette Sherman states that she had been put forward to the NYAS to be a Consulting Editor by Dr. Yablokov who already knew her. Her job, she says in the video, was mainly to clean up the rough English produced by a translation software rendering Russian into English. In 2008 the position of Executive Editor of the Annals became vacant for reasons unknown and a new person was appointed, Douglas Braaten PhD. He took up post in January 2009 so he had a great deal to do with overseeing this book. Braatens professional background is connected with immunology, which may have played a role in his recruitment. The Chernobyl book makes many claims about low-level radiation from internal emitters being harmful to immune systems. Those hiring to replace the outgoing Executive Editor would have required someone able to accept the claims made in the book.

The position of Vice President of Publishing and Communication also became vacant in 2008 and the post has now been closed permanently. It is not known why these two members of staff left the NYAS. The former Executive Editor of the Annals remains an unknown person at this point in time so no comment has yet been received from him or her. The man who occupied the post of Vice President of Publishing and Communication, Bill Silberg, has refused to explain why he left the NYAS. When telephoned by Caroline Webb, he would say only that the NYAS must provide answers to all questions. But the answers are not readily available. On the answers hang the question about who is actually behind the move to publish this book.
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So far as the Board of Governors for the Academy is concerned, they had no discussion about the Annals Chernobyl project until long after it had been published and only because NYAS member Theodore Rockwell wrote to them about it in April 2011. (See Correspondence file: http://www.scribd.com/doc/63975500/Correspondence-by-TedRockwell-re-NYAS-and-Chernobyl-Book) The names of illustrious people serving as Governors for the NYAS were therefore used in the frontispiece of the work, with all the significance they embody, without these individuals knowledge or agreement. Nor were they apprised of who had been selected to act as a Consultant Editor. There was no formal chance for the Governors to make any intervention at all i.e., it did not appear on their Agenda. Even the issuing of a License for further replication of this text, with its reference to the NYAS original, was not put to them for discussion. The only meeting at which we know they discussed the matter was on May 5, 2011, prior to which they had read through a letter and accompanying critique sent by Ted Rockwell on April 21. (See Correspondence document at above Internet link) Anti-nuclear activist writer Janette Sherman was appointed as Consulting Editor without any check on her credentials. What mattered to the decision-maker/s responsible for this book at the NYAS was that there be someone handling the transformation of Russian into English who also agreed with the type of thinking represented in the book. But Shermans claim regarding academic status at Western Michigan University, turns out to be non-existent. There is no Environmental Institute at WMU except for a ghost-like name for something long gone, no research going on that involved or involves her at least so far as the Director of the Environmental Studies Dept knows - and no active Adjunct Professor status or work ever done as an Adjunct Professor. In reality, Sherman has turned a letter from the Western Michigan University in 2001 that offered her Adjunct Professor status into something that sounds more impressive. But not even the offer was valid at the time she worked on the Chernobyl book for NYAS. It had expired in 2005. The claim to having any kind of affiliation with an academic institution by Ms Sherman was and is therefore without substance and the NYAS should have looked into her credentials before propagating misinformation. ************ AFTER PUBLICATION Nothing happened in the media about this book until the anniversary day of the accident at Chernobyl came up on April 26, 2010. Then an article was published by the news wire service, ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE ENS and it had the sensational headline: Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book. This story was then duplicated hundreds of times across many websites which subscribe to the ENS, all quoting the New York Academy of Sciences as conferring authority to the wild headline. Who sent off the press release?
