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Edited on Fri Mar-18-11 01:41 PM by truedelphi
Where Chernobyl is no longer viewed as a human health disaster, or even as a disaster that helped collapse the Soviet Union, but just an interesting nuke industry "belch" that occurred.
Nothing to see here, move along.
However:
Unfortunately our "protective " agencies have standardized the thinking on fallout risks to be real concerned about thyroid cancer, while down playing the risk of anything else...
The UNSCEAR report on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster basically wrote off and non-reported on leukemias, on lymphomas, on brest cancer on melanoma, on bone cancer, and reported mainly on thyroid cancer.
You have UNSCEAR's assessments of the radiation effects, and they point to the fact that there were 30 people killed by radiation in the first few weeks after the Chernobyl disaster. And that another 100 people were injured by radiation in that period as well. (UNSCEAR stands for: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.)
Initially, one hundred and fifteen thousand people were evacuated on account of the event. But in the end, closer to two hundred and twenty thousand people were forced from their homes in areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Over the years, older people have moved back into these areas, wanting to be back where they feel most at home. Also, since they are older, they are not as fearful of a possibility that cancer might generate inside their bodies some twenty years down the road - at which point they might be dead from something else anyway.
Among the most notable of the tragic results of this accident were the serious social and psychological disruption in the lives of those affected. There were also large scale economic losses. It should not be overlooked that large areas of the three countries were contaminated with radioactive materials, and radionuclides from the Chernobyl release were measurable in all countries of the northern hemisphere. (Not just in the afore mentioned Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.)
Some military, social and political analysts credit the profound dismay, combined with anger, sadness and a desire to deviate and to revolt against the system that brought about this nuclear disaster to be the major propelling force, along with the Afghan War, that had the Soviet people bring down their Communistic way of life. The event is also given credit for the toppling of the Berlin Wall.
Now back to the grim statistics - what statistics we glean from the records of the UNSCEAR report --
Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, claims the authors of this United Nations study, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to the radiation exposure some two decades after the accident.
Many current day travelers to the old Soviet Union, and many who visit places in the Ukraine where the uprooted Ukrainians now live, distrust this report. They see first hand the numerous children who do not live to the age of fifteen, but die of cancer or a genetic condition, or a birth defect.
It is known that the accident at the Chernobyl reactor happened during an experimental test of the electrical control system as the reactor was being shut down for routine maintenance. The operators, in violation of safety regulations, had switched off important control systems and allowed the reactor, which had design flaws, to reach unstable, low-power conditions. A sudden power surge caused a steam explosion that ruptured the reactor vessel. This allowed further violent fuel-steam interactions that destroyed the reactor core and severely damaged the reactor building. Subsequently, an intense graphite fire burned for 10 days. Under those conditions, large releases of radioactive materials took place.
This radioactive material went across Europe and Scandinavia. Italy received among the highest doses.
Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far. These numbers far surpass the UNSCEAR reporting of some four thousand deaths.
The mismatches in figures arise because there have been no
comprehensive, co-ordinated studies of the health consequences of this accident. This is in contrast to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where official research showed that the main rise in most types of cancer and non-cancer diseases only became apparent years after the atomic bombs fell.
Critics of the UNSCEAR report also point to the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has compromised the research and findings as collected by the United Nations. For instance, WHO guidelines, utilized quite often by UNSCEAR, were requiring the peer review of evidence and collected data and this has made it hard for many deaths and illnesses to even be considered as part of the complete record.
The UN's World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim that only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl and that about 4,000 will die from it eventually.
Controversy rages over the agendas of the IAEA, which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years, and the WHO. The UN accepts only peer-reviewed scientific studies written in certain journals in English, a rule said to exclude dozens of other studies.
Eleven years ago, an IAEA spokesman said he was confident the WHO figures were correct. And Michael Repacholi, director of the UN Chernobyl forum until 2006, has claimed that even 4,000 eventual deaths could be too high. The main negative health impacts of Chernobyl were not caused by the radiation but by the fear of it, he claimed.
However, it is important to consider the remarks of Linda Walker, of the UK Chernobyl Children's Project, which funds Belarus and Ukraine orphanages and holidays for affected children, as she called for a determined effort to learn about the effects of the disaster. "Parents are giving birth to babies with disabilities or genetic disorders … but, as far as we know, no research is being conducted."
No research is being conducted. Forgive me my cynicism, but this reminds me of our EPA's "research" - when confronted by one angry Gulf of Mexico fisherman with dead fish, all of which had black oily residue about their gills, the officials from EPA told the man that the fish were not affected by the oil spill, but this new disease "black gill disease.'
So too the parents of birth defective children in this region of the world can be reassured - "Your children are not suffering from damaged chromosomes resulting from the Chernobyl radiation exposure - they are suffering from Mutated Chromosome Disease, cause unknown."
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