up to 500,000 people have died because of Chernobyl and counting

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/ghosh04112011.html


Lessons From a Meltdown
In the Shadow of Fukushima



-snip-

But as the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl approaches on April 26, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation are being challenged by scientists and doctors citing evidence to suggest that up to 500,000 people may have already died as a result of the catastrophe, and another 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers linked to severe radiation exposure in 1986.

‘’In truth, nuclear power and its deleterious effects are a medical problem of vast dimensions - the greatest public health hazard the world will ever see’’ writes scientist and author Dr. Helen Caldicott on her website.

-snip-

‘’Let us be clear: there are billions and billions of dollars at stake for the nuclear industry. The industry will not walk away from that money without a fight.’’

-snip-
----------------------------

the nuke Barons will fight and kill to keep the money flowing into their pockets

they are our enemy

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

1. Looks like the Nuke Barons and BigPharma are joined at the hip.

[ensho]

2. true - they would love more and more cancer clinics

cancer is big money

[grahamhgreen]

3. Kick. Wind is cheaper.

[ensho]

4. and it won't give you cancer

nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Unless it is blowing in from Chernobyl. nt

[Auntie Bush]

48. or Japan. nt

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

5. Article from More magazine

talks about the women who returned to Chernobyl.

A Country of Women

Twenty-five years after the world’s worst nuclear accident, More visits a hardy community of women who’ve made a home in Chernobyl’s desolate, radioactive surroundings. Why they chose to live here after the disaster, defying the authorities and endangering their health, is an inspiring tale—about the pull of ancestral lands, the healing power of shaping one’s destiny and the subjective nature of risk.

It is a long article, but it is really interesting. If you have time, it is worth the read.

I thought this was funny:

When this widow met up with more’s team—reporter, photographer, translator— she immediately called a neighbor, saying, “hurry, quick, come over. There’s interesting people here, and they’re not missionaries!”

[ensho]

6. interesting, thanks - and lol about the missionaries

nt

[kristopher]

56. Ensho, this is Caldicott on Chernobyl, the NYAS study, and the WHO-IAEA relationship

3) Now let's turn to Chernobyl. Various seemingly reputable groups have issued differing reports on the morbidity and mortalities resulting from the 1986 radiation catastrophe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2005 issued a report attributing only 43 human deaths directly to the Chernobyl disaster and estimating an additional 4,000 fatal cancers. In contrast, the 2009 report, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment", published by the New York Academy of Sciences, comes to a very different conclusion. The three scientist authors – Alexey V Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V Nesterenko – provide in its pages a translated synthesis and compilation of hundreds of scientific articles on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster that have appeared in Slavic language publications over the past 20 years. They estimate the number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl meltdown at about 980,000.


Monbiot dismisses the report as worthless, but to do so – to ignore and denigrate an entire body of literature, collectively hundreds of studies that provide evidence of large and significant impacts on human health and the environment – is arrogant and irresponsible. Scientists can and should argue over such things, for example, as confidence intervals around individual estimates (which signal the reliability of estimates), but to consign out of hand the entire report into a metaphorical dustbin is shameful.

<snip>


4) Monbiot expresses surprise that a UN-affiliated body such as WHOmight be under the influence of the nuclear power industry, causing its reporting on nuclear power matters to be biased. And yet that is precisely the case.

<snip>

After 1959, WHO made no more statements on health and radioactivity. What happened? On 28 May 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); clause 12.40 of this agreement says: "Whenever either organisation proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement." In other words, the WHO grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA – a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. The IAEA's founding papers state: "The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world."


Monbiot appears ignorant about the WHO's subjugation to the IAEA, yet...

read full article at the Guardian's website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

And the really odd thing is when I google (news and web) caldicott, caldicott guardian, or caldicott monbiot, the only hits I get no hits at all for her response. Just the original debate and monbiots conversion piece.

It certainly makes you wonder if someone isn't gaming google on a large scale.

[Chris_Texas]

8. We interrupt this hysteria for a brief reality check...

The best study yet on the effects of Cherobyl was conducted by the World Health Organisation and United Nations. According to the these experts the death toll to date is about FIFTY.

Not fity billion. Not fifty million. Not fifty thousand. FIFTY.

FIVE-ZERO.

The estimated long term multi-decade death toll is expected to reach a few thousand -- or about as many as fall victim to homicidal gerbil attacks or accidental drownings in strawberry jello.

[trotsky]

9. Well obviously they didn't do the RIGHT study.

As in, "Everyone within 500 miles of Chernobyl who died from something other than a car accident (and maybe even those, if we don't think the number is big enough), died because of Chernobyl."

[Chris_Texas]

10. Good point. Other things Chernobyl is responsible for...

Sparkly vampires

Split-ends and hair tangles

Seeds in seedless watermellons

Hannah Montana AND Justin Beiber

Rocks in snowballs

Global Warming and global cooling

Trig Palin

WWII

[SidDithers]

12. ROFL!...

Sparkly vampires!! :rofl:

Sid

[closeupready]

45. Predictable.

[SidDithers]

64. Yes. Sparkly vampires are predictably hilarious...nt

Sid

[fatbuckel]

13. Both HM and JB? Yikes!

[FSogol]

71. Trig is the best Palin out of the whole bunch.

:shrug:

[Generic Other]

110. I heard bird brains are getting smaller in the region around Chernobyl

Have you checked yours lately?

