Chernobyl 'caused Sweden cancers'

[struggle4progress]

<snip> The study monitored cancer cases among more than 1.1 million people exposed to radioactive fallout in northern Sweden between 1988 and 1996.

Martin Tondel, a researcher at Sweden's Linkoeping University who headed the study, said that, of 22,400 cancer cases, 849 could be statistically attributed to Chernobyl.

He said that, after other factors such as smoking, population density and age had been taken into account, it seemed the only possible explanation. <snip>

"With every statistical method we used to look at it, we see an increase (in cases) across the board. That indicates that it's a Chernobyl effect," he added. <snip>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4028729.stm


Saturday, November 20, 2004 · Last updated 11:55 a.m. PT
Study suggests Chernobyl affected Sweden
By MATTIAS KAREN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

<snip> The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority has previously estimated that the fallout will produce about 300 cancer deaths in 50 years. <snip>

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/aphealth_story.asp?category=1500&slug=Sweden%20Chernobyl%20Cancer


Chernobyl disaster caused cancer cases in Sweden
Posted By: News-Medical in Medical Study News
Published: Friday, 19-Nov-2004

A statistically determined correlation between radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident and an increase in the number of cases of cancer in the exposed areas in Sweden is reported in a study by scientists at Linköping University, Örebro University, and the County Council of Västernorrland County. <snip>

After the nuclear power accident at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, some of the radioactive emissions were carried by the wind to Sweden. Heavy rain caused a relatively large amount, about 5 percent of the Cesium-137 released in the disaster, fell on Sweden, above all along the coastal area of Northern Sweden and northern central Sweden. The fallout in Sweden was unevenly distributed and, compared with the areas close to the nuclear power station at Chenobyl, considerably less. Knowledge of the possible consequences of radioactive fallout on health prompted a number of measures to be taken to reduce these consequences at the time of the Chernobyl accident.

The study now being published aims to help answer the question of whether there is increased cancer morbidity that can be tied to this fallout. The study divides the parishes in the seven northernmost Swedish counties into six classes on the basis of ground coverage of cesium 137. Most of the parishes in the seven counties, 333 out of 450, were impacted by the fallout. One class comprising 117 parishes received no fallout, and the individuals in these parishes were used as a control group. Those people aged 0-60 who were resident in the counties in question and who had the same address on December 31, 1985 and December 31, 1987, were monitored for development of cancer. At the outset of the study 1,143,182 individuals were included, and 22,409 cases of cancer were registered during the years 1988 through 1996. <snip>

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6397

[NNadir]

1. Gee, with about 1000 more Chernobyl's we'll equal one year of air

pollution.

Not that you give a rat's ass about the thousands of extra deaths attributable to your favorite form of energy.

In any case, I could edit your popular press link differently:

"But Leif Moberg, a radiation expert with the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, questioned the findings.

"The radiation dosage that we in Sweden got after the accident was too low to produce this many cancer cases," Moberg said, adding it was probably too early to see any definite results of Chernobyl. "Most cancer cases don't develop until 20, 30 or 50 years later," he said.

Tondel, however, said that although the increase of cases can't directly be attributed to Chernobyl, he could not see any other explanation."

It happens that the failure to explain something necessarily means that any potential cause you happen to dream up is therefore true. For instance, until the 1940's, when Hans Bethe published his work, the mechanism by which the sun worked was not known. This did not imply that the true explanation was that Apollo pulled a chariot through the sky.

I have no doubt, however, that more people in Europe will die from the accident at Chernobyl, but I also note it would have to be over 4 million (which BTW will not happen) in order for the entire history of nuclear energy to equal one year of fossil fuel deaths.

Future Chernobyls are less likely than the event that occurred in 1986 for the following reasons:

It is likely that no other RMBK type positive void type graphite moderated reactors will ever be built, and since no engineer will ever conduct a "test" like the one leading to the failure of the Chernobyl plant, a "test" that included deliberately disabling every major safety system, and removing all of the control rods to overcome the xenon poisoned state in which the reactor was at the end of its fuel cycle.

Still I wish that the remaining RBMK reactors would be decommissioned and replaced with Pressurized Water Reactors, since they lack the passive safety feature of having a negative void co-efficient that every single Pressurized Water Reactor ever built has. It must be said that RBMK reactors are at potentially least 1/5 as dangerous as coal plants, which makes them unacceptable to thinking people everywhere (present company excepted).

[struggle4progress]

2. When Moberg argues that twenty year latency makes the result ...

... impossible, do you think he's simply unaware that nearly twenty years have elapsed since the Chernobyl accident -- or is the man insisting the cancers will all wait until after the twentieth anniversary?

Your assertion "with about 1000 more Chernobyl's we'll equal one year of air pollution" is interesting, too. If I assume you make an honest and good faith effort at meaningful comparison, it appears that you are claiming 800K+ annual cancers in Sweden due to air pollution. That's rather higher than I expected. Do you have a reference?

[phantom power]

3. To do this comparison, we would need...

the total deaths caused *worldwide* by Chernobyl, compared with the deaths caused worldwide by fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels cause deaths all over the world, whereas I doubt that Chernobyl caused any deaths, outside of some radius.

What we're really trying to compare is "deaths from nuclear energy" versus "deaths from fossil fuels". To make it fair, we should probably even weight the results by total energy produced. Since nuclear energy accounts for only a fraction of the energy produced by fossil fuels.

That would be an interesting comparison: figure out the total ergs ever produced by fossil fuels, and likewise the total ergs ever produced by nuclear reactors. Then compute a "deaths/erg" for both fossil fuels and nuclear. For practical purposes, we could probably go back 100 or 200 years for fossil fuels.

[struggle4progress]

4. For the purposes of this thread, I'd be content with a model for Sweden.