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

[Jerry Cohen]

Jim,
I can't understand why you are discouraged.  I would think that by now you would be used to it.
The unstated rule is: Good science is that which promotes further funding,. Funding agencies have little or no incentive to support study of non-problems. 
You just need to recognize the way things are and deal with it. If I could ever figure out how the "system" might be changed, I will be happy to share that knowledge.    Jerry 


"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*
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,*

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



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