[ RadSafe ] Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People:New Book

Tue Apr 27 12:42:16 CDT 2010

More propaganda.  Anyone can write a book with 'suspect' information/data. 
Read the Boston Globe or New York Times for further 'false' or 'suspect' 
information.

Ed Baratta

edmond0033 at comcast.net
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Clayton J Bradt" <CJB01 at health.state.ny.us>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 7:25 AM
To: <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million 
People:New Book

>
>
> An interesting new book just out on Chernobyl.
>
> Clayton J. Bradt
> dutchbradt at hughes.net
>
>
> ******************************************
>
>
> Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book
>
>
>
> NEW YORK, New York, April 26, 2010 (ENS) - Nearly one million people 
> around
> the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear
> disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York
> Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the 
> meltdown
> at the Soviet facility.
>
>
>
> The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
> Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for
> Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey
> Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.
>
>
> The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most
> written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.
>
>
> The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is 
> a
> danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power.
> Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive
> contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
>
>
> "No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected
> from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the
> globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern
> Hemisphere."
>
>
> Their findings are in contrast to estimates by the World Health
> Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency that initially 
> said
> only 31 people had died among the "liquidators," those approximately
> 830,000 people who were in charge of extinguishing the fire at the
> Chernobyl reactor and deactivation and cleanup of the site.
>
>
> The book finds that by 2005, between 112,000 and 125,000 liquidators had
> died.
>
>
> "On this 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, we now realize that
> the consequences were far worse than many researchers had believed," says
> Janette Sherman, MD, the physician and toxicologist who edited the book.
>
>
> Drawing upon extensive data, the authors estimate the number of deaths
> worldwide due to Chernobyl fallout from 1986 through 2004 was 985,000, a
> number that has since increased.
>
>
> By contrast, WHO and the IAEA estimated 9,000 deaths and some 200,000
> people sickened in 2005.
>
>
> On April 26, 1986, two explosions occured at reactor number four at the
> Chernobyl plant which tore the top from the reactor and its building and
> exposed the reactor core. The resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive
> fallout into the atmosphere and over large parts of the western Soviet
> Union, Europe and across the Northern Hemisphere. Large areas in Ukraine,
> Belarus, and Russia had to be evacuated.
>
>
> Yablokov and his co-authors find that radioactive emissions from the
> stricken reactor, once believed to be 50 million curies, may have been as
> great as 10 billion curies, or 200 times greater than the initial 
> estimate,
> and hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs 
> dropped
> on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
>
>
> Nations outside the former Soviet Union received high doses of radioactive
> fallout, most notably Norway, Sweden, Finland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,
> Austria, Romania, Greece, and parts of the United Kingdom and Germany.
>
>
> About 550 million Europeans, and 150 to 230 million others in the Northern
> Hemisphere received notable contamination. Fallout reached the United
> States and Canada nine days after the disaster.
>
>
> The proportion of children considered healthy born to irradiated parents 
> in
> Belarus, the Ukraine, and European Russia considered healthy fell from
> about 80 percent to less than 20 percent since 1986.
>
>
> Numerous reports reviewed for this book document elevated disease rates in
> the Chernobyl area. These include increased fetal and infant deaths, birth
> defects, and diseases of the respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal,
> nervous, endocrine, reproductive, hematological, urological,
> cardiovascular, genetic, immune, and other systems, as well as cancers and
> non-cancerous tumors.
>
>
> In addition to adverse effects in humans, numerous other species have been
> contaminated, based upon studies of livestock, voles, birds, fish, plants,
> trees, bacteria, viruses, and other species.
>
>
> Foods produced in highly contaminated areas in the former Soviet Union 
> were
> shipped, and consumed worldwide, affecting persons in many other nations.
> Some, but not all, contamination was detected and contaminated foods not
> shipped.
>
>
> The authors warn that the soil, foliage, and water in highly contaminated
> areas still contain substantial levels of radioactive chemicals, and will
> continue to harm humans for decades to come.
>
>
> The book explores effects of Chernobyl fallout that arrived above the
> United States nine days after the disaster. Fallout entered the U.S.
> environment and food chain through rainfall. Levels of iodine-131 in milk,
> for example, were seven to 28 times above normal in May and June 1986. The
> authors found that the highest U.S. radiation levels were recorded in the
> Pacific Northwest.
>
>
> Americans also consumed contaminated food imported from nations affected 
> by
> the disaster. Four years later, 25 percent of imported food was found to 
> be
> still contaminated.
>
>
> Little research on Chernobyl health effects in the United States has been
> conducted, the authors found, but one study by the Radiation and Public
> Health Project found that in the early 1990s, a few years after the
> meltdown, thyroid cancer in Connecticut children had nearly doubled.
>
>
> This occurred at the same time that childhood thyroid cancer rates in the
> former Soviet Union were surging, as the thyroid gland is highly sensitive
> to radioactive iodine exposures.
>
>
> The world now has 435 nuclear reactors and of these, 104 are in the United
> States.
>
>
> The New York Academy of Sciences says not enough attention has been paid 
> to
> Eastern European research studies on the effects of Chernobyl at a time
> when corporations in several nations, including the United States, are
> attempting to build more nuclear reactors and to extend the years of
> operation of aging reactors.
>
>
> The academy said in a statement, "Official discussions from the
> International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies
> (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many
> of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and
> consequently have erred by not including these assessments."
>
>
> To obtain the book from the New York Academy of Sciences, click here.
>
>
>    Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2010. All rights reserved.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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