Reply #97: studies estimate that Chernobyl caused between 200,000 and one million premature deaths

[reorg]

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko, Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger

"No fewer than three billion persons inhabit areas contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides. More than 50% of the surface of 13 European countries and 30% of eight ohter countries have been conatminated by Chernobyl fallout. Given biological and statistical laws the adverse effects in these areas will be apparent for many generations.

... Prior to 1985 more than 80% of children in the Chernobyl territories of Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia were healthy; today fewer than 20% are well. In the heavilyl contaminated areas it is difficult to find one healthy child.

We believe it is unreasonable to attribute the increased occurrence of disease in the contaminated territories to screening or socioeconomic factors because the only variable is radioactive loading. Among the terrible consequences of Chernobyl radiation are malignant neoplasms and brain damage, especially during intrauterine development.

Why are the assessments of experts so different?

There are several reasons, including that some experts believe that any conclusions about radiation-based disease requires a correlation between an illness and the received dose of radioactivity. We believe this is an impossibility because no measurements were taken in the first few days. Initial levels could have been a thousand times higher than the ones ultimately measured several weeks and months later. It is also impossible to calculate variable and "hot spots" deposition of nuclides or to measure the contribution of all the isotopes, such as Cs, I, Sr, Pu, and others, or to measure the kinds and total amount of radionuclides that a particular individual ingested from food and water.

A second reason is that some experts believe the only way to make conclusions is to calculate the effect of radiation based upon the total radiation, as was done for those exposed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the first 4 years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, research was forbidden. During that time more than 100,000 of the weakest died. A similar pattern emerged after Chernobyl. However, the USSR authorities officially forbade doctors from connecting diseases with radiation, and, like the Japanese experience, all data were classified for the first 3 years.

In independent investigations scientists have compared the health of individuals in various territories that are identical in terms of ethnic, social and economic characteristics and differ only in the intensity of their exposure to radiation. It is scientificially valid to compare specific groups over time (a longitudianlal study), and such comparisons have unequivocally attributed differences in health outcomes to Chernobyl fallout."

pp 2-3
http://www.amazon.com/Chernobyl-Consequences-Catastrophe-Environment-Sciences/dp/1573317578/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301170804&sr=1-1