:hi:

[upi402]

11. Have you seen this one?

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

[trotsky]

14. Not displaying anything for me...

with my browser add-in that blocks Javascript from unknown sites.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I think I know just the add-in.

[trotsky]

24. If you have a safe link to view the content, by all means share.

Otherwise I'm going to trust NoScript. Or you can just throw another 3rd grade insult if you'd like.

[NickB79]

25. I watched it.

Just a series of photos, mostly of abandoned cities in the exclusion zone, a few of children with various maladies that could be due to Chernobyl's radiation or could be due to another cause. Basically the same thing that's been out there on the intertubes for the past decade or more.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Exactly. Down the road, when shit stars showing up, the response is, invariably:

"prove it". Sure, poor kids, right? What with their 'various maladies'... :eyes:

And those 4,000 we know got thyroid cancer due to Chernobyl... bummer, huh?

Yeah, so, you know TEPCO is offering big bucks to workers willing to come help with the clean up; since you're so absolutely certain of how harmless all this crap is, when are you signing up?

[Warren DeMontague]

30. I have noscript, too.It assumes ALL websites aren't 'safe', until you allow them.

Or maybe you forgot that once upon a time you had to allow 'democraticunderground', too.

The link is fine. The only thing it's going to disturb is your sensibilities.

[trotsky]

32. I temporarily enabled the sites. Still wouldn't show me anything.

Crap sites with misleading content apparently.

[upi402]

46. Crap site? Contempt prior to investigation

and willful ignorance tells me all I need to know. I guess we're done then. Enjoy your KoolAid and I'll give the propaganda a pass.

[trotsky]

54. If a site doesn't function well, it's a crap site.

Regardless of content. But I do appreciate the personal attack - take care!

[Warren DeMontague]

65. Given that assorted liberal outlets, like mother jones, are recommending the Paul Fusco photo essay

apparently, you're in the minority that can't get the so-called 'crap site' to open.


Here's a blog with some of the pictures:

http://pphotographyb.blogspot.com/2010/09/chernobyl-by-paul-fusco.html

Let me know if this 'crap site' doesn't work for you, too. It's blogger. Perhaps you've heard of them.

[trotsky]

69. First, lose the 'tude.

Second, hooray! That link works. Yup, terrible pictures. I feel sorry for anyone suffering. However the people in many of them exhibit conditions like elephantiasis, microencephaly, general birth defects, etc. that were known to exist long before we were making nuclear reactors. So how am I to know which of those people had their condition caused by Chernobyl vs. other kinds of pollution, or drugs taken by their mother while pregnant, or any of the other multiple causes for those conditions?

You should not assume that just because I see a series of pictures on the Internet I'm going to assume what someone else tells me happened is the truth. Sorry, I'm not easily convinced or led.

[Warren DeMontague]

70. Exactly. "You can't prove this had anything to do with Chernobyl"

So, obviously, it must not have.

Look, Jack, Chernobyl was a massive clusterfuck. We KNOW long-lived radioactive contamination has deleterious effects on human health, particularly where children are concerned. It's not exactly rocket science. Like I said before; if radiation is so fucking harmless, why bother with 'containment' in the first place? And why aren't all our DU erstwhile nuke defenders on airplanes over to Fukushima, to get some of those high-paying cleanup jobs from TEPCO?

Your 'sympathy' for these kids is just palpable. I'm sorry, really I am, that anything might possibly interfere with- what?- the promotion of the bestest, most ass-kicking form of energy known to man, i.e. the use of radioactive fission to boil water!


...And *I* have a 'tude?

Yeah. Bummer about those kids. Too fucking bad. Huh?

[trotsky]

72. Nope, that's not what I said.

I'm asking YOU how we know the difference. Do you know, or do you just have more personal attacks and strawmen to launch out of frustration?

[Warren DeMontague]

73. We don't. And that's the idea.

When the effects start coming down the wire, it's pretty hard to prove that they were a result of the nuclear accident. Nevertheless, downwind from TMI there was a several hundred percent increase in lung cancer and other forms of cancer. Still, the standard nuclear industry line is that "nothing bad happened due to TMI".

[trotsky]

74. "it's pretty hard to prove that they were a result of the nuclear accident"

But that hasn't stopped you. You throw out a link to a bunch of pictures to say that all of these things happened because of Chernobyl, but now you backtrack and admit we don't know? Nice.

What's especially fun is being attacked as a dupe or shill for the nuclear industry simply because I don't uncritically accept what you say.

[Warren DeMontague]

86. I think it's very likely that much of this stuff is directly due to Chernobyl.

Is the idea that unless someone can come up with a rock solid cause-and-effect proof that something was due to the nuclear accident, the ill effects aren't there?

I'm sorry this isn't "fun", for you. Was this supposed to be fun? I've been getting radioactive iodine in my rain for the past couple weeks, I've been roundly assured that it's nothing to worry about even as my kids play in the mud.. in fact, some go so far as to scold anyone who expresses any concern at ALL about the possibility of 3 reactors and a complex with something like 25 times the total radiological load that Chernobyl had melting down...

that hasn't been "fun" either.