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The owner of ENS, Sunny Lewis, has refused to say who sent the story to her. When asked to provide information about her source whose promotion she opted to publish without question, she said that she did not have time to look into this and put the phone down. The Media Relations Officer of the New York Academy of Sciences has said, in response to an email inquiry from Caroline Webb, that she does not believe the NYAS had anything to do with it. The likelihood is that the books Consulting Editor, Janette Sherman, sent the story to ENS on behalf of the authors and herself, acting without the knowledge or endorsement of anyone at the NYAS. This is activism at work! The publicity certainly woke the world up to this book. One of the people who became aware of its existence, NYAS member and nuclear engineer Theodore Rockwell, wrote incredulously to the general email address for the Academy to check if his information was correct. Could the NYAS really have published such a book in its Annals? What, he wanted to know, were they going to do about withdrawing it? Then ensued a series of emails back and forth between Theodore Rockwell and the current Executive Editor of the Annals series, Douglas Braaten (see Correspondence file on Scribd.com link above), which eventually led to the setting up of a panel of reviewers around June 2010. Braaten said that it would take several weeks to do this review. This decision to set up a reviewer panel was taken purely as a result of consultation with the legal counsel of the NYAS, Victoria Bjorklund of Simpson Thacher and Bartlett law firm whose name appears in the frontispiece of the Annals volume. It was not a decision deemed necessary to consider before taking the book on, only after some fuss began to be madeSuch procedure reveals an abnormal science publishing process. Rockwell was then told that the process could not be hurried. Nearly two years later (April 2012) the results of any investigation into the content of this book have not been made public. Meanwhile, the volume sold out in paperback edition through WileyBlackwell, a decision was made not to print any more and another decision was taken to issue a License to the authors to do their own publication of the book, signed just a few days after the Fukushima accident occurred in March 2011. ************** LICENSE TO REPRINT AND REPUBLISH Although copyright still remains with the Academy, the NYAS took a fresh step to give special support to this work by issuing a License on March 15th, 2011, to author Dr. Alexey Yablokov. The License allows him to reprint the English version of his book and to republish it wherever he likes. We learn via a piece of copy placed on a website called Ratical.org that once the Annals paperback books were out of print, Yablokov wrote and asked for permission to do his own circulation of the book, with assistance
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from Janette Sherman and Timothy Mousseau as his agents. Some immediate questions arise about this move. How could a License have been granted if Yablokov had signed the standard Copyright Transfer Agreement issued to all Contributors to the Annals series? The CTA agreement (downloadable from the NYAS website) does not allow anyone to have unrestricted reprinting and republishing rights. Does this mean then that this author was treated differently from all other Annals contributors right from the start or does it mean that NYAS decision-makers constructed a new contract, over-ruling the CTA, once the request came in from Yablokov? Why was he given special treatment? Who took that decision and signed that contract? How could this situation arise without discussion at the Governors level? Well apparently it has, because the sequence of emails and letters contained in this Collection show that the Governors did not do any discussion about this book until after the License had been given out. There is another question about this decision to issue a License. When was it decided to issue it? Was it the day after the Fukushima nuclear accident an opportunistic decision - or was it right at the beginning of the publication process three years before? In either case, the action cuts across the process of doing a review of this book. The post-publication review has not concluded anything if it even exists. We dont know why it is taking so long. But a decision was taken to send the book out far and wide with the NYAS name attached to it, proclaimed proudly by activists to be the one and only baseline study about Chernobylwhich effectively renders any review process redundant. If the review process were to conclude that this book is unsuitable to be in the Annals because of its invalid science, its lack of due diligence, its highly emotional position and its lack of professionalism, what good would that do now? It is too late. The horse has bolted. A license to republish has been issued and the mind of the public has been profoundly influenced and manipulated in the very sensitive circumstances of a current not historical nuclear accident. The issuing of a license to allow the book to be bought for $10 as opposed to $150 casts the Academys decision to be involved in this work in a definitively political light, in our view. Not only do they take a tract created by Greenpeace in 2006 and publish it as putative science, they then proceeded to act like Greenpeace by issuing a license so that it could be distributed more widely. One has to wonder if the NYAS breached its own constitution in this action of issuing a license to republish this book... ************** UNRESTRICTED CIRCULATION OF THE NYAS DIGITAL FILE There are now to be found on the Internet two digital versions of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Environment one which bears the
