Chernobyl blast may have killed 1000 British babies

[struggle4progress]

<snip> Analysis of health statistics in areas where "black rain" clouds passed over in the wake of the Soviet reactor blast suggest a "shock" trend that has gone unnoticed for 20 years, a conference at London's City Hall was due to be told.

Epidemiologist and statistician John Urquhart claims that maps of where the fallout passed and plans highlighting apparent irregularities in death figures show a "remarkable fit".

Looking at health figures for around 200 hospital districts, Mr Urquhart said there was an 11 per cent rise in infant deaths between 1986 and 1989 as opposed to a figure of just four per cent in non-affected areas. <snip>

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=456532006


Chernobyl link to city baby deaths Mar 24 2006
By Kate Mansey Daily Post Staff

<snip> Leading statistician John Urquhart said the plumes of radiation that travelled across Europe after the 1986 catastrophe caused a 60% rise in the numbers of Liverpool babies who died before their first birthday.

In the early 1980s, the numbers of infant deaths in Liverpool were stable at around 50 each year.

After the tragedy, there were 83 deaths recorded for 1986 - up from 59 the previous year. <snip>

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16856553&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=chernobyl-link-to-city-baby-deaths-name_page.html

[Dead_Parrot]

1. I wonder why this got dug up?

Urquhart's claims - made some years ago, BTW - were found to be very questionable, partly because no other cause (like a virus) could be ruled out, but mainly because he found rises in infant mortality in areas that the Chernobyl plume didn't reach - Including Bristol. He seems to have dropped the SW Thames region in this incarnation of the report, which is another place where he pinned deaths on non-existant radiation.

I smell fear-mongering, but have no doubt this will be bounced around the internet for the next week or so without anyone actually looking into it.

[struggle4progress]

3. The sources here indicate he has a new paper to present on the subject.

So the accuracy of your assertion, that this simply reflects some prior claims, is unclear to me.

Radioactivity from Chernobyl was measured worldwide -- there's hardly anywhere that "the Chernobyl plume didn't reach" though of course local exposures will depend on a variety of factors.

If you have any links that specifically address Urquhart's methodology, of course, you're welcome to post them.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. You could start here

Here's his original version: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2458.html
or if you have an NS subcription: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17423490.600.html

Here's an interesting letter to NS in response: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17523524.100.html
And a BBC article questioning it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2068342.stm.

All from 2002: Quite how this would qualify as a "new paper" eludes me.

Most of it I remember from newspapers at the time, but I'm sure you could google something up. I'll have a go later if you don't get anywhere. :)

[struggle4progress]

9. None of this appears to support your claims that Urquhart's work ..

.. has been debunked or that there's nothing new to report.

I do not know whether Clark's claim (in your BBC link), that ".. studies .. even in Ukraine itself, have found no link between the disaster and infant mortality. There have been other health effects in Ukraine, such as an increase in thyroid cancers, but not infant mortality," is correct.

But yesterday's Guardian quotes "Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine" as saying "We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,,1739339,00.html

So perhaps Urquhart isn't so obviously wrong ...

[Dead_Parrot]

13. "Debunked" isn't a word I'd use...

"Questionable" is a better one. As I originally stated, Urquhart found increases in mortality outside of the fall-out zone (And yes, there was a marked difference between the south of England and North England/Scotland) and failed to find any evidence linking his figures to radiation: An outbreak of any mild virus will wreak havoc in a maternity hospital, especially in an overstreached health service: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/hsq/HSQ27infant_deaths.pdf contains lots of 10% anomolies - See how many you can link to Chernobyl.

The Granuiad report on the Ukraine is a differnt matter: Omelyanets and the WHO are giving two contradictory statements, so toss a coin... Certainly it seems more plausible than babies dropping dead in SW London, but since I'm still looking into that, I'm letting it pass without comment for now.

[struggle4progress]

28. Can you support your claim, that there is nothing new here, or not?

[Dead_Parrot]

31. Christ almighty...

read the links from 2002 and 2006 and explain what is new about it.

[struggle4progress]

36. But elsewhere you're complaining about a change you say he made.

If he made a change you're complaining about, then your complaint there's nothing new here is incoherent.