[trotsky]

96. No, what I said was "fun" was getting personally attacked by you

And I thought the sarcasm was obvious enough. Go ahead and do whatever superior dance you need to do.

[Warren DeMontague]

102. Okay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7movKfyTBII

[upi402]

44. Hmmm - It still works for me.

It's very well done and worth a quick look if you can get it. My security settings are high, not sure why you aren't getting it to load. Cut&paste into browser maybe?

[madokie]

57. I'll go back and watch this a little later this morning

Thanks.
some f**l said only fifty people has died because of Chernobyl, :rofl: except they're so seriously wrong. People are still dying because of that one. I can just imagine the numbers that will succumb to this catastrophe in Japan right now

[Xenotime]

85. OMG That is so sad... I can't imagine the suffering those children are going through...

And yet, the US does nothing to help.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. "according to these experts". Right, when cancers show up 10 years later

the response is, "well, prove it".

That's exactly the sort of crap they pulled with TMI, too.

I suggest you look at this:

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

For shame. Honestly. Stop apologizing for this crap.

[NickB79]

19. What experts have claimed 500,000 dead from Chernobyl? nt

[Warren DeMontague]

20. None from the nuclear industry, I'm sure. nt

[NickB79]

22. I'm asking for specific researchers and/or publications

Since the article posted by the OP doesn't list ANY to back up their claim of 500,000 dead so far.

[kristopher]

27. Can you compare and contrast the different methods that have been used in these studies?

You seem to be very sure that some are better than others, can you explain why? The NYAS study is very comprehensive and uses a valid method of research and analysis; so unless you have a good basis for rejecting the work (something the NYAS didn't find) then it is hard to view your objections as credible.
Did you even bother to read Caldicott's response to Monbiot, for example? Or are you so set in your beliefs that you are incapable of examining valid evidence while making an attempt to have an open mind?

[NickB79]

36. If someone would actually post some studies to back up their claims, I'd try

So far, no one has posted a link showing a peer-reviewed study estimating 500,000 dead as the OP's link claims.

[kristopher]

50. And yet you know enough to reject it?

You don't see a problem with that picture?

What is your opinion of the fact that:
1) the mission of the primary mission of the IAEA is to promote the fission reactor industry?

ARTICLE II: Objectives
The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose


That has no ambiguity in it, wouldn't you say?

2) On 28 May 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); clause 12.40 of this agreement says: "Whenever either organisation proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement." In other words, the WHO grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA – a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. The IAEA's founding papers state: "The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world."


Did you know that?

When you put those two pieces of information together, what do they add up to?
Is it a reason to assign high validity to the work that this dynamic produces?
Or is it a reason to place the product of their work into the "suspect until verified by independent agency" category?
What happens when an independent analysis produces dramatically different findings?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

One more thing. Do you google for news fairly often? Much earlier today Caldicott published her response to Monbiot. Here is the google news search page:
http://news.google.com/

Go there and put in /Caldicott/ or /caldicott monbiot/ and see if you can find today's article anywhere?
Why not?

[NickB79]

99. Where in this thread have I rejected it? I haven't, but you already know that

I asked for a source for the claim that 500,000 people have died from Chernobyl. Asking for a source for a specific claim is not rejecting the claim.

As such, I'm still waiting for SOMEONE to post a link to a study so that I can then make an informed opinion. Until then, I can neither accept or reject the statement that 500,000 people have died from Chernobyl.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. I'm sure whoever it is that you're posting propaganda for

is perfectly capable of doing that research for you.

[NickB79]

34. delete, double post

[NickB79]

35. Asking for a source is now propaganda?

The educational system has really failed in this country, hasn't it?

[Warren DeMontague]

66. No, asking is not the propaganda part.

I'd like to see the source on that number, too. I wholly dispute the idea- whether it comes from the UN or whoever- that "only" 50 people died due to Chernobyl.

I'm wondering if you managed to look at the Fusco photo essay.

http://pphotographyb.blogspot.com/2010/09/chernobyl-by-paul-fusco.html

[NickB79]

100. Since asking is all I have done in this thread

Why did you accuse me of putting out propaganda?

And yes, I did look at the Fusco photo essay. Like I said before, it really has nothing new that hasn't been widely published for the past 20 years. I'm not saying that to minimize the suffering shown in the photos, but as you and trotsky hashed out further upthread, you can't make the claim that any of the specific injuries shown are due to Chernobyl, only that there is an increased probability that they were caused by it. I'm not saying that to defend Chernobyl; that's simply the way science works in this instance.

[Union Scribe]

90. Oh bullshit.

The guy is asking for a source. Do you know what you look like when you greet that with paranoid finger-pointing?

[Warren DeMontague]

93. Honestly, at this point, I don't give a flying philadelphia fuck what "I look like".

Just like I'm not overly concerned about the sensitive feelings of folks associated with the nuclear industry, not while Fukushima has been spewing toxicity for a full month, now.

[walldude]

38. You know you wouldn't look like such an

ass if you weren't so smug about your post of lies. Over 200 people died in just the initial blast at Chernobyl.

Please post us a link to the information you claim to have. I'd love to see it because after exactly 60 seconds on Google I found 50 different articles debunking what you just said.

