Radiation and Chernobyl.

[Charlie_Tan]

Cece.
You should do your homework better. BBC’s Horizon did a program on this recently. It seems the total number of deaths that can be attributed to the ‘meltdown’ is all of - 56.

[Bryan_Ekers]

You mean his column The China (Flats) Syndrome: Was there a reactor meltdown in Southern California?? The relevant passage is:

Thirty-one people died, and the long-term health effects are warmly debated. A 2005 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates a potential 4 percent increase in eventual cancer deaths (4,000 cases) among the 600,000 people most heavily exposed. Increased thyroid cancer has been found among those who were children at the time, but despite initial fears there’s no clear evidence of a spike in leukemia or birth defects.

I think he did his homework just fine.

[Una_Persson]

The relevant link: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070119.html

I think Cecil is referring to the latest info from the Chernobyl Forum; their report can be found here: http://www.iaea.or.at/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf

If you see page 14, you can find this:

The number of deaths due to acute radiation syndrome (ARS) following the accident is well documented. According to UNSCEAR (2000), ARS was diagnosed in 134 emergency workers. In many cases the ARS was complicated
by extensive beta radiation skin burns and sepsis. Among these workers, 28 persons died in 1986 due to ARS. Two more persons had died at Unit 4 from injuries unrelated to radiation, and one additional death was thought to have been due to a coronary thrombosis. Nineteen more have died in 1987–2004 of various causes; however their deaths are not necessarily — and in some cases are certainly not — directly attributable to radiation exposure.

I get 28 + 2 + 1 = 31 from the accident directly. Do you see something else? As far as I can see, he’s correct when he says “Thirty-one people died, and the long-term health effects are warmly debated.”

[bonzer]

The Horizon figure of 56 deaths seems to derive from the 2006 WHO report (a BIG pdf). My reading of it is that it breaks roughly down as 28 emergency workers died immediately (p99), followed by 19 who died for subsequent related reasons (also p99), then there were 8 children who died of thyroid cancer in Belarus and 1 in the Russian Federation (p104). And this seems consistent with Wikipedia’s summary.
I don’t offhand see the report giving a figure for thyroid cancer deaths (if any) in the Ukraine.

[Una_Persson]

The link you gave doesn’t work. The real link is here:

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf

…and the report does not appear to conclusively say 56 deaths due to the accident. The WHO report admits that it has a moderate range of uncertainty, and that the deaths cannot be proven to be a result of the accident. In fact, the end of the Section on the worker deaths contains this note:

According to the RNMDR data, total mortality among Russian emergency workers does not differ in a statistically significant way from the age and gender standardized total mortality of the whole Russian population. However, increases in morbidity and mortality in emergency workers caused by leukemia, solid cancers, and circulatory system diseases were recently detected.

Interesting, but by no means something I think one can say is definitely caused by the accident. Possibly, yes, and probably, sure, but I think Cecil was making sure he hedged on it, because over time there have been many, many studies which show widely varying estimates of actual and potential secondary cancer deaths. See also the fairly damning note at the end of Page 107, which implies to me that there may be no good way to tell what the real effects are, due to the small amount of effects which have revealed themselves. We’ve gone from the scare headlines of the 1980’s of how “millions” could die from cancer, to something which may or may not even be statistically significant. Very telling.

Presumably, the numbers are consistent with Wikipedia because they probably were what made in part the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is NOT a source of original research, it’s just whatever anyone with a keyboard put into it. Again, Cecil is correct when he gives the figures for the workers known to be killed from the accident, and says “and the long-term health effects are warmly debated.”

[bonzer]

No disagreement from me about any of the above Una. The authors of the WHO report very clearly avoided giving anything as simplistic as a global “only 56 deaths”, but that’s incidental to my observation that this is where Charlie’s figure ultimately - justifiably or otherwise - derives from.

@Una Persson

TWikipedia is NOT a source of original research, it’s just whatever anyone with a keyboard put into it.

Nor was I citing it as such.