[Dead_Parrot]

37. he's drawn the same conclusions

But is now missing out the more contentious data. It's the same damn report with whiteout over some of the crap data.

[struggle4progress]

49. And again no supporting link or other evidence to bolster your claim. eom

[Dead_Parrot]

55. WTF are you talking about?

The press releases are practically identical. Perhaps you can point us in the direction of the "new" paper?

[struggle4progress]

63. What? No link to the press releases you are "practically identical"?

[Dead_Parrot]

70. Let me tell you a story

I used to post a bit on www.evcforum.net, where people with the time and patience attempt to spoon-feed creationists with a smattering of basic physics, chemistry, biology and math. It was hard work, because rather than make any attempt to educate themselves they would expect to have everything explained to them, in full, whenever there was something that required logical thinking.

At first I used to think this was due to some deep-rooted desire to have all the facts, but as the questions got more and more surreal, I decided that they just stupid. Eventually I realised the truth was, that these people were so convinced they were right, and that their own view of the world so precious to them, that they couldn't handle any aspect of reality which impinged on it. The "Prove It!"s were a psychological defense: In their mind, if the poor sap arguing was either stumped on a subject ("Please provide a link to the precise chemical structure of the first PNA strand"), or simply gave up in fear of their own sanity ("I linked to that information in post 435... oh fuck it, I give up"), they could be sure that the Earth really was 6000 years old, because it hadn't been "proved" otherwise.

Creationists don't make good thinkers, as a rule: You won't find them reading books (other than the Bible), preferring to get their information from a collection of whack-job websites, whose arguments they reel off, with increasing surrealism, at the drop of a hat.

I stopped posting at EVC - for the moment, anyway - for two reasons: Firstly, I don't have the patience for that sort of pointless argument; secondly because the rest of us know what's actually happening. Reality is here for anyone to look at: Whether they choose to do so, or choose to get their information from another whack-job, is their problem, not mine.

Besides, in the US, you're allowed to believe whatever you you like, however detached it is from reality. And who am I to take away that right?

[Nihil]

73. *Ting*

> Besides, in the US, you're allowed to believe whatever you you like,
> however detached it is from reality.

Shame that this approach has now been adopted as official policy though.

[Dead_Parrot]

74. Tell that to the Whitehouse...

*Sigh*

[struggle4progress]

8. Urquhart appears to publish in standard journals such as Lancet and BMJ

so perhaps your charge of "fear-mongering" is not really adequate as response ...

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Jan Hendrik Schön

...Published in science and Nature, for some time, before it was realised he was making stuff up. I am not, however, launching into a full ad-hominem agaisnt Urquhart - Outside of this report, I know nothing about him, and I'm sure he does a lot of sterling work. This particular report, however, seems to be flawed in a number of ways, and I am not alone in thinking this.

A measured response to the criticisms would have been much more useful than a regurgitated version with the data trimmed to match the conclusions. It is not a good way to do science, but it is an excellent way to stir up fear.

[struggle4progress]

11. The relevance of the fraud Schon is unclear. Are you suggesting

.. I should cancel my subscription to Science?

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Certainly not...

Merely pointing out that being published is not proof positive of accuracy. If it was, we'd all be reading the Bible in science classes...

Oh wait... :(

[struggle4progress]

12. You have evidence Urquhart "data trimmed to match the conclusions"?

[Dead_Parrot]

15. Merely noting SW Thames' disappearance

since the last publication and criticisms of it. If it's relevant, leave it in: If it's not, why was it there in the first place?

I've studied enough stats to know that tweaking your base sample can yield almost any result you want.

[struggle4progress]

19. So is your objection that you believe he eliminated from his study ..

.. a region which you say could not have been impacted by Chernobyl -- or that he has done nothing different than was reported in 2002?

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Basically, yes.

see post 20: There is no sign of any increase taken over the whole of Scotland (which got a bigger dose than England). Any increase Urquart is "finding" is either down to the extraordinary bad luck of happening to choose samples that happen to have increased mortality for other reasons, or of milling the figures to say what he wants them to.

[struggle4progress]

24. Question required choice, could not be coherently answered "Yes."

If you want complain that he should not have included an area earlier, it is a bit much to complain next that he no longer includes it ...

[Dead_Parrot]

30. Yes to both

read the links.

Edit: ALL the links in this thread, just to spell it out.

[struggle4progress]

27. Apparently you have no evidence he trimmed data to match his conclusion.

[Dead_Parrot]

32. So where is SW thames?

:shrug:

[Dead_Parrot]

20. This is interesting...

Infant mortality rates for Scotland, 1950-2000

If there's a 10% hike, I can't see it. There may have been a 10% hike for some areas, but there would have to be a corresponding 10% drop in others to match it.

Urquhart is, shall we say, "mistaken".

[Dead_Parrot]

22. As an aside...

One may question why Urquhart is using sample-based statistics in the first place.

Since the UK has both a high level of bureaucracy and a high technology level, there is no reason to be taking samples for analysis since the entire data is available from NHS & Home Office databases. This is, obviously, more useful for analysis than picking away at individual datasets. The data may not be publicly available, but one might expect a "Leading statistician" to have access.

Just saying.

[struggle4progress]

23. Provide a link if you want to fuss about details. As far as I can tell,

he used available data and treated rainfall as a surrogate for washout:

... epidemiologist John Urquhart told the .. conference in London on Thursday .. he had found an "almost perfect correlation" between areas where rain from radioactive clouds fell, and an .. increase in infant deaths. Nationwide averages have .. masked the regional increases in infant death rates. But .. seen in conjunction with a .. fallout map based on meteorological data, a different picture emerges, he said. The researcher obtained infant death figures from 1983 to 1992 for 200 hospital districts across England and Wales. He found .. increases in infant deaths following the accident, which happened on 26 April 1986, in areas where .. rain brought .. fallout onto the ground. One such .. plume started on the Isle of Wight, a second clipped the coast of Kent, another spread out east of London ... "For example, the whole of Yorkshire is virtually clear and shows an infant death excess of 0% whereas in the radioactive area of the far west, Bradford, infant deaths in 1986 rose by 60% over previous years," he said ...
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=456532006

[Dead_Parrot]

25. "Fuss about details"?!

Did you see the data in post #20?

"Nationwide averages have .. masked the regional increases in infant death rates"

What utter bollocks.

So, a regional difference is down to radiation if it's in one direction, and just chance if it's in another? I'm sorry, but if you can't tell that's bullshit you have credibility at all.

[struggle4progress]

26. Again, provide a link if you want to fuss at this level. Your claim ..

.. that Urquhart attributes "a regional difference .. to radiation if it's in one direction, and just chance if it's in another" appears speculative at best. I don't know whether your claim is true or not, but if you want to make the claim, you should back it up.

Similarly, if you want to assert that Urquhart is only sampling the regional data, when complete data sets are available, then I say you should back up your claim.

[Dead_Parrot]

29. FFS, read post #20 and follow the link

The data shows no overall trend during that time period, apart from a slow downwards one. If there are regional deviations of +11% in Urqurats data, there must be differences of -11% elsewhere to balance it

This is elementary maths. If you think it's "speculative at best", I suggest going back to 3rd grade.

As for Urquarts's use of sampled data, He says so himself. Read your own links, even if you won't read mine.

Data for Births, Mariages and deaths is availible for all entries since 1837. Use Google.

Is there anything else you'd like me to prove? That the earth is round? That the sky is blue? That you're swallowing bullshit without using your brain?

[struggle4progress]

38. Your statistical reasoning is erroneous: your claim that

"If there are regional deviations of +11% in Urqurats data, there must be differences of -11% elsewhere to balance it" is easily shown to be wrong.

Suppose, for example, (1) there are N equal-sized districts with identical mortality rates r, (2) the death rate in one increases to u*r (with u > 1), and (3) the death rates in all the others decrease to d*r (with d < 1), so that (4) the overall death rate in the combined region remains the same. It's then an easy exercise to work out d in terms of N and r, and if you inspect the result you will see that if N is moderately large and r moderately small, u can become much greater than 1 while d remains nearly 1. The underlying fact, of course, is that a large increase in mortality rate in one district need not have much impact on the overall mortality rate for the combined region: at the combined level, it simply disappears into statistical noise.