[alarimer]

61. Anti-science ignorance doesn't just exist on the right, clearly.

Liberals can be just as ignorant, with complete lack of critical thinking skills as the right, as proven in this thread. Of course, if it doesn't fit their precious anti-nuclear worldview, it must be bullshit. Cue the conspiracy theories in 1, 2, 3...

Now you and I, for trying to inject a little reason into this discussion, will be labeled tools of the nuclear industry, even though I have nothing to do with that. I am merely pointing out that extraordinary claims (like 500,000 dead) require extraordinary proof. The article referenced in the original post does not reference any sort of scientific study or anything else that might constitute some kind of evidence for their claim. That is suspect on the face of it. But, because it happens to support the anti-nuclear positions of the liberals here, it is taken as gospel as are so many other ridiculous claims. We ridicule this behavior when we see it on the right (and it happens ALL the time there); we should ridicule it when we see it on the left. Ignorance knows no ideology.

[TheMadMonk]

15. 500,000 to date in the first twenty five years, and only 30,000 to go...

...over the next fifty. I'll call bullshit on the lot of it from that alone.

The service personel irradiated by nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s saw a peaking of the real nasties hitting them after 30-40 years, so you're going to have to come up with some incredible way for far smaller doses of radiation to prove more lethal, more quickly than staring through "The Gates of Hell" themselves, to make the claims you are repeating even remotely possible.

Dr (MD) Caldicott's characterisation as "scientist" (author is no indicator of authority, despite shared linguistic roots, and thus fluff) doesn't exactly make me want to swallow the rest.


Strange isn't it? A "scientist" who speaks in impossibly catagorical terms on a subject entirely outside their field of expertise, without putting forward supporting evidence in a scientifically rigourous manner, is an authority to be believed without question. But the scientist who only devoted twenty years of his life to studying that subject ingreat detail and carefully qualifies his word, is always to be viewed with great suspiscion - because obviously he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he wouldn't need to qualify himself.

Whether or not you are ultimately proven right in the claim that nuclear power is too dangerous for everyday use, is not the issue here. It is that having reached that conclusion in advance of the evidence, you (as a group) resort to EXACTLY the same intellectually dishonest debating tactics as teabaggers, creationists, climate change deniers, etc. - appeals to unqualified authorities, personal attacks, overcitation of irrelevant credentials, calling into question the motives of nuclear's supporters, accusations of bias, questioning of "bedfellows" and on and on.

Take a look here - http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html And take a long hard look at how this debate has raged. Tell me who you think has been intelectually honest and who has not.

[kristopher]

21. Caldicott took Monbiot to the woodshed today. She showed him as a gullible fool.

...who doesn't know the difference between science and corporate propaganda.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x865459

[NickB79]

23. A physician took a journalist to "the woodshed" over nuclear power

Two people arguing over a topic neither one has any formal education in brings what to the table, exactly?

[kristopher]

26. A physician isn't qualified to know about the health effects of radiation?

[Warren DeMontague]

31. No one who doesn't have a vested financial interest in the nuclear industry

is 'qualified', apparently.

[NickB79]

40. Have you found me any supporting studies yet? nt

[Warren DeMontague]

67. Do you have a vested interest in the nuclear industry, financial or otherwise?

Just curious.

[NickB79]

101. Not unless you consider the dairy industry part of the nuclear industry

Unless our plant starts importing contaminated milk from Northern Japan sometime soon.

[EOTE]

104. Are you now, or have you ever been part of the Communist party?

Just curious. And I realize that you haven't provided any actual information in spite of several requests. If you've got something, why don't you show it?

[Warren DeMontague]

109. No. I am not. Nor have I ever been. Nor am I being paid or otherwise incentivized by them to post

talking points online.

Okay?

Now, here's one source for the 500,000 number:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/mar/25/energy.ukraine

The new estimates have been collated by researchers commissioned by European parliamentary groups, Greenpeace International and medical foundations in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia and elsewhere. They take into account more than 50 published scientific studies.

"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine," said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine.

Furious demands for PROVE IT!!! Aside, in case you haven't noticed, we have a massive environmental and radiological clusterfuck unfolding in Japan. Contrary to the bleating and whining from some quarters around here, the bruised egos and hurt, sad feelings of nuclear energy.... uh, 'enthusiasts'... is not the biggest thing on the plate. Get it?

[NickB79]

37. Given Ms. Caldicott's history of wildly exaggerated claims, I'd say no

But by all means, tell us how Ms. Caldicott is a widely respected source of knowledge on the subject.

[peace4ever]

39. That is the view of the Nuclear Industry, sure - but who believes what they say any more?

just their echo-chamber, that's who.

[TheMadMonk]

43. NO, a paediatrician is NOT quallified in nuclear medicine.

The woman is not even a paediatric oncologist who might be expected to recieve some formal training in the subject.

And who doesn't CARE about the difference between science and agenda serving/b] propaganda, provided it's their agenda being served?

What is worse? The knuckle dragger who knows no other way? Or the intelectual who is willing to abandon the very principles which set him apart from that knuckle dragger.

