[sbdmmg]

It was a horrible disaster. But, 30 years after the accident, this article is trying to get readers using punchy headlines, like "Children are still being born with severe birth defects". I would have expected a BBC article to be a bit more objective on such controversial conclusions [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...

[scott_s]

I was also surprised they were citing those numbers as fact, as my understanding was that disagreed with the UN investigations. A recent story on HN from the Guardian contradicts the claims in the BBC article, and cites the UN investigations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11479097

In particular:

The word Chernobyl became synonymous with death on a massive scale. But perception and reality do not always neatly align; in the wake of the disaster, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) and others undertook a co-ordinated effort to follow up on health effects. In 2006, after two decades of monitoring they outlined the health effects; of the firefighters exposed to the huge core doses and incredibly toxic smoke, 28 died from acute radiation sickness. A further 15 perished from thyroid cancer. Despite aggressive monitoring for three decades, there has been no significant increase in solid tumours or delayed health effects, even in the hundreds of thousands of minimally protected cleanup workers who helped purge the site after the accident. In the words of the 2008 UNSCEAR report: “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.

It added: “The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated. Although most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure.”

[trhway]

there is a lot of whitewashing of history is happening (after all there is a huge money race between big solar and wind installs and new "safe" reactors - notice that even 5-10 year ago we didn't have this tsunami of "Chernobyl was really not that big a deal of an accident" articles).

Decades after the Chernobyl there is much higher rate of cancer of internal organs, adeno- and thyroid (ie. cancers related to ingestion of radiation sources) among people who lived or spent time in the North Ukraine, South Belarus in the months right after the catastrophe. Only official statistics points to 5000 additional thyroid cancers in Belarus in people who were children at the time.

[scott_s]

What are you basing your claim of increased cancer on? As an outsider, the only way I can get a grip on the situation is to look at claims, and the support for those claims.

[trhway]

for an outsider google is your friend (i intentionally didn't mention any specific cases i'm personally aware of because they can be easily shot down by "sample of 1" type of argument even though everybody around understands what it really is). For example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18923372

"After the Chernobyl accident, children from Belarus living in highly exposed regions received mean thyroid doses by radioactive fallout higher by a factor of approximately 2 as compared to the survivors of the atomic bomb explosions. This lead to a radiation related increase of thyroid cancer incidence in children and adolescents with the highest incidence in age group 0-4 years up to now totally amounting to approximately 5 000 cases. "

[scott_s]

Apparently the keyword in my originally quoted text was "overall", as the UN report includes that figure (http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html):

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, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated. Although those most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure.

[trhway]

>There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.

for each cancer you can google and find things like this:

http://www.cancer.fi/syoparekisteri/en/research/breast-cance...

"In addition, a significant two-fold increase in risk was observed, during the period 1997-2001, in the most contaminated districts (average cumulative dose of 40.0 mSv or more) compared to the least contaminated districts"

>more cases can be expected during the next decades.

yes. We're about in the middle right now - following known models of radiation exposure health effects the total numbers are projected to double over the next 20-30 years.

[ChuckMcM]

I found it interesting how different the BBC story was slanted from the Guardian story. As an advocate of nuclear power to my friends it was also interesting (although not scientific) to see who sent me links to which story.

The clear cutting story is interesting. It would be interesting to get a read on the lumber they pulled from the forests in terms of how much Cesium it had in the wood.

[marze]

It is cute that you have so much faith in Wikipedia. And that world powers haven't tried to downplay the impact.

[warmwaffles]

BBC is hardly objective. Like all other news agencies in the world, they too, have an agenda.

[mseebach]

That's both correct and useless information. What is the BBCs agenda in this case and how do you figure it influences how they report this story?

(FWIW, I don't think the BBC has a particular agenda here, they just have the bias of having lived in a "OMG nuclear" world for the past few decades and nobody cared enough to challenge how a fairly unimportant story is angled)