Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident

Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/article_redirect.cfm?ID=15094

What Have Been the Effects?
For nearly two decades, the nuclear industry and its governmental backers, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have maintained that only 36 people were killed as result of the Chernobyl accident—all of them plant employees or firefighters responding to the initial emergency without adequate protection from radiation exposure. The most recent report from IAEA and the World Health Organization in September 2005 acknowledged at least 54 immediate deaths, and predicted between 4,000 and 9,000 additional deaths over the next few years, along with a huge increase in non-fatal thyroid cancers. Yet, this report continues to downplay the effects of the accident.
Such conclusions have been widely challenged. A recent report by the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences concluded that 212,000 people have died in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl. An April 2006 report commissioned by Greenpeace International, and based on fifty published scientific studies, estimated that there will be 93,000 cancer deaths globally as a result of radiation exposure from Chernobyl. A report commissioned by the European Greens for European Parlimentarians predicted 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths from the accident worldwide. Government agencies in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus estimate that about 25,000 of the 600,000 liquidators alone (those involved in fire-fighting and clean up operations who were exposed to massive doses of radiation) have died so far due to radiation exposure from the accident.[ii] [iii]
The radioactive fallout from the accident has rendered 4,440 square kilometers of agricultural land and 6,820 square kilometers of forests in Belarus and Ukraine no longer usable.[vi] The main radionuclides in the fallout from the accident were iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium-239 spread as dust particles in the air.[viii] Cesium-137 concentrations are highest in mushrooms, wild berries, and game, and it is also absorbed through cow’s milk and vegetables produced locally; newborns can ingest Cs-137 in maternal milk.[x] Radioactive fallout also affected waterways contaminating drinking water and fish. The rates of childhood thyroid cancer, congentital birth deformities, and cancers such as leukemia, have risen dramatically in many areas since the accident. According to a recent report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, any level of exposure to ionizing radiation increases an individual’s risk for cancer.
This contamination from the Chernobyl accident also continues to affect people across Europe. According to the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection, wild boar, especially in Southern Germany, remains highly contaminated with cesium. In the Bavarian Forest, contamination levels were found to be as much as 67 times the legal limit. In addition, there has been an increase in thyroid cancers in the north of England (1500 miles from Chernobyl), and the UK still has more than 375 farms and 200,000 sheep contaminated by the fallout. Emergency orders still apply to the farms, and no sheep can be moved out of the areas without a special license.

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[i]Cherynobyl Children’s Project International. “Chornobyl: The Facts”. http://www.Chornobyl-international.org/facts.html
[ii]UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “The United Nations and Chornobyl: History of the United Nations and Chornobyl”.
[iii]Chornobyl.info. “Overview of health consequences”. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. http://www.Chornobyl.info/index.php?userhash=10786534&navID=21&lID=2#Sources
[v]UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “The United Nations and Chornobyl: History of the United Nations and Chornobyl”.
[vi] Chornobyl.info. “Consequences for agriculture”. Swiss Agency for Development andCooperation. http://Chornobyl.info/index.php?userhash=10822346&navID=35&lID=2#
[vii]World Health Organization. “Health Consequences of the Chornobyl Accident”. http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/research/Chornobyl/en/<This link didn’t work for me>
[viii]Chornobyl.info. “The impact of radiation”. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. http://Chornobyl.info/index.php?userhash=10822346&navID=22&lID=2<Neitherdid this one>
[ix]United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR): Hereditary Effects of Radiation, New York, 2001, p. 84 http://www.unscear.org/pdffiles/2001Annex.pdf
[x]Bandazhevsky, Y. I. “Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children’s organs.” Swiss Med Weekly. 2003. 138: p488. http://www.Chornobyl.info/files/doc/Bandazhevsky.pdf
[xi]Bandazhevsky, Y. I. “Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children’s organs.”
[xii]U.S. National Academy of Sciences. “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2”. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2005.

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