[ RadSafe ] Re: "Science" also misrepresents the "Chernobyl Forum" report

[Mauro Bonardi]

Dear all
at the end: less than 100 or more than 4000 ???
have nice days
Mauro


On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 19:28:21 -0400
 "Muckerheide, James" <jimm at WPI.EDU> wrote:
> Friends,
> 
>  
> 
> It is discouraging that so many supposedly
> "science-oriented" media and
> organizations are biased to promote the science-funding
> agency agenda.
> 
>  
> 
> Hopefully, there will be comment letters to "Science"
> from credentialed
> scientists!  
> 
>  
> 
> Regards, Jim Muckerheide
> 
> ======================
> 
>  
> 
> Science, Vol 309, Issue 5741, 1663 , 9 September 2005
> 
>  
> 
> 
> News of the Week
> 
> 
> NUCLEAR MEDICINE:
> Panel Puts Eventual Chornobyl Death Toll in Thousands
> 
> 
> John Bohannon*
>
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5741/1663#affiliation#affilia
> tion>  
> 
> VIENNA, AUSTRIA--A study released this week predicts that
> 4000 people or even
> more will die from cancers caused by the 1986 Chornobyl
> nuclear accident, a
> figure that dwarfs the 50 known deaths linked to the
> disaster so far. The
> report,*
>
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5741/1663#footnote#footnote>
> compiled by the Chernobyl Forum, a joint effort of eight
> United Nations
> agencies and the governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and
> Russia, also highlights
> the thousands who are suffering a variety of mental
> health problems since the
> accident. 
> 
> The meltdown of one of the reactors at the Chornobyl
> power plant in Ukraine
> on 26 April 1986 released approximately 50 tons of
> radioactive material into
> the atmosphere, contaminating an area inhabited by 5
> million people. Because
> the most pernicious contamination was radioactive
> iodine-131, which lodges in
> the thyroid, most of the casualties are expected to
> succumb to thyroid
> cancer, which typically takes 25 years or more to show
> up. 
> 
> Over the 19 years since the accident, estimates of the
> final death toll from
> radiation-induced cancer have ranged from zero to tens of
> thousands. The
> panel of 100 scientists involved in the Chernobyl Forum
> reduced that
> uncertainty by reviewing all available data and
> discounting studies that were
> not sufficiently rigorous. "But that only considers the
> 600,000 people living
> in the most exposed areas. [The total] could double to
> 8000 if you also
> consider people around that area," says forum member Fred
> Mettler, a
> radiologist at the University of New Mexico in
> Albuquerque. 
> 
> Radiation biologist Mikhail Balonov was part of the
> Soviet team rushed in to
> assess Chornobyl in 1986, and he says his team "also
> predicted 4000 deaths.
> But our conclusions were classified." The forum's
> 600-page report, released
> by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) here on
> 5 September, also
> echoes initial predictions that the radiation will have
> no effect on
> fertility or the frequency of birth defects in the second
> generation.
> "Luckily, the exposure was too low for that," says
> Balonov, who now heads
> IAEA's Radioactive Discharges Unit. Other effects of the
> radiation are either
> too subtle or have not yet been detected. 
> 
>  
> 
> The outlook for the environment around Chornobyl appears
> somewhat better.
> According to the report, 90% of the radioactive
> contamination was cleaned up
> through a massive removal of surface soils. Researchers
> are developing
> special salts and fertilizers to inhibit the remaining
> radioactive material
> in soil from getting into crop plants. But on the whole,
> the forum concludes,
> most of the originally exposed area is close to
> background levels of
> radiation. 
> 
> The report's most surprising conclusion is that mental
> health problems appear
> to be more common than any radiation-linked disease. The
> incidence of high
> anxiety is twice normal levels, and unexplained pain or
> debilitation is three
> to four times that in similar unexposed populations. One
> possible cause is
> the trauma experienced by the 350,000 residents who were
> forcibly relocated. 
> 
> Mettler, a member of the international scientific team
> that first visited the
> Chornobyl site in 1990, says another factor "is the
> psychological impact on
> people of not knowing the extent of contamination or the
> real health risks it
> poses." That uncertainty, according to the report, seems
> to have translated
> into unhealthy lifestyle choices such as heavy smoking,
> drinking, drug use,
> and poor diet. 
> 
> Removing anxiety won't be easy, says Balonov. People in
> the Chornobyl area do
> not trust government officials, he notes, because "there
> was a tradition of
> lying" in Soviet times. Mettler hopes the Chernobyl Forum
> report will
> reassure residents. "It's a start," he says. 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> John Bohannon is a writer in Berlin, Germany. 
> 
> * Chernobyl's Legacy: Health, Environmental, and
> Socio-economic Impacts,
> www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl
> 
>  
>