[kristopher]

59. Let's get this straight -

You say that a fully qualified physician, who after entering practice finds the area of specialization involving the effects of radiation on human health to be of interest, and who then spends years of additional study time before she started writing about it and then continued to work in that area of specialization for the decades leading into present day, is unqualified on the subject of the health effects of environmental radiation because, "a paediatrician is NOT quallified(sic) in nuclear medicine", right?


Definitions of nuclear medicine on the Web:
the branch of medicine that uses radioactive materials either to image a patient's body or to destroy diseased cells
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A branch of medicine specializing in the use of radionuclides for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
www.hss.energy.gov/HealthSafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/glossary.html


Your words speak for themselves.

What do you think of the mission of the IAEA and the LEGAL relationship between the IAEA and the WHO?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

[TheMadMonk]

63. From her own CV THESE are her "NUCLEAR QUALIFICATIONS"

United States
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
- Founder and President, 1978-1983
- President Emeritus, 1983-Present

Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND)
- Founder, 1980

Nuclear Freeze Voter Initiative Campaign, 1980
- Co-Leader

STAR (Standing For Truth About Radiation) Foundation
- Co-Founder, 1997; President, 1999-2000

Nuclear Policy Research Institute
- President, 2001- Current

Australia and New Zealand
Initiated movement against French atmospheric tests, 1971-72

Led education campaign among Australian labor unions about medical and military dangers or uranium mining, 1975-1976

Led public New Zealand education campaign, with Dr. William Caldicott, resulting in the official New Zealand nuclear-free policy, 1982

Founding Patron, Parents Protecting Our Children Against Radiation, Lucas Heights, NSW, 1998

Europe
Helped organize English, Scottish, West German, Dutch, Belgian, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian medical campaigns for prevention of nuclear war, 1980

Member of American Friends Service Committee delegation which met with Soviet physicians and scientists on the medical consequences of nuclear power and nuclear war; also met with high-ranking Soviet officials to discuss terms of Salt II Treaty, 1979


NOT ONE of her actual professional qualifications includes the word "nuclear" or any related words.

Dr Caldicot at least has enough of the intelectual honesty you lack, to list her nuclear efforts under the heading of "Advocacy" as they properly should be.

So I repeat. This individual is NOT ACCADEMICALLY QUALIFIED to rigourously/critically/scientifically examine the subject on which she opines any more than the "experts" who speak out against vaccines, Anthropogenic Global Climate Change, or in the past tobacco.


Hmm the definitions game: Let me have a go. Interpreted sufficiently broadly, the definitions you quote confers "nuclear experthood" on any first year resident the first time they order an x-ray.

Interpreted as another physician would, those definitions, most deifintely exclude Dr Caldicot as an expert.

And you finish with a cite of a tabloid newspaper op ed piece by Dr Caldicot speaking of some agreement between the IAEA and the WHO on which of the two will make public pronouncements. As if this agreement precludes anyone else publishing their own findings.

The intellectual fibre of the company you keep speaks for you.

[kristopher]

76. / victim advocate / expert / ethical system /

You seem to be confused about what both "expert" and "advocate" means; and also what constitutes cause and effect as those concepts fit within a medical-legal-ethical framework of social service.

In short, she is a fully qualified physician that has applied her high level professional knowledge to a specific area of within that body of knowledge. She is a medical expert; unless the word expert has found a completely new meaning.

How she has honed that expert knowledge and applied it is a reflection of her motives for action; and motives are universally a reflection of an ethically defined set of beliefs.

For example when it is in the more normal range of problems within society a "victim advocate" is defined as:
"A Victim Advocate is a position often found within the district attorney's office, or it may be funded by a non-profit group, such as one concerned with rape victims or victims of domestic abuse. Victim Advocacy duties include explaining, supporting, encouraging and consolidating resources to minimize psychological, physical, financial and emotional effects on the crime victim.

This is the antithesis of SELFISHNESS. It means she is motivated to help people - a trait consistent with the best qualities we seek from the medical commonity and the last quality we would expect from a quasi-governmental conglomeration of profit seeking corporate 'persons'.

The belief you give voice to states that since she is motivated to employ her expertise to aid those that lack such expertise but need it, she invalidates her expert qualifications. That is bizarre enough in and of itself, but it commands this question: if an act of human kindness and caring destroys credibility in your eyes; then what establishes it? What possible motive for learning could be LESS prejudicial to the position of barrier between any impersonal profit system and the human detritus that system sheds without a thought?

I'm sure you are claiming bias, but that isn't what is present in her person. Yes she has a point of view - but she has facts to support that viewpoint.

Yes she has a set of beliefs that have values behind tham, every human does. But she also has a firm, real-world, empirically derived scientific basis for those beliefs that she developed during a period of open-minded inquiry based on training that equipped her to objectively judge the evidence.

Her inquiry led to conclusions that you now challenge based solely on the fact that she has the unmitigated gall to act for others who are potential victims of the CORPORATE system profiting from the wanton use of fission.

Do you begin to perceive an ethical chasm in your reasoning yet?

Caldicott may or may not be right on the data and her interpretation of that data, I think she is more likely to be right than not on on the points she argues than not.

i'm sorry but your reasoning is unsound, and it demonstrates a very limited grasp of how ethics are defined by our actions and choices.

