Reactor #3 Japan

Heard news from Fox this morning when they were talking about the nuclear plants that comparing it to other problems that no one was seriously injured at Chernobyl ..except..the 10 people that died..(duh)..and the 1,000 that got leukemia and 998 were cured. Now am I really suppose to think that this is true ?? There will be no problems with this new reactor in Japan. Now I "always" believe what the government tells me and the moon is made of green cheese...but...I really thought that Chernobyl had more illnesses than this in the years afterwards.. I still can see the cover of the Mother Earth News magazine in those days about Chernobyl (and still have the magazine)..perhaps I will dig that issue out today and see what they were saying about their melt down in years past.. Anyone..know about the aftermath of the Chernobyl plant ??

Here is an overview:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/facts.../en/index.html

The bottom line is that they are still measuring the long term impacts.

Over 5 million people have had minor radiation exposure, but about 600,000 had exposure substantially more than naturally occurring levels.

There were 5000 cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed, mostly in children.

WHO experts say that those exposed to radiation experience cancer mortality rates 3-4% greater than those who get cancer from all other sources. They estimate that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4000 cancer deaths can be attributed to Chernobyl so far.

There is also some suggestion that incidence of eye cataracts and cardiovascular disease are higher among those exposed. There were also huge mental health impacts from the evacuation and relocation process. Not all of the negative outcomes resulted in mortality.

Excellent post PAW. It was also interesting that their research has shown that the cancer rate particularly for children at Chernobyl would have likely been significantly less if they had been given stable iodine shortly after exposure. They are also studying a few die hards that have moved back into the contaminated area around Chernobyl to see what the effects on them will be; the was an excellent article on it on the English-Russia website last year. The Japanese seem to be taking the lessons of Chernobyl to heart as they attempt to mitigate this diusaster.

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www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

thank you. I recognize you as someone else who believes that at such times the discussion should be based on evidence rather than ideology....