So the nice combined country graphs, that you point to, aren't really very informative ...

[Dead_Parrot]

41. I'm sorry...

I kept it simple on the grounds that you didn't understand. Since you do, can you explain the fall in mortality rates for the non-sampled areas?

[struggle4progress]

44. Really? "Go back to 3rd grade" is "keeping it simple" to help me ..

.. understand?

Thanx fer explainin that, cuz I mighta thought ya tried to shovel a big load widda genrus toppin of insult and instead got caught ...

[Dead_Parrot]

45. Very nice

Now answer the question.

[struggle4progress]

39. Your claim seems unsupported by any link. Again, care to post one ..

.. or point out which link contains your claim? I don't think it's there.

[Dead_Parrot]

42. Which claim? nt

[struggle4progress]

43. Urquhart attributes "a regional difference .. to radiation if it's in one

direction, and just chance if it's in another," say.

Your track record on backing up your accusations is unimpressive so far ...

[Dead_Parrot]

46. ROFL

Now that's comedy.

You want me to provide a link to proove something didn't happen, otherwise you believe it did? They must love you in the local churches. The graphs linked to on post post 20 indicate that nothing happened. It's up to you to demonstrate anything different.

[struggle4progress]

47. I ask for a link for your claim in #25 that Urquhart attributes ..

"a regional difference ..radiation if it's in one direction and just chance if it's in another."

You don't like backing up your assertions?

[Dead_Parrot]

56. That is what HE is saying

Have you actually read his paper(s)?

[struggle4progress]

64. Link?

[struggle4progress]

48. You're again making the statistical error I addressed in #38.

[JohnWxy]

71. FORGET URQUHART - EVALUATE THIS!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x47299


UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths

"In the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles west of Chernobyl, doctors say they are coming across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations. "In the 30 hospitals of our region we find that up to 30% of people who were in highly radiated areas have physical disorders, including heart and blood diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases. Nearly one in three of all the newborn babies have deformities, mostly internal," said Alexander Vewremchuk, of the Special Hospital for the Radiological Protection of the Population in Vilne.

Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were received by the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts all over the Soviet Union." <snip>

[struggle4progress]

50. Or how about your "sample-based statistics" claim in #22?

[Dead_Parrot]

57. May I sugest you study statistics? nt

[struggle4progress]

65. Still no link.

[struggle4progress]

51. Or maybe your claim in #28 that there's nothing new here?

[Dead_Parrot]

58. see #55. nt

[struggle4progress]

66. You can't provide a link?

[struggle4progress]

52. Or your claim in #10 that Urquhart "data trimmed to match the conclusions"

[Dead_Parrot]

59. So again I ask, where is SW Thames? nt

[struggle4progress]

67. Can't find a link yet?

[struggle4progress]

53. Or claim in #38 of a "fall in mortality rates for the non-sampled areas."

[Dead_Parrot]

60. Again, that's pretty basic math. nt

[struggle4progress]

68. What a cop-out! No link in sight yet.

[struggle4progress]

54. I'm startin to wonder if ya kin back up ANY of yer claims ... eom

[Dead_Parrot]

61. I'm not making any claims...

...I'm looking at a near-flat mortality rate and saying nothing happened.

You're making claims. And not doing a very good job of it.

I give up. Anyone else reading this piss-poor thread will already have worked it out: I don't think there's anything I can do to help you, though.

[struggle4progress]

69. Yawn.

[NNadir]

2. That's nothing.

According to statistics by Ernest Sternglass, the invention of nuclear power wiped out Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

I was raised there, and died as a baby myself, so I would know.

