Nuclear Boogeymen???

Well, the other day I came across a story in the New York Times that surprised/shocked/pleased/amused (pick any combination of those adjectives you like) me. I haven’t heard much about it since then. I guess it has been overshadowed by the Katrina mess or maybe it is just not being pushed because it isn’t gloom, doom, and destruction. In fact, it is a refutation of gloom, doom, and despair on a big scale. The nuclear boogeyman of Chernobyl has been shot right between the eyes and it looks like he may be down for the count.

A panel of 100 experts appointed by the UN report that the expected disastrous effects of the Chernobyl melt down have been greatly exaggerated . Instead of the predicted horrors and gloom it seems like there is actually a relatively minor aftereffect. At the time of the accident and in much of the (hysterical) analysis since it was predicted that tens if not hundreds of thousands of people would die as a result of the meltdown. The new study says the number will be closer to 4000. Only 50 people, all of them reactor staff or first responders to the accident, died from direct radiation exposure at the time of the accident.

Despite the wide dispersal of radiation after the accident there has been no observable increase in the incidence of leukemia, a blood cancer widely associated with radiation exposure. Nor has there been an increase in birth defects or a decrease in fertility. Indeed, the biggest aftereffect seems to be a mental stress brought on by everyone predicting destruction and disaster. There was an increase in thyroid cancer among those who drank contaminated milk but thyroid cancer is treatable and only 9 of the 2000 people reported to have come down with it died from it.
After the disaster everyone was evacuated from an 18 mile exclusion zone around the reactor that still exists. Dr. Fred A. Mettler, leader of the team analyzing health effects for the Chernobyl Forum, a research group comprising United Nations agencies and representatives of affected countries says that people were evacuated from areas that have radiation levels lower than were he lives in New Mexico. In the areas still classified as contaminated there is less background radiation than naturally occurs in large areas of Brazil, China, and Great Britain. Agricultural products from the contaminated areas are generally below national and international action levels.
Indeed it could be said that the worst side effect of the disaster has been the aura of despair caused by the wild reports of doom. "People have developed a paralyzing fatalism because they think they are at much higher risk than they are, so that leads to things like drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sex and unemployment," said Dr. Mettler. Government payments to people effected by Chernobyl is draining the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. More than 7 million people are receiving some sort of compensation from their governments. In the Ukraine and Belarus this amounts to better than 5% of their annual budgets. The report concluded that “The extensive system of Chernobyl-related benefits has created expectations of long-term direct financial support and entitlement to privileges, and has undermined the capacity of the individuals and communities concerned to tackle their own economic and social problems,"
For something that is supposed to destroy us all radiation really hasn’t quite lived up to it’s reputation. Chernobyl is a bust and one of the most nuked locations on the planet, the Bikini Atolls, is described by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine as …”the Garden of Eden.”, and is considered to have some of the best SCUBA diving and salt water fishing on the planet. The IAEA’ Bikini Advisory group stated “although the residual radioactivity on islands in Bikini Atoll is still higher than on other atolls in the Marshall islands, it is not hazardous to health at the levels measured. Indeed, there are many places in the world where people have been living for generations with higher levels of radioactivity from natural sources - such as the geological surroundings and the sun - than there is now on Bikini Atoll...By all internationally agreed scientific and medical criteria...the air, the land surface, the lagoon water and the drinking water are all safe. There is no radiological risk in visiting the lagoon or the islands. The nuclear weapon tests have left practically no cesium in marine life.”
They do say that if you eat the coconuts for long enough you might get a dosage higher than the recommended international safety levels.

So, I guess life isn’t going to come to screeching halt anytime soon from radiation. and of course things are still developing and it takes more than ten or even twenty yers to see all of the effects of things like this. But still, it seems the doomsayers may have overstated the disaster yet again.
I think studies like this should make people a bit more secure about things like that waste storage place in Nevada too.
Just my thoughts……