Chernobyl deaths could number 500,000

[struggle4progress]

DEATH TOLL: While the IAEA and WHO claim 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the Chernobyl disaster, leading scientists and doctors say the total could be 500,000

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Sunday, Mar 26, 2006,Page 6

UN nuclear and health watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other conditions following the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in the run-up to the nuclear disaster's 20th anniversary next month.

In a series of reports about to be published, they will suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people may have already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe. <snip>

Evgenia Stepanova, of the Ukrainian government's Scientific Center for Radiation Medicine, said: "We're overwhelmed by thyroid cancers, leukaemias and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which were practically unknown 20 years ago." <snip>

In the Rivne region of Ukraine, 500km west of Chernobyl, doctors say that they are coming across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations. "In the 30 hospitals of our region we find that up to 30 percent 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 new born babies have deformities, mostly internal," said Alexander Vewremchuk, of the Special Hospital for the Radiological Protection of the Population in Vilne. <snip>

<edit:> http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/03/26/2003299311

[HockeyMom]

1. I work with a woman who is from Chernobyl

She was a preteen when this happened. Her family came to the States not long after. She doesn't speak about it much, other than to say it was chaos. Although she doesn't appear to be in ill health, she has opened stated that she and her husband, an MD, have decided never to have children because of the risks of her exposure as a child. They are looking into adoption now.

[struggle4progress]

2. An interesting, if seldom-addressed, aspect of Chernobyl is the ..

.. "political fallout." I've heard informed people speculate that Chernobyl, and the government cover-up, tipped a solid majority in the USSR against the government there and contributed to the political break-up ...