New Book Concludes: Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Book-Concludes-Cherno-by-Karl-Grossman-100902-941.html

This past April 26th marked the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. It came as the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear government officials in the United States and other nations were trying to "revive" nuclear power. And it followed the publication of a book, the most comprehensive study ever made, on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences. It is authored by three noted scientists:
Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president; Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long-involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.


The book is solidly based--on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports--some 5,000 in all.


It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of theChernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.


The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency--still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is underestimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.


MORE at the link ---

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Just remember 2 things about nuclear power:

1) Nuclear is the safest form of power.
2)Chernobyl can't happen here because private industry always puts public safety first.

[kristopher]

3. #2 convinces me...

:sarcasm:

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. American private enterprise would never permit that many casualties.

Due to the naturally benificent effects of competition in the free market, our industries are far ahead of the Russians in the technology of coverups and data falsification.

[hunter]

2. Brain eating zombies everywhere.

Chenobyl changed EVERYTHING!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. opednews.

Shit tier news source.

[kristopher]

6. It was the New York Academy of Sciences that published the research...

And that is one of most prestigious scientific journals in the world.

[Donnachaidh]

7. that doesn't matter to some people

:shrug:

[hunter]

8. In the USA a similar number of people have been killed by automobiles in the same time period.

The automobile statistics are solid, the numbers in this book, not so much.

Chernobyl was bad for people, bad for the environment. Automobiles are worse. Coal is worse.

Modern nuclear power plants are not Chernobyl; it's an apple and oranges sort of comparison, so you may as well compare automobiles to Chernobyl.

On my list of technological rottenness, coal and automobiles are a far greater danger to society and the natural environment than nuclear power plants. If I was dictator of the world I'd outlaw both personal automobiles and coal mining even if it meant replacing coal power plants with modern nuclear plants.

[kristopher]

9. Why do nuclear supporters always try to avoid responsibility?

Nuclear power is a way of producing power with attached high consequence/low probability risks. You want to focus exclusively on the low probability while ignoring or poo-pooing the high consequence side of the equation. Renewables have the ability to deliver all the power we need with NONE of the risks of nuclear; no nuclear proliferation concerns, no unmanageable waste streams, no potential failures with Chernobyl scale consequences.

Also - your appeal to loss of life from automobiles is classic diversion since it has nothing to do with the safety issue surrounding where we get our energy.

[meow mix]

10. and such refusal is a key component of thier eventual failure, everytime.

referring to the over-confident recklessness. such fools.

[WinkyDink]

11. Cars do not contaminate soil for decades. I grew up in coal country, PA, and we

aren't dropping from cancers (some miner-relatives collect black lung, but they are in their 80's, too).

It is true that strip-mining does just that.

But I never was told that I might need to evacuate East, as I was by the state when "Three-Mile Island" occurred.

I'm sure everything is ever so much safer today.