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cross-hair marks that was used for printing by Wiley-Blackwell, with its names of all the Governors, policy and relevant staff people at the NYAS in its frontispiece and the name of the New York Academy of Science on the front cover - and one without these elements, released via the License process. How could the original file have been released into general circulation? Was it leaked by the authors, or by the agents for the licensed book - Sherman and Mousseau - who must have been sent it so that it could be amended for new printing? Or was it leaked directly from someone at the NYAS, or someone working at Wiley-Blackwell or someone from Greko Printing which is now printing the version under License as a print on demand book? We shall probably never know. But it has been let loose and now appears for free download on an antinuclear website in Germany (http://www.strahlentelex.de) and probably others that remain to be found. It also appears several times on the website Scribd.com. Doing a Search for chernobyl + new york academy of sciences brings up about six results on Scribd.com alone. These are all illegal copies of the book. Meanwhile, the amended file, without the names of the NYAS Governors and staff, and a notification about the license at the front of the book, has been widely distributed across hundreds of websites for free download and it is also possible to buy the book for $10 direct from the printer Greko Printing or through Janette Shermans personal website. Does the NYAS care about this or is it all grist for the mill and a tacit part of the game plan in having taken this book on? No other Annals volume is in this grubby situation. You will not find copies of the other Annals books being circulated uncontrollably on the Internet. This volume with its wild claims and its non-scientific nature and motivation stands apart from all other production by the Annals Department. Why? *************** TROUBLING QUESTIONS Stepping back to take a wider view, the questions become yet more troubling. Does this whole story derive from an unspoken conviction present in NYAS leadership that nuclear energy should be eliminated as an energy source for the world? i.e., that the ground for taking on this project was fertile from long before this books appearance? Was the decision to publish and to allow a license actually driven by the same opinion and political leaning that galvanizes Greenpeace rather than by the quest for knowledge in the normal scientific way? Has the NYAS been used by its own officers in order to confer academic credibility on Greenpeace? This has clearly been achieved in the eyes of some people but it could not have been accomplished without the will inside the NYAS to allow it to happen. The door has been opened with ease, it seems. These questions are being asked because to date there has been a wholly inadequate set of statements made by the NYAS in response to queries. Meanwhile their actions are
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showing plenty of political results but virtually no academic results. The Chernobyl Consequences book has received scant attention from the academic world and is barely cited. The books real role is revealed when we look at how it is being used by political activists to claim academic credibility for their ideas e.g. Helen Caldicott, Amory Lovins, Arnie Gundersen, Hunter Lovins, Chris Busby, Karl Grossman, Harvey Wasserman, Rosalie Bertell, Joanna Macy, film stars Christie Brinkley and Alec Baldwin and many other less well-known figures. These people find the Chernobyl Annals Volume useful to cite, to puff up their own standing as public speakers and writers claiming to know what they are talking about. But the citation is a sham. And very dangerous. In Japan, people are being falsely told that hundreds of thousands of them will die because of the nuclear accident. Using the NYAS-published book as their bogus authority, these people stir the cauldron of fear and anxiety that finally ends up being full-blown radiophobia in some people, a psychological condition as serious as any other phobia that inhibits normal life and reasonable judgments. The activists who are out stirring fear in the Japanese people, both Japanese and foreigner activists, explicitly quote the book about Chernobyl published at the NYAS, using it to add faux weight to their pronouncements. They are making statements to the public that have no scientific validity and very obviously exploiting the authority of the NYAS, yet those responsible at the Academy apparently have no qualms about it indeed they decisively enabled such behavior through the issuing of a license to republish. This is very disturbing. The NYAS was surely conscious that this might happen when they first accepted this project. But can such be faced openly? The use of this book to create harm in society, to harm innocent people in Japan and elsewhere has nothing to do with the Academy, they say, because as science publishers The NYAS does not take responsibility for or necessarily endorse the opinions of their authors. That position works, morally and intellectually in most book publishing decisions, except when it comes to publishing a book that is not based on valid scholarship recognized in the professional scientific community. Nor does it work when it comes to issuing a license to Yablokov to republish the work. The NYAS decision-makers are now far out on a limb with regard to propriety in science publishing. But in common with the fundamentalism which informs a book that uses the idea of catastrophe to justify wild claims of a million people dying as a result of the accident at Chernobyl, the individuals with direct responsibility at the NYAS seem blind to the consequences of their own actions. They will be the last to acknowledge any wrong-doing and it will take the pressure of potential public disgrace to reach that point. Alas.