All you are really doing is shooting the messenger and deflecting attention from the issues raised; which are:
The IAEA is a quasi-governmental group expicitly chartered to promote a global corporate energy oligarchy. They have the legal, statutory right and ability to control the entire body of research produced by the World Health Organization when the WHO is investigating anything that affects the MISSION of the IAEA. Again that mission is to enable corporations to sell nuclear fission derived energy.

Do you see the ethical options here?

[TheMadMonk]

98. No if she had OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE of her claims she would...

...publish an actual scientific paper in the field of nuclear medicine, not go on tours, talking numbers that even Greenpeace won't swallow. She would obtain the necesasary qualifications in the relevant fields and present her evidence in the approved fashion for her peers to critique.

A simple bit of mental arithmetic puts the lie to the claim of 500,000 deaths from Chernobyl. Rounding for simplicity roughly five million people die every year from all causes. Chernobyl's supposed toll of 500,000 over 25 years equals 20,000 deaths per year. And with the majority suposedly clusterered around the ten year mark a peak rate of 50k deaths per year isn't at all unreasonable. A full once percent increase in mortality rate, TAKEN WORLDWIDE, and not an epidemiologist in the world spotted it.

(If you've been paying attention, you'll recall the offically accepted mortality rate of coal to be 80k deaths world wide. Do the math. 1.6% of all deaths every year are down to burning coal to make electricity. About the same again IIRC for other forms of carbon based pollution.)

And since in fact the population actually affected was not the entire world, (let's be generous and allow 500 million) it takes a 10% peak increase in mortality to account for the 500k deaths which you're putting forward on Dr Caldicott's behalf.

AND the ONLY people to spot it is the handful of obscure Russians Dr Caldicott cites?


A proctologist is also a highly qualified physician. However I wouldn't ask one to look at my teeth.

You and to a lesser extend Dr Caldicott, repeatedly descend into a multitude of completely dishonest debating tactics to advance positions not supported by objective fact. Any validity of any information you present is destoyed by the way in which you choose to present it.

The ends DO NOT justify the means. Not for teabaggers, not for right to lifers, not for the good Dr. and not for you.


I happen to more or less agree with you on the IAEA having an agenda of their own, but I still trust them more than you, simply because whatever their agenda, there is an absolute upper limit on how far they can "stretch the truth" without the qualified scientific community calling bullshit on them. When bullshit is called on you, you double down and add another cowchip to the pile.

I trust the greater scientific community to know their stuff and report the truth as they best know it. To examine the evidence and draw only conclusions which can be supported by that evidence. Not to put forward entirely unsupported figures and then repeatedly imply that the missing support is due to a worldwide, multidisciplinary conspiracy to hide the evidence from you.

[kristopher]

112. Actually you do not trust the "greater scientific communty" and your post proves it.

The "the handful of obscure Russians Dr Caldicott cites"? That is your version of objectivity and trust?

As to your claim of 5 million people dieing per year from all causes, you are off by an order of magnitude:

There are between 56 and 57 million deaths each year worldwide.

WORLDWIDE SITUATION
- 57 million deaths per year

Source:
Principles of Infectious Disease Epidemiology / EPI 220
UCLA School of Public Health / Department of Epidemiology
Instructor: Scott P. Layne, MD / Fall 2004
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/layne/Epidemiology%20220/01.intro.pdf


According the World Health Organization's statistics, chronic NCDs
such CVDs, diabetes, cancers, obesity and respiratory diseases,
account for about 60% of the 56.5 million deaths each year and almost
half of the global burden of disease.?
Source: International Journal for Equity in Health
http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/2


The WHO says that in 2000 cancer was responsible for 12 per cent of
the nearly 56 million deaths worldwide from all causes.?
Source: Cancer Decisions
http://www.cancerdecisions.com/040903_page.html

You are just digging yourself in deeper and deeper. Your wrong on the ethics and you are wrong on the facts.

You are wrong.

[TheMadMonk]

117. Even being out by an order of magnitude is not enough hide/lose...

...500k deaths. Not world wide and even less so amongst the population that actually received a non-negligible dose. To achieve 500k deaths, the actual death/cancer rates would have to be fifty times the official figures. Or a straight up increase in incidence of all fatal cancers by a full 50% in the affected population.

You tell me how it is possible to indetectably hide such a butcher's bill in the specific case of radioactive exposure, when definitive causative association can, in the general case, be made with great confidence at far lower thresholds of variation from statistical norms.


""the handful of obscure Russians Dr Caldicott cites"? That is your version of objectivity and trust?" No that is a measure of my mistrust of one individual: Dr Caldicott. You don't just cite those who agree with you, you far more importantly cite those you most vehemently disagree with, and then with proper scientific rigour you prove them wrong.

You DO NOT, claim a great conspiracy and then cite that conspiracy as reason to dismiss all claims comming from within that "conspiracy", or worse still, automatically assign menmbership in that "conspiracy" to anyone who dares to disagree with you.

You don't make personal attacks.

You don't question the motives of your opponents.

You don't begin from unsupported premises.

You don't make emotive arguments.

You don't appeal to unsupported, but commonly held beliefs.

You don't pick and choose your definitions.

You don't indulge in inuendo.

You don't insinuate.

