Antinuclear

IAEA like Dracula, managing Blood Bank records

Controversy rages over the agendas of the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA), which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years,

Chernobyl nuclear accident: figures for deaths and cancers still in dispute•The Guardian UK John Vidal 10 Jan 2010 Suspected infant mortality rise difficult to prove• Predicted deaths range from 4,000 to half a million.

At the children’s cancer hospital in Minsk, Belarus, and at the Vilne hospital for radiological protection in the east of Ukraine, specialist doctors are in no doubt they are seeing highly unusual rates of cancers, mutations and blood diseases linked to the Chernobyl nuclear accident 24 years ago.

But proving that infant mortality hundreds of miles from the stricken nuclear plant has increased 20-30% in 20 years, or that the many young people suffering from genetic disorders, internal organ deformities and thyroid cancers are the victims of the world’s greatest release of radioactivity, is impossible.

The UN’s World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim that only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl and that about 4,000 will die from it eventually.

They also say that only a few children have died of cancers since the accident and, that most of the illnesses usually linked to Chernobyl are due to psychological distress, radiophobia or poverty and unhealthy living.

But other reputable scientists researching the most radiation-contaminated areas of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are not convinced.The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus.

Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far.

The mismatches in figures arise because there have been no comprehensive, co-ordinated studies of the health consequences of the accident. This is in contrast to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where official research showed that the main rise in most types of cancer and non-cancer diseases only became apparent years after the atomic bombs fell………..

Controversy rages over the agendas of the IAEA, which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years,

Chernobyl nuclear accident: figures for deaths and cancers still in dispute | Environment | guardian.co.uk

January 11, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1 | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive