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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

And if you take the value of land into account? Chernobyl displaced a lot of people and cost a lot of money

In direct deaths, Chernobyl didn't cause that many