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As proof that the authors of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Environment are biased individuals, swayed by a powerful emotion of outrage about the accident and bent on defying the science done about it by UN agencies and many other scientists and institutions, the book explicitly rejects the scientific method. In the Introduction to this book and on other pages throughout the text - they write that the conventional way of analyzing data concerning sickness and radionuclides is scientifically invalid. Arguing from the belief that many hundreds of thousands of deaths lets just call it a neat, headline-catching ONE MILLION - may legitimately be attributed to the Chernobyl accident, they then attempt to rewrite science! Professional radiologists are doing invalid science when they insist on various protocols for handling data because look how many people have died since the accident and how many have been ill! Professional radiologists must be mistaken! It is the cry of delusion. Aside from the key point that more medical screening of people produces growth curves of many diseases in the last few decades, the protocols denounced by Dr. Yablokov (scientifically qualified in marine biology) have been born from the hardwon experience by researchers into radiation and biology stretching back more than 100 years. But acknowledging peer-reviewed, reality-tested work in a challenging field of research is dismissed by Dr. Yablokov, by Dr. Mousseau, by Janette Sherman and de facto, by the New York Academy of Sciences through the action of placing their name in association with these ideas. Instead, the authors sloppily argue that because such matters as determining dose level before drawing conclusions about morbidity and mortality is (they claim) impossible, they are therefore justified in using their own methodology which provides them with what they feel is the correct number of deaths and illness rates a methodology that also arbitrarily adds many illnesses not associated with radiation, thus ramping up numbers in a wholly ad hoc way. This kind of work belongs in the field of science fiction or scientific fraud - not science. That the NYAS accepted it is in contravention of every principle that they are supposed to embody. Added to this denial of scientific procedure and the knowledge held in the disciplines concerned with radiation and biology, the authors also engage in defamation of reputable people. They explicitly allege in this text that scientists working for the World Health Organization, for the United Nations Scientific Committee on Effects of Atomic Radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency and a host of other UN and Governmental organizations as well as non-Government groups such as the Red Cross are people without integrity, being paid or influenced by the nuclear power industry to cover up the truth to lie, in other words. Quoting a 1959 Agreement between the WHO and the IAEA as proof of this nightmare conspiracy at work, these authors and their supporters expect the reader to accept their claims of highly immoral motives by all other scientists whose work contradicts their own concoctions. It is a fantastic idea, born of the chaos and fears at
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the time of the Chernobyl accident. While no one would agree that the withholding of information and data by the former USSR Government was proper practice, the claim today about a dark ongoing conspiracy to deny the public the truth about health and radiation challenges all reason and evidence. Conspiracy thinking is the hallmark of anti-nuclear thought, as any study of their literature will quickly show. Conspiracy thinking is not appropriate for any Academy of Science to have anything to do with, much less put out in print. The authors charge the UN scientists with ignoring and downplaying what they assert to be the true effects from the accident, implying that only they have moral standing worthy of respect, only they have powers of analysis to know what is true about Chernobyl effects. This is from people who believe that nothing about radiation is safe (witness the hundreds of times the word dangerous is used in this book) despite the world being awash in low-level radioactivity, despite people ingesting radioactive particles every day in their food and water little different from what is being ingested around Chernobyl, and despite levels of radioactivity in most of the areas affected by radionuclides from Chernobyl being much lower than in places like Finland, not to mention really high natural radiation areas in Iran, Brazil, India and China, Colorado and other parts of western USA, where we do not find higher incidence of any diseases, cancers, lowered immune systems etc. Unfortunately, the New York Academy of Sciences accepted Yablokov et als unscientific thinking and argument. Instead of being cautious and suggesting that this book be handled by another publisher, the NYAS opted to give their name and authority to people who are not recognized as