Alternatively – “Our report involved 52 respected scientists and includes information never before published in English. It challenges the UN International Atomic Energy Agency Chernobyl Forum report, which predicted 4,000 additional deaths attributable to the accident as a gross simplification of the real breadth of human suffering.
The new data, based on Belarus national cancer statistics, predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.
The report also looks into the ongoing health impacts of Chernobyl and concludes that radiation from the disaster has had a devastating effect on survivors; damaging immune and endocrine systems, leading to accelerated ageing, cardiovascular and blood illnesses, psychological illnesses, chromosomal aberrations and an increase in foetal deformations.”
Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated | Greenpeace International
The executive summary on pages 10-18 discusses the difficulties of obtaining data and thus determining the full effects. The language appears considered. It includes the following. “Any description which attempts to present the consequences as a single “easy to understand” estimation of excess cancer deaths (such as the figure of four thousand much publicized by bodies such as the IAEA during 2005) will therefore inevitably provide a gross oversimplification of the breadth of human suffering experienced. Moreover, much of the evidence presented in the current report indicates that such figures may also grossly underestimate the scale of impacts as outlined earlier in the text.”
Less simplistic than a simple figure which serves to minimalise the impact but worth reading for anyone wanting to be better informed.
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