Health

Chernobyl Incident, Found Less Risky for Health 20 Years After

Similarly dangerous to pollution, passive smoking, obesity

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

10th of April 2007, 10:14 GMT

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Chernobyl, April 1986, after the accident

On April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded at 01:23 AM local time.

It is till now the worst nuclear accident ever.

A plume of radioactive cloud fell over parts of the Western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe and Eastern North America.

Large zones of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were severely contaminated, and over 336,000 people were resettled from the Chernobyl area and the zone of alienation, as radiation levels in the area had turned unsafe.

Most of the expected long-term cancer fatalities have not yet actually occurred, and will be difficult or even impossible to attribute them to the accident.

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direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer) were linked to the accident and as many as 9,000 people among the approximately 6.6 million most highly exposed may die from some form of radiation induced cancer.

But 20 years after the disaster, no evidence of increases in the solid cancers and highly expected leukemia have been detected in the population.

A new research points out that risks from radiation exposure to people exposed to the Chernobyl incident may be much less significant than assumed.

The investigation compares the health risks from radiation exposure due to the Chernobyl incident to the common risks of air pollution, passive smoking and obesity.

The incident revealed a relatively small rise (about 1%) in death levels.

"The perception is that there are big risks to public health from radiation exposure. This study shows that for the population exposed to significant doses of radiation from the Chernobyl incident, the risks of premature death are no greater than those of being subjected to prolonged passive smoking, or of constantly over-eating. We can all face such health risks just going about our ordinary daily lives," said lead researcher Dr Jim Smith from the Center for Ecology & Hydrology.

Smith has discovered that wildlife thrives in the contaminated Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Some people still unofficially inhabiting the area display good health in their seventies.

"One of my reasons for comparing everyday risks with those of radiation contamination was the way in which contaminated Chernobyl refugees felt rejected by society. Our understandable fear of radiation needs to be placed in the context of other risks we encounter in our daily lives if we are to properly understand, and respond to, the potential impacts of any future radiation incidents." said Smith.

There is a high degree of uncertainty in the calculation of health risks for all the factors investigated, but all of them impacted both morbidity (illness) and mortality.

TAGS:

radiation | health | contamination

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