Quote:
Originally Posted by Whatnext
The actual deaths from different cancers ran into thousands with those who were exposed to the radio active fallout at Chernobyl. Later a spike in birth defects were also attributed to the disaster.
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I also heard rumors to this effect including wild speculations about the tens of thousands that were projected to develop cancer. None has borne out with any degree of scientific scrutiny. These projections were based on the "linear no threshold model" that has since been proven wrong. The only accepted effect was a slight uptick in leukemia and thyroid cancer which, fortunately are relatively successfully treatable cancers. After forty years the scientists monitoring the situation believe that any cancers directly linked to Chernobyl are not detectible beyond background levels with any degree of scientific certainty. This goes even for the "liquidators", the term used for those who worked early on in the initial clean up effort. These workers were very closely followed, even now 40 years after the disaster. I could go on but will leave it at that.