[ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's Reduced Impact

[John Jacobus]

Mike,
Do you mean because the source is the NY Times?  I am
wondering if the lessons of Chernobyl will be applied
to the effects on the people suffering from Hurricane
Karina.

--- "Stabin, Michael"
<michael.g.stabin at Vanderbilt.Edu> wrote:

> 
> The last paragraph is interesting, especially
> considering the source.
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------------------
> Chernobyl's Reduced Impact
> NY Times Editorial: September 8, 2005
> 
> An authoritative scientific report commissioned by
> the United Nations
> has found that the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl
> nuclear power plant in
> rural Ukraine - the worst nuclear accident in
> history - caused far less
> health and environmental damage than originally
> feared. The findings
> offer clues for coping with a major release of
> radiation from a nuclear
> plant, whether caused by terrorists or by an
> accident. 
> 
> No sooner had the report been issued this week than
> it was attacked by
> several environmental groups as a biased attempt to
> whitewash the
> potential dangers of nuclear power. But the report
> reflects the
> consensus of eight United Nations agencies,
> including those responsible
> for health, the environment and nuclear power, and
> the governments of
> Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. 
> 
> The explosion at one of Chernobyl's reactors sent
> chunks of the core
> into surrounding fields and spewed clouds of
> radioactive particles into
> the air for days afterward, contaminating large
> swaths of land downwind.
> There were dire predictions that tens of thousands,
> possibly even
> hundreds of thousands, of people might die from
> radiation-related
> illnesses. So far 56 deaths have been directly
> attributed to the
> accident, 47 among emergency workers and 9 among
> young children who
> developed thyroid cancer after drinking contaminated
> milk. 
> 
> In the long run, the experts predict, some 4,000
> emergency workers and
> residents of the most contaminated areas may die
> from radiation-induced
> cancer. That qualifies Chernobyl as a very serious
> accident but not a
> catastrophe.
> 
> The greatest harm was inflicted on emergency
> workers; some succumbed
> quickly to acute radiation sickness and show a
> slight rise in leukemia.
> This suggests that proper equipment for such workers
> can greatly
> mitigate the health damage after an accident. In the
> wider region, the
> most concrete damage has been thyroid cancer, which
> has afflicted some
> 4,000 children. Some 99 percent were treated
> successfully, and 9 died.
> Efforts in areas around nuclear plants to stockpile
> pills that block
> thyroid cancer appear well advised. 
> 
> Most emergency workers and residents of contaminated
> areas received
> relatively low radiation doses, comparable to
> natural background
> exposures in some areas of the world. So there have
> been no decreases in
> fertility and no increases in birth defects.
> 
> Instead, the greatest public health hazard has been
> mental. People from
> the region are anxious and fatalistic, based on a
> greatly exaggerated
> view of the risks they face. The result can be drug
> and alcohol abuse,
> unemployment, and an inability to function. Disaster
> coordinators will
> clearly have to factor mental health effects into
> their planning. 
> 
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> Mike
> 
> Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP
> Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological
> Sciences 
> Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 
> Vanderbilt University 
> 1161 21st Avenue South
> Nashville, TN 37232-2675 
> Phone (615) 343-0068
> Fax   (615) 322-3764
> Pager (615) 835-5153
> e-mail     michael.g.stabin at vanderbilt.edu 
> internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com
> 
>  
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+++++++++++++++++++
"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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