State of the debate on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident.
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Fig. 39: Cancer of the thyroid has increased dramatically, particularly among children and adolescents in the Gomel region of Belarus.
Source: Otto Hug Strahleninstitut 2002. (Please click to enlarge)
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Fig. 19: Growing old in good health - the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has made this goal even harder for millions of people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
© Green Cross, 2002
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| (2.3) | UNDP/UNICEF: The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. A Strategy for Recovery, January, 2002, p. 52 | | (2.4) | UNDP/UNICEF: The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. A Strategy for Recovery, January, 2002, p. 47 | | (8.2) | Chernobyl Interinform Agency: Kiew, Interview on 18.04.2002, p. 6 | | (16.6) | Committee on the Problems of the Consequences of the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP: Interview, Minsk, 16.04.2002, p. 4 | | (36.1) | www:Medicine Worldwide, Tschernobyl, p. 2
www.onmeda.de | | (38.2) | Otto Hug Strahleninstitut: Informationen, Ausgabe 9/2001 K, 2001, p. 4 | | (39.1) | European Commission, OCHA et. al., International Conference: Fifteen Years after the Chernobyl Accident. Lesson Learned. Executive Summary, Kiev, April 2001, p. 10 | | (40.1) | Garnets, Oxana; Tschenobylexpert at UNDP Kiev: Interview, Kiev, 26.02.2002, p. 2 | | (154.1) | Chernobyl Forum Report: Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts, 2005, published by:
IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency |
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What effects did the accident have on human health?
The full extent of the effects of the Chernobyl accident on human health cannot be grasped. Twenty years after the disaster, he number of casualties remains controversial.
There is a consensus that at least 1800 children and adolescents in the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus have contracted cancer of the thyroid because of the reactor disaster. It is feared that the number of thyroid cancer cases among people who were children and adolescents when the accident happened will reach 8000 in the coming decades. This figure is given in the UNDP-Report 2002. The German specialist in radiation medicine and Chernobyl expert, Professor Edmund Lengfelder of the Otto Hug Strahleninstitut in Munich, which has been running a thyroid centre in Belarus since 1991, warns of up to 100 000 additional cases of thyroid cancer in all age groups.
In September 2005 the Chernobyl Forum published a report (the Chernobyl Forum Report 2005), written by specialists from seven UN organisations including the WHO, the IAEA and the World Bank, as well as from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The report concludes that, all in all, the Chernobyl disaster will claim roughly 4000 lives. By mid 2005, it says, just over 50 persons will have died as a direct consequence of nuclear exposure. The report, which acknowledges only hard-and-fast scientific findings, has been severely criticised by independent Chernobyl experts, environmental organisations and Chernobyl relief organisations, who claim that it plays down the impact of the disaster and goes in the face of earlier studies. Some of its statements, moreover, are provably false. Some of the contradictions can be explained by the fact that certain parts of the research into the consequences of Chernobyl have, for financial, political or legal reasons, been conducted in an inconclusive and unsystematic fashion. Nevertheless, there are convincing studies and data available on the far-reaching health impairments resulting from the disaster (154.1).
Breast cancer and other tumours are increasing
An increased incidence of breast cancer as a direct consequence of the accident has also been recognised internationally (39.1). The number of cases has doubled in the area around Gomel in Belarus - one of the most severely contaminated territories. Belorussian and Ukrainian scientists also predict an increase in urogenital tumours and lung and stomach cancer, both among the liquidators and in the general male population of the severely contaminated areas (16.6). This prediction is supported by cancer specialists in other countries (40.1).
There is no doubt among national and international experts that the state of health of the people in the contaminated territories is extremely poor. The latest report by UNDP and UNICEF cites a number of different causes: poverty, poor diet and living conditions.
According to the UNDP/UNICEF report, these factors may be reinforced by the psychosocial effects of the accident (2.4). The conclusions of this report have however been challenged.
"After the Chernobyl disaster, a massive increase in non-malignant diseases was also observed in the population," wrote the German specialist in radiation medicine Edmund Lengfelder 15 years after the accident (38.2). The Ukrainian government agency Chernobyl Interinform in Kiev reported in March 2002 that 84 per cent of the three million people in Ukraine who had been exposed to radiation were registered as sick. These include one million children (8.2). According to the latest data from the Belorussian governmental Chernobyl Committee in Minsk, the average rate of illness among the inhabitants of the contaminated territories is higher than in the uncontaminated areas. The people in the uncontaminated areas are not, however, subject to any special monitoring, and there have been calls for additional comparative studies (16.6).
The international debate on other diseases (in addition to cancer) resulting from the reactor accident is dealt with in Section "Other diseases in children and adults". Subsections "Genetic defects" and "Low-dose radiation" describe the effects of radiation on pregnancy and genetic effects.
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