Health consequences of the Chernobyl disaster

25 years after Chernobyl, the experts are still arguing about health effects

22/04/2011

In view of the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan, public interest in the possible health consequences of radioactive radiation has risen massively. At the same time, the Chernobyl reactor catastrophe is repeatedly cited as a clue to the health consequences. But even 25 years after Chernobyl, the experts are arguing about the actual number of victims.

The effects of the current nuclear disaster in Japan are dramatically more far-reaching than the government and the operators of the population have initially communicated, so much is already set today. But the consequences of the released radiation in the coming years will only be anticipated. So suddenly the public looks back on the Chernobyl disaster and wonders what consequences it has today. However, the experts argue not least for political reasons to this day about the actual numbers on the health consequences of Chernobyl.

Radiation disease as a direct result of the disaster
Learning late from the Chernobyl disaster better than never. The rekindled public interest in the consequences of the nuclear reactor accident 25 years ago, however, also brings a variety of controversies to the surface again, about which nuclear-critical experts, public health authorities and the atomic proponents are still in disagreement. The dispute essentially revolves around the limit values ​​from which radioactive radiation can have a disease-causing effect and the number of those affected. Indisputable is the number of deaths directly caused by radiation sickness. Thus, of the workers who were used after the Super-GAU at the reactor, 134 were irradiated acutely and 28 died as a result of radiation sickness. In all other details of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, the public figures differ significantly from those of critical institutions such as Greenpeace, the IPPNW (International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Doctors in Social Responsibility e.V.) and the Society for Radiation Protection.

Official information about the victims of the Chernobyl disaster
In particular, in the case of the probability calculations based on the health consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, the public institutions come to significantly different results than the nuclear-critical experts. The nuclear opponents believe that the so-called stochastic radiation damage, which increases the likelihood of certain diseases (primarily cancer), affected a significantly larger number of people than, for example, the current report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Study of Cancer Effects of atomic radiation (UNSCEAR). In its analysis of the Chernobyl disaster, UNSCEAR concludes that the largest stochastic effect of the radiation exposure was a dramatic increase in thyroid cancer in the wider vicinity of the destroyed reactor. Especially persons who were still under eighteen years old when the accident happened in 1986 suffered from thyroid cancer most often later in life.

Between 1991 and 2005, the UNSCEAR recorded 6,848 cases of thyroid cancer in the corresponding group of people. The UNSCEAR report also notes an increased incidence of blood cancer and cataracts among the approximately 530,000 liquidators (cleanup workers) deployed in the disaster. In addition, there is no convincing evidence for further radiation-related effects in the general population, the conclusion in the UNSCEAR report. The Federal Office for Radiation Protection sees this similarly and said: „So far, there is no evidence that in Germany or other countries of central or northern Europe adverse health effects of radiation were caused by the Chernobyl accident“.

Atomic-critical organizations speak of hundreds of thousands of victims
The nuclear-critical institutions such as Greenpeace or the IPPNW come here however to a clearly different result. For example, in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on 25 April, the IPPNW presented a study on the health effects of the reactor accident, which has been shocking. The IPPNW estimates that there will be around 240,000 additional cancer cases in Europe by 2056. In addition, more than 112,000 of the liquidators have died to date, with about 90 percent suffering from the consequences of radioactive radiation. Greenpeace concluded in another study that there were 200,000 additional deaths in the Chernobyl region over the period 1990-2004. The Society for Radiation Protection announced that due to the effects of radiation exposure around 800,000 children were not born in Europe. (Fp)

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Picture: Andreas Kinski