Nuclear power perspective

The following is an excerpt from a graduate paper at the Naval Postgraduate School that I wrote in 1997 on Chernobyl and Ukrainian foreign policy. It discusses the various casualty estimates as understood a decade after the accident. Unfortunately, the citations didn’t transfer over, but if anyone is really interested, I can make them available.
Short-term Casualties:
There is no agreement on the extent of the damage to people’s health from Chernobyl-related causes. Too many political interests are involved to allow consensus on the issue as governmental organs and the nuclear power and medical communities debate even the question of short-term casualties. The Soviet government put forth the initial figure of two deaths and then by the summer of 1986 raised the figure to 31 people killed (28 people from radiation poisoning and 3 from other causes). This figure of 31 casualties is the most quoted by the nuclear power industry and is still widely accepted in the press as the total casualty list. However, some experts on Ukraine and Chernobyl place the figure much higher and regard the Soviet figure (and the nuclear power industry statistics) as more deliberate obfuscation. David Marples wrote of the figure of 31 casualties, “The official casualty report has developed into something of a truism–if it is repeated often enough, people began to accept it.” Marples added, “…the figure of 31 direct casualties at Chernobyl is as mythic today as it was in 1986. During the early cleanup phase, it was clear there would be many more victims, particularly among the crews decontaminating the plant, those flying helicopter sorties over the roof of the gaping reactor in a flawed attempt to stop radiation from leaking into the atmosphere, and those working at the reactor scene at a variety of other hazardous tasks.”
Of the decontamination workers, known as liquidators, at least 5,000 had died by 1990 although not all were attributable to Chernobyl and the Ukrainian health ministry places the number of Chernobyl-related deaths as approximately 4,000 for Ukrainian citizens. On the opposite end of the spectrum from the 31 figure, some unsubstantiated estimates from environmental organizations go as high as 125,000 deaths attributable to Chernobyl since 1986.
Long-term Health Effects:
Again, the question of the long-term health effects of Chernobyl is highly politicized. Advocates of nuclear power such as the IAEA tend to downplay long-term adverse effects of low-level radiation poisoning and the extensive research on the subject is not conclusive. Effectively, however, approximately two million Ukrainians live within contaminated areas surrounding Chernobyl including nearly 500 people who have voluntarily returned to live within the 30-km exclusion zone. Compounding the problem of living with unacceptably high levels of ambient radiation is the lack of uncontaminated food as a largely rural population in Ukraine and Belarus continue to eat contaminated local produce.
A further obstacle to pinpointing the long-term health effects of the Chernobyl accident is the delineation between Chernobyl-related illnesses and those originating from other sources. The areas effected by radiation in Ukraine and Belarus are also heavily polluted areas from industrial sources. The difficult question then becomes which illnesses stem from what source? For example, using the Ukrainian Health Ministry estimates that only 28-32 percent of Ukrainian adults and 27-31 percent of children were assessed to be in good health in 1991, what portion of the approximate 70 percent of the population in ill health is due to Chernobyl? How do medical researchers discount illnesses caused by industrial pollutants, poor nutrition, the effects of smoking and alcohol, etc? There is no easy solution to this problem. Although the logical starting point would be to compare data for the affected regions prior to Chernobyl with data subsequent to the accident, the data is not complete in either case and has become a source of acrimony in the medical community—consequently allowing the data to remain open to political interpretation.
Looking at the areas that have relative consensus, it seems apparent that in general that there has been a downturn in the health of the Ukrainian and Belarus populations. This has been highlighted in particular by dramatic increases in the rate of thyroid cancer among children which “…appear to correlate closely with the areas that received the most radioactive fallout.” Incidentally, had the Soviet government warned the population about the radiation, much of the iodine radiation poisoning could have been avoided by eating canned food and by not allowing children to drink contaminated milk. The studies quoted by Marples on thyroid cancer in Belarus and Ukraine indicate that approximately 90 percent of the childhood cases are Chernobyl-related and roughly 10 percent of those will be incurable. Furthermore, one estimate figures that one child in ten in the heavily contaminated areas is likely to develop thyroid cancer. IAEA studies (which tend to be dramatically more conservative than most) of more than 800 cases of thyroid cancer in children in Belarus indicate roughly similar results with a slightly higher percentage of cases attributable to Chernobyl but at a higher predicted success rate in treatment.
Other biological concerns that have been related to the accident at Chernobyl are impaired immune response, increased rates of leukemia and other cancers as well as indications that genetic damage is occurring in animals and humans in the highly contaminated regions. This was surprising to some researchers who based on data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not expect to see genetic damage. Particularly disturbing are indications that DNA mutation is being passed down to subsequent generations. Some preliminary studies are showing DNA mutation rates among Belarus children are twice as high as in a control group of British children. The long-term effects of these genetic mutations are not understood and by their nature may not be for generations.

All this debate amazes me, firstly because thousands of people have lost their lives due to the earthquake and the resultant tsunami. Yet much of the media comment centres on the events at the nuclear power stations. If these hopelessly ignorant media people actually did some homework they would not put out what are obviously misleading headlines that can only add to the anxiety already present amongst those affected.
Despite a catastophe of epic proportions the plants survived despite being heavily damaged. Yes they may not work again but the safety built in will contain the situation despite local consequences. Thankfully!