You don't claim expertise in one field automatically confers expertise elsewhere.

You don't use small errors as reason to automatically dismiss an entire argument.

You don't make false or misleading distinctions.

[peace4ever]

42. thank you for the informative link

:toast:

[Warren DeMontague]

18. You tree hugging hippies with your pedestrian concerns about "cancer" and "children".

You just want to deprive humanity of the cleanestest, bestestest, most ass-kicking awesomest form of energy ever to sit inside a giant fucking concrete dome.

Honestly, though, since radiation is so harmless, I'm wondering why we even bother with all this pesky "containment" nonsense. Clearly, gerbils are more dangerous than plutonium. :eyes:

[hayu_lol]

33. 30,000 dead so far from the tsunami...from radiation? 0.

so far. Towns destroyed in Japan from radiation...0. From the tsunami...many.

Not trying to sugar coat the problem. There will be more deaths from the evacuation and the tsunami aftereffects. There will be deaths on site from radiation, but how many we don't know.

A bad situation? No question about it. Life has to go on because that is what we do.

[peace4ever]

41. radiation can take years to kill, but it just keeps on killing for thousands of years

and it can reach across continents.

why do you think they stopped testing nuclear weapons?

[closeupready]

49. Do we learn from our mistakes, or just fatally go to our deaths?

Hmmm? "Yes, radiation sucks, but get over it, whiners!"

[Warren DeMontague]

68. Life has to go on, but I fear there are a lot of people in the exclusion zone

who are never going home. They're going to have to find somewhere else to live.

[closeupready]

47. I know, right? What softies.

:sarcasm:

K&R

[flamingdem]

51. The nuclear "dream" turned out to be humanities biggest nightmare nt

[Paradoxical]

52. Yeah, I'm pretty sure hunger is humanity's biggest nightmare.

Possibly war as well.

[flamingdem]

62. Nuclear contamination from Fukushima will reduce agricultural land in Japan by a huge percent

as it did with Chernobyl

And it's not something that can be fixed, it's forever essentially.

The contamination of the planet is the issue, surely you realize

[Chris_Texas]

53. Here is the world Health Organisation factsheet on chernobyl

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html

Note: despite it's short length I do not expect any of the fine folks who embrace anti-nuclear as their religion to actually read this. Nor is it worth the effort to post a summary of this summary here, as it will be similarly ignored. I am posting it here for those interested in the facts rather the the myths.

This tsunami was a horror. The loss of life, the destruction, are just staggering.

It is pathetic that so many see this as their opportunity to score political points, but I guess that's human nature.

[kristopher]

58. What is the relationship of the WHO to the IAEA; what is the mission of the IAEA?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=865326&mesg_id=872364

[Hannah Bell]

77. do you have some citation for the 500K figure?

let me know when you do.

even the article doesn't tell us anything about it or where that number came from.

[kristopher]

80. You already know what studies put the number high like that. Now what about the IAEA/WHO?

That is what you are using as your basis for rejecting the other studies. Please defend their work against the charges leveled by many parties that this perverted relationship is deliberately serving corporate interests.

[Hannah Bell]

81. i don't know anything of the sort. please link me to a citation for that figure.

[Union Scribe]

91. Thank you for a link to actual science

And there is, amid the tragedy, GOOD news to be found therein:

"Since radioactive iodine is short lived, if people had stopped giving locally supplied contaminated milk to children for a few months following the accident, it is likely that most of the increase in radiation-induced thyroid cancer would not have resulted."

With proper care, many many cases of cancer may be avoided in Japan.

[Union Scribe]

92. And here's a conversion tool

for those who understand rems better than grays and sieverts.

http://www.metriccalculator.com/radiation.html

[Hannah Bell]

55. wtf?

According to UNSCEAR (2000), 134 liquidators received radiation doses high enough to be diagnosed with acute radiation sickness (ARS). Among them, 28 persons died in 1986 due to ARS. Other liquidators have since died but their deaths could not necessarily be attributed to radiation exposure.

The Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4 000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240 000 liquidators; 116 000 evacuees and the 270 000 residents of the SCZs). Since more than 120 000 people in these three groups may eventually die of cancer, the additional cancer deaths from radiation exposure correspond to 3-4% above the normal incidence of cancers from all causes.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure, or about 0.6% of the cancer deaths expected in this population due to other causes. Again, these numbers only provide an indication of the likely impact of the accident because of the important uncertainties listed above.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html

[kristopher]

60. And how about you? What do you make of the IAEA's mission and the legal relationship with WHO

The information is clear, easy to read and easy to verify. So what say you?

Is it a conflict of interest for the IAEA, a body established with the MISSION of promoting the global nuclear fission industry, to have "the right of prior approval" over work by the body (WHO) charged with doing epidemiological studies of the toxic emissions of the industry the IAEA was created to promote?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

If it were the petroleum or coal industry, would this be acceptable?

[Hannah Bell]

75. *i* don't have anything to do with it. the poster claimed 500K people died from chernobyl.

as far as i can tell, it's horseshit.

[kristopher]

78. And what do you base that judgement upon?

The only support for that claim can be found in data from a system where there is not only the opportunity for corrupt production of data, but undisputed facts that establish direct opportunity, specific motive, and the *means* to effect the corruption of the data.