professionals in the radiological community and who exploit the name of the Academy as a political weapon to fight nuclear energy. It is unaccountable, a true mystery that only an official independent inquiry will solve. The website of the NYAS says: We are committed to publishing scientific content deemed valid by the general scientific community. (April 28, 2010 posting on the NYAS website after the deluge of internet articles with the title Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book). One has to ask who is being referred to as the general scientific community. This statement appears to be trying to hold up a position that says: Because some people in the medical profession in the Ukraine and Belarus (the position of medical professionals in Russia is less clear) are attributing illness and deaths to radiation independently of people who are highly trained in radiation and health, this justifies putting their ideas into the Annals of the Academy. Someone at the NYAS thinks that the contributors of the material put forth in this book have the standing of scientists in the accepted sense of the word but are they correct and did they ever look into the identity of the contributors quoted by Dr. Yablokov, based on his research while paid by Greenpeace International?
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Many reports used in the construction of this book come from doctors in the region. Unfortunately, before deciding to take this book on, no one at the NYAS investigated if medical doctors in the areas concerned have received any training in radiation and biology. They have not! Did the person/s responsible for taking on this work even imagine asking such an elementary question as this about the curriculum followed by people studying to be doctors in this part of the world? Apparently not. To accept amateur-level reports as worthy for publication in defiance of the real science done by the various UN scientists and others who submit their work to peer-reviewed Journals can only be understood to have happened because of a misplaced attribution of credibility to those involved in this book in the mind of the person/s who jumped at the idea of putting this work into the Annals series of serious science books. Thus, so long as the NYAS tries to support the unsupportable, using the feeble claim that because some people want what they want to be true about nature and radiation, in 100% defiance of the science of radiobiology, the New York Academy of Science is in profound error. No amount of talk about publishing content deemed valid by the general science community can prevent this conclusion being drawn. The claim of this work being deemed valid by anyone in the peer-reviewed, rigorous, adequately trained scientific community is a delusion. If it were deemed valid, the list of citations in the professional literature would of course reflect that judgment. No such endorsement exists as any check on the Internet will attest. Google Books, for instance, will only tell you that they have found no Review of this book in the usual places ************** CALL FOR FORMAL INVESTIGATION AND ACTION Does this story at the New York Academy of Sciences show incompetence, naivety, collusion with anti-nuclear ambitions, or all three? The question naturally arises for anyone who takes time to read about it. The problem is that if the name of the Academy has been misused in the way that it appears it has (i.e., for political goals) then this would mean that the constitution of the organization has been breached and compromised by its own officers. The members of the Academy and the general public are therefore owed an explanation and need to see some action. The situation should be investigated, using qualified people external to the Academy to look at the records and make inquiries. Annals Volume 1181 should be withdrawn from the Annals Series. No one cares about a jump in the numbering of the Annals, contrary to the view of CEO Ellis Rubinstein expressed in an email to Theodore Rockwell. They care about the content and reliability of the Annals publications and they care about the reputation of the New York Academy of Sciences. Lastly, to show that the error has been fully addressed as far as they are capable of doing, the License to republish should be revoked.
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These strong moves would show that due consideration has been given to the matter and that the will exists to restore the good name of the New York Academy of Sciences. When people can no longer find this work on the website of the Academy at least some of the oxygen available to those who irresponsibly create unwarranted fear in the public will vanish. It is the right thing to do for humanity and for science. And it will help to ensure that high standards at all other similar bodies the many Academies of Science around the world are maintained.

http://www.scribd.com/collections/3229384/Chernobyl-and-the-New-York-Academyof-Sciences Caroline Webb. September 4, 2011 April 16, 2012

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