{"id":19798,"date":"2016-04-11T13:46:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T18:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19798"},"modified":"2016-04-11T13:46:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T18:46:08","slug":"pro-nuclear-environmentalists-and-the-chernobyl-death-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19798","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Nuclear Environmentalists and the Chernobyl Death Toll"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2016\/04\/11\/pro-nuclear-environmentalists-and-the-chernobyl-death-toll\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Pro-Nuclear Environmentalists and the Chernobyl Death Toll<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"post_meta\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81574 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2016\/04\/shutterstock_334258334.jpg\" alt=\"shutterstock_334258334\" width=\"500\" height=\"325\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>With few if any exceptions, self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalists peddle misinformation regarding the Chernobyl death toll.<\/p>\n<p>Before considering their misinformation, a brief summary of credible positions and scientific studies regarding the Chernobyl cancer death toll (for detail see\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theecologist.org\/News\/news_analysis\/2370256\/chernobyl_how_many_died.html\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Epidemiological public health studies are of course important but they\u2019re not much use in estimating the overall Chernobyl death toll. The effects of Chernobyl, however large or small, are largely lost in the statistical noise of widespread cancer incidence and mortality (see\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.global2000.at\/sites\/global\/files\/TORCH%20-%20The%20other%20Report%20of%20Chernobyl.pdf\">here<\/a>\u00a0for the most recent scientific review of the epidemiological studies).<\/p>\n<p>Estimates of collective radiation exposure are available \u2012 for example the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/foe.org.au\/sites\/default\/files\/Chernobyl%20600k%20p-Sv%20IAEA%20Bull.pdf\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0a total collective dose of 600,000 person-Sieverts over 50 years from Chernobyl fallout. And the collective radiation dose can be used to estimate the death toll using the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ianfairlie.org\/news\/the-linear-no-threshold-theory-of-radiation-risks\/\">Linear No Threshold (LNT) model<\/a>which holds that the risks are proportional to dose. LNT enjoys heavy-hitting scientific support \u2012 for example the 2006\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nap.edu\/catalog\/11340.html\">report<\/a>\u00a0of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences\u2019 Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation states that \u201cthe risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and \u2026 the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to\u00a0humans.\u201d Likewise, a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/14610281\">report<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0<em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>\u00a0states: \u201cGiven that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If we use the IAEA\u2019s collective radiation dose estimate, and a risk estimate derived from LNT (0.1 cancer deaths per person-Sievert), we get an estimate of 60,000 cancer deaths.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pro-Nuclear Environmentalists and the Chernobyl Death Toll With few if any exceptions, self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalists peddle misinformation regarding the Chernobyl death toll. Before considering their misinformation, a brief summary of credible positions and scientific studies regarding the Chernobyl cancer death toll (for detail see\u00a0here). Epidemiological public health studies are of course important but they\u2019re not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4448,5493,13404,580,13405,13406],"class_list":["post-19798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-chernobyl","tag-counterpunch","tag-jim-green","tag-nuclear-radiation","tag-pro-nuclear-environmentalists","tag-radiation-deaths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19799,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798\/revisions\/19799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}