Chernobyl fallout impaired mental development of Swedish infants
Posted by Mark on Thu 16 Aug 2007Categories: News | [5] Comments
Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster impaired the mental development of Swedish children that were still in the womb at the time of the incident. That’s the conclusion of a new study by US-based researchers, showing that affected children went on to perform poorly at school. The findings suggest that infants are endangered by radiation exposure at levels previously thought to be safe.
Read more about this Chemistry World exclusive here.
Thu 16 Aug 2007 at 7:35 pm
[...] written by Mark [...]
Fri 17 Aug 2007 at 5:13 pm
As a swedish citizen I’m doubtfull to the conclusions made by the trio Palme, Edlund and Almond.
First of all, the projected number of deaths as a result of the Chernobyl accident was calculated to about 9000 (including a large region stretching as far as Kiev, totally population over 5 miljon inhabitants)
The actual number of deaths that can be linked to the accident are only 50, give or take a few. This according to the Chernobyl forum (CF), a respected organization that incorporates amongst others a number of UN bodies. This figure is a result of almost 20 years of constant medical surveys made by the CF.
Secondly, the amount of cromosomal and physical damage in this same region is shown to be significantly less than expected for both humans and wildlife in the region.
As for animals and plants living at “ground zero” today, no abnormalities has been noted even though extensiv studies has been made by amongst others R. Chesser from Texas Tech university, US.
Many leading scientist argue that the current model for radiation hazards, the “LNT” should be revised.
Third, Sweden has had a considerable amount of troubble with its educational system ever since a much-critizised reform made in 1989. In average, students grades has gone down by over 10% since the early 90′s.
This is considered a major problem and has been heavily discussed during the last coupple of years.
Even if this is not the main factor, it’s very hard to pinpoint a single factor.
Moreover, The aftereffects from the fallout ought to stretch over a longer period of time than just the summer of 1986 since radiation is stored in tissues of plants and animals, as well as in the soil.
Would we be able to find similar results if we looked at other timeperiods that did not coincide with a reactor meltdown?
Mon 20 Aug 2007 at 7:46 am
An interesting study, which I will endeavour to read in full shortly before coming to any conclusions about its findings. For now, I wish simply to comment on two aspects of the earlier posting by Alexander Rayman.
On the Chernobyl Forum study, particularly the claims about health consequences, Mr Rayman does not accurately describe what the study found. The following are two extracts from the actual report.
1. ”Childhood thyroid cancer caused by radioactive iodine fallout is one of the main health impacts of the accident. … By 2002, more than 4000 thyroid cancer cases had been diagnosed in this group, and it is most likely that a large fraction of these thyroid cancers is attributable to radioiodine intake.”
2. ”It is impossible to assess reliably, with any precision, numbers of fatal cancers caused
by radiation exposure due to the Chernobyl accident — or indeed the impact of the
stress and anxiety induced by the accident and the response to it. Small differences in
the assumptions concerning radiation risks can lead to large differences in the predicted
health consequences, which are therefore highly uncertain. An international expert
group has made projections to provide a rough estimate of the possible health impacts of
the accident and to help plan the future allocation of public health resources. The projections indicate that, among the most exposed populations (liquidators, evacuees and
residents of the so-called ‘strict control zones’), total cancer mortality might increase by
up to a few per cent owing to Chernobyl related radiation exposure. Such an increase
could mean eventually up to several thousand fatal cancers in addition to perhaps one
hundred thousand cancer deaths expected in these populations from all other causes. An increase of this magnitude would be very difficult to detect, even with very careful long-term epidemiological studies.”
(Extracts from the Summary, ”Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts And Recommendations to the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, The Chernobyl Forum: 2003–2005, Second revised version, April 2006.)
It should be noted that the estimates provided in extract (2) above, do not rule out additional fatal cancers or specify a particularly low number. They do state one could expect to an increase, how many depends on what assumptions one uses, and that the figures given do not include estimates of possible consequences in the larger affected populations (which are even harder to calculate).
Secondly, I am not sure why Mr Rayman refers to education reforms in Sweden that took place in 1989 and the question about other time periods. From the study pre-print (available on the same “Chemistry World” page), a quick glance shows that the focus was on individuals born in 1983 to 1988, three years before the accident and two years after (see page 13 – 16 on Student Data).
Mon 20 Aug 2007 at 4:39 pm
First of all, the natural background radiation in the city of Gothenburg is more than doubble (12.5 Msv)that of the worst affected areas in sweden back in 1986 (5msv)
There are no evidence that the citizens of Gothenburg are less intelligent than the average Swede.
There are areas in the world with 10 or even 100 times higher background radiation.
“The level of
natural exposure varies around the globe, usually by a factor of about 3. At many locations, however, typical levels of natural radiation exposure exceed the average levels by a factor of 10 and sometimes even by a factor of 100.”
[See: http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/gareport.pdf ; page3, section 11]
Second, as I stated in my previous post, “students grades has gone down by over 10% since the early 90’s.”
The slow decline in grades over the past 15 years or so can be described as a mainly linear graph. The change has been gradual.
Theese facts has to be taken into consideration when reading Edlund, Almon & Palme’s (E,A&P’s) study.
The educational reform of 1989 was critizised before it was implemented, has drained a good deal of resources from the schools, and remains critizised to this very date.
The children who are targeted in E,A&P’s study where fetuses during the chernobyl acciden, the children born before
and after serve as control groups. The children born in -87 and -88 shows an even lower score in official statistics presented
only a few days ago while the ones born before, in -84 -85, show a slightly higher score. The differences are minute,
one or two percent at most.
I am not saying that we should blaim the Swedish educational system instead of the Chernobyl accident, however, I do belive that one should take into account the endless number of variables that can have influenced E,A&P’s work.
Neither am I saying that radiation is “nothing”. We should definately be cautious of the risks involved.
In response to your quoting of CF’s study, I wonder why you fail to mention this paragraph in the same document, page 6:
“For the 1,152 thyroid cancer cases diagnosed among children in Belarus during 1986-2002 and treated, the survival rate was 98.8%. Eight patients (0.7%) died due to progression of the thyroid cancer”
[http://www.chernobyl.info/resources/resource_en_131.pdf]
On the very same subject, we have the following two quotes:
Dr Mike Repacholi at WHO says:
“Ultrasound screeningunits where sent out into the field to check children for thyroid cancer. [...] What happens is that the screening will detect cancers that never progress to a clinical [malignant] cancer.”
Professor Antone L. Brooks at Washington State University agrees:
“Whenever physicians are very diligient in looking for something, they tend to find more of it. So to me, that figure of 4000 [...] is something of an overestimate”
[Both statements above was taken from the BBC Horizon documentary "Nuclear Nightmares" (2005) ]
Nuclear Chemistry professor Christian Ekberg makes the following statement about E,A&P’s study:
“It’s a very speculative article, Sensational, but it just has to be wrong. The result would imply that even minuscule amounts of radiation – Like the one that struck Sweden – can be hazardous, contrary to scientific data. Swedish women where exposed to about 4Msv, or two times the average background radiation.”
(My translation, from the page: http://www.hn.se/m_standard.php?id=733716&avdelning_1=109&avdelning_2=170& )
Thanks for an interesting debate!
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