One of the interesting things about the claim of these newspaper reports is that if the case were actually true, which by the way is probably not the case, if only 11,000 more people died, the affair would have matched the London fog crisis of 1952, where 12,000 people died from coal smoke in 3 or 4 days.

http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session4/27/greatsmog52.htm

If only 34,000 more people died, it would have matched the death toll from the 2003 heat wave in Europe.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update29.htm

If only the entire population of Kiev were wiped out by Chernobyl, we could match the annual total of people killed worldwide by air-pollution.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update17.htm

Of course these better documented deaths don't count because first of all, they don't include the conditional may, oh and because they don't involve dramatic radiation accidents but are more or less attributable to normal operations, and because they don't prove that nuclear power must be 100% perfect while any other energy technology can kill and random in vast numbers with no consideration from anybody.

Of course, no babies are killed in fossil fuel events - air pollution doesn't harm babies, and fossil fuel wars don't hurt babies and the statistics aren't worth the bother. Mercury doesn't harm babies either, does it?

The 3,000,000 children described here as being "at risk" don't count because it doesn't involve Chernobyl, and Chernobyl is a very sexy place to use the word "death." It's even better if you can say, "baby," deaths.

Power plant pollution cuts short the lives of more than one thousand New Yorkers each year
EPA's own consultants estimate that fine particle pollution from power plants shortens the lives of 1,212 New Yorkers every year. Fine particle pollution from power plants also causes 164,612 lost work days, 1,191 hospitalizations, and 28,665 asthma attacks every year, 829 of which are so severe they require emergency room visits.

Leads to lung cancer and heart attacks
A recent scientific study by researchers affiliated with the American Cancer Society found that people living in the most polluted cities have approximately a 12 percent increased risk of cardiopulmonary death over those living in the cleanest areas of the country. Similarly, for lung cancer, there is approximately a 16 percent increased risk for those living in the more polluted cities. Based on EPA data, each year, 129 lung cancer deaths and 2,445 heart attacks in New York are attributable to power plant pollution.

Children at risk
Children are the most susceptible to the detrimental effects posed by power plant air pollution. In New York, 3,199,588 children live within 30 miles of a power plant, the area in which the greatest health impacts are felt. Additionally, researchers have found that infants in areas with high levels of particulate matter pollution face a 26 percent increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and a 40 percent increased risk of respiratory death.

I am so glad to learn that even though nuclear power is safer than all of its alternatives - we can still get great mileage pushing us further and further and further to the edge of the precipice by insisting that nuclear power, alone among forms of energy, must be perfect in the mind of hack reporter before people stop pretending that death is better than nuclear power.

I have a great idea. Let's attribute every death in Europe to Chernobyl. This way we can prevent more pollution in Europe. It works like this: We ban nuclear power, the thermohaline cycle collapses, the atmosphere collapses, agriculture collapses, Europe's population collapses in famine and voila, no people, no pollution.


:eyes:

[struggle4progress]

4. Do you have a link to the statistics you allege from Sternglass?

Or are you perhaps simply misrepresenting whatever he actually asserted?

[NNadir]

6. Actually I am mocking Sternglass.

It's easy to do. He's an idiot.

But since we're doing statistics, can you give me a form of energy that produces on an exajoule scale, is scalable, and kills fewer people than the 9,000,000,000,000 people you claim died from Chernobyl?

[struggle4progress]

7. Where did I claim 9,000,000,000,000 people .. died from Chernobyl"?

"9,000,000,000,000 people .. died from Chernobyl"?

[NNadir]

16. Did I say 9,000,000,000,000?

I lose track of all the made up numbers about Chernobyl, to tell the truth.

Maybe it was 3,000,000,000,000?

To tell you the truth, when you cruise internet "news" stories on the subject the numbers vary fantastically: Thousand (cute and blond presumably) babies here, 500,000 there, everyone in Europe here, all of Scotland there, it's real hard to keep track.

For the record, I really don't keep track of the numbers you make up. I really don't care. I only note that if the entire nation of Bangladesh goes under water, you won't care, just as you don't give a rat's ass about air pollution, coal miners, oil war victims or any other victims of fossil fuels.

You seem to think that we should be impressed because you say "Chernobyl," because you think that because you choose to think in isolated terms, everyone else should think as poorly.

The fact is that Chernobyl - the operation of a reactor type that will never be built again under operating procedures that will never be used again - is the only fatal nuclear accident resulting from the inventory of fission products in the 50 year history of commercial nuclear power. In order to be comparable to combustion derived energy including biomass burning, nuclear power would have had to killed tens of millions of people.