I'd just like to know how anyone gets past that and then criticizes with a straight face the Chernobyl Consequences study because it was published but not commissioned by a top journal.

[Hannah Bell]

79. give me the citation for the 500K figure.

[kristopher]

82. So your only response is to retreat into a dogmatic dead end of diversion?

Since it isn't possible to defend the product of the WHO on matters that might negatively affect the corporate interests behind fission power, it is the only path available to you.

Thank you for the discussion.

[Hannah Bell]

83. citation?

[kristopher]

105. You don't require the reference to answer the question.

Your basis for challenging ANY high number of deaths related to Chernobyl is the WHO. You know there are several sources that contradict the EXTREMELY low numbers the WHO has reported and you are now obligated to stop trying to divert the subject away from the compromised basis of your criticism and simply answer the question posed to you in post 60 (referencing post 58).

"What do you make of the IAEA's mission and the legal relationship with WHO? The information is clear, easy to read and easy to verify. So what say you?
Is it a conflict of interest for the IAEA, a body established with the MISSION of promoting the global nuclear fission industry, to have "the right of prior approval" over work by the body (WHO) charged with doing epidemiological studies of the toxic emissions of the industry the IAEA was created to promote?

If it were the petroleum or coal industry, would this be acceptable?

[Egnever]

84. So there is no source for the 500k?

Its pulled out of someones vivid imagination and repeated as fact?

[Warren DeMontague]

87. In the OP, it says "up to".

That's at least as factual an assertion as the constant line from the authorities that we "have nothing to worry about" due to radiation from Fukushima.

[Egnever]

88. Well i could say up to 1 bagillion people were cured because of nuclear power

That doesnt make it so or plausable. Just cause someone says something and it jibes with your world view does not make it so or make it plausable. There has to be some sort of hard data behind the claim to make it plausable and so far i have yet to see any data whatsoever for it.

[Warren DeMontague]

89. And that's the whole idea. By the time the damage shows up, no one can "prove" it.

Here's some "hard data" on TMI, the so-called "safe" nuclear accident.

http://www.albionmonitor.com/9703a/3milecancer.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1469835/

[Egnever]

97. Thanks but not as satisfying as a snickers

The first link is an opinion piece based loosely on the second links document. The second link goes to a study that quibbles over a previous studies findings the differences in the new findings from my read of it seem to lie somewhere between very small and so small its hardly worth mentioning.

I am not a scientist and I may be reading the pdf linked incorrectly but worst case scenario in that paper seems to be an increase of 0.02178% thats so small as to be barely noticeable and would certainly not support any wild claim of 500k dead from Chernobyl.

It is important in my opinion to make decisions based on facts and not fearmongering and the OP IMHO is just fearmongering with no data whatsoever to back it up.

[Hannah Bell]

95. give me a source. it says there are" scientists and doctors citing evidence,"

so link me to that source, please.

[kristopher]

106. You don't require the reference to answer the question.

Your basis for challenging ANY high number of deaths related to Chernobyl is the WHO. You know there are several sources that contradict the EXTREMELY low numbers the WHO has reported and you are now obligated to stop trying to divert the subject away from the compromised basis of your criticism and simply answer the question posed to you in post 60 (referencing post 58).

"What do you make of the IAEA's mission and the legal relationship with WHO? The information is clear, easy to read and easy to verify. So what say you?
Is it a conflict of interest for the IAEA, a body established with the MISSION of promoting the global nuclear fission industry, to have "the right of prior approval" over work by the body (WHO) charged with doing epidemiological studies of the toxic emissions of the industry the IAEA was created to promote?

If it were the petroleum or coal industry, would this be acceptable?

[Hannah Bell]

108. i have no obligation to answer any questions. i didn't write the op. you're

defending the number, so source it.

[kristopher]

113. You really can't face reality can you?

I can't imagine a more transparent ploy to avoid admitting that your position has no credibility than skittering away into such a childish snit.

[Hannah Bell]

115. lol. no citation. childish snit = trying to make it about me.

[Warren DeMontague]

111. Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/mar/25/energy.ukraine

That's at least one person whose "vivid imagination" the 500K figure comes from.

Now, go ahead and tell me that's not good enough, or explain why he's not qualified to have an opinion.

"We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They've not said why they haven't accepted it."

Evgenia Stepanova, of the Ukrainian government's Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine, said: "We're overwhelmed by thyroid cancers, leukaemias and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which were practically unknown 20 years ago."

[Imagevision]

94. Japan: just keeping an eye on the California coast...

[pscot]

103. Up to means

Less than 500000, but more than !. That sounds like a sure thing.

[Zax2me]

107. Up to 500K?!

Hell, such a BS number I won't even waste time clicking on the link.
Thanks for the heads up.

[kristopher]

114. That is a comically obvious attempt to discourage people from reading the material.

since you didn't read it yourself why not have another go?



Lessons From a Meltdown
In the Shadow of Fukushima


http://counterpunch.com/ghosh04112011.html

[librechik]

116. I get so spanked on the forums if I use that figure

The PuKKKes come right back with the WHO figure of about 50. What is the solution?

on edit: should have looked at the replies. The spankers are out in force again today. They want us all to think 50 is the proper figure. And there is no solution.