My contention is simply this: There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy.

The lie of the anti-nuclear irrational crusade is that nuclear energy must be risk free, while every other form of energy can kill indiscriminately without comment. I ridicule that idea on the grounds it is immoral.

The risk of nuclear power has been carefully compared with its alternatives - the main alternatives being fuels that can be continuously used, which is essentially fossil fuels. Nuclear power - including Chernobyl and all the distractable imaginary bullshit - is safer than any known form of energy. This does not mean it is harmless, just that its safer.

[struggle4progress]

17. #6: "the 9,000,000,000,000 people you claim died"

[struggle4progress]

18. Where did I make up numbers?

You write, "I really don't keep track of the numbers you make up."

I simply quoted from some standard news sources ...

[NNadir]

33. And so let's hear it: Are the "standard news sources"...

right?

"Standard News Sources" reported that "Saddam Hussein" had weapons of mass destruction. They took the whole matter very seriously. I recall it very well.

The reporters from the Guardian are claiming that the UN report, the work of hundreds of scientists, replete with lots of scientific references is a fraud. (See the absurd "500,000 dead" thread).

That's a pretty dramatic claim, especially since the reporter from the Guardian doesn't compare the alleged figures with deaths from any other source of energy, not coal, not oil, not renewables. The UN report, of course, is available on line, and runs some 250 pages, referenced throughout: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/pdfs/EGE_Report.pdf. It's hardly so glib throwing around huge "shock and awe" numbers.

But let's cut to the chase. How many people do you think did die from Chernobyl or would you rather just say that the number of deaths is determined by the newspaper link du jour, whatever raises the most visceral fear? Do we hide behind the reporters credibility, or do we engage in critical thinking? Do we have to take every anecedotal report of facilities flooded with human mutants so seriously? No caveats?

Let's go further: How many more Chernobyls do you claim will happen, and why will the technical lessons learned at Chernobyl not prevent them? Finally, compare these tragedies that you predict with the outcome of global climate change.

[struggle4progress]

40. I think you should stop claiming I said things that I didn't say. eom

[NNadir]

62. And I think you, besides repeating every dubious claim about Chernobyl

should work on developing enough subtlety of thought to recognize sarcasm.

The matter of global climate change will not be addressed through hysteria or the spreading of hysteria.

[JohnWxy]

72. FORGET URQUHART, EVALUATE 500,000 DEATHS - OBVIOUS FANTASY RIGHT?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x47299


In the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles west of Chernobyl, doctors say they are coming across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations. "In the 30 hospitals of our region we find that up to 30% of people who were in highly radiated areas have physical disorders, including heart and blood diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases. Nearly one in three of all the newborn babies have deformities, mostly internal," said Alexander Vewremchuk, of the Special Hospital for the Radiological Protection of the Population in Vilne.

Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were received by the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts all over the Soviet Union. <snip>

[Dogmudgeon]

34. Has anyone tracked down the report?

I've followed several of the links, and none of them I've seen lead to the actual journal article. And the brief press release style reports raise more questions than they answer -- what's with the "black rain", for instance? And if the prevailing winds are west to east, how did the irradiated particles keep in a fairly tight cluster? These factors could also implicate climate anomalies that are starting to show up -- in this case, as long as twenty years ago.

It's a safe bet to assume that adverse reactor incidents are Bad Things, but black rain and human deaths are serious enough to command journal publications. And also note, I'm NOT trying to start a "citation war". I have no intention of flaming you, or anyone else, for lacking the much-coveted Peer Reviewed Article. I would like to read these results.

Considering the large number of open-air nuclear tests between 1945 and 1960, including the extremely "dirty" ground and water bursts, I'm not going to panic yet over Chernobyl. But it would still be helpful to try to dig up the original, rather than to leave this as an (scientifically) undocumented scary story.

Anybody?

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

35. The original is linked from post 5

But subscription only. You'd have to track down a library that carries NS to get it for free, ASAIK.

If there's a new one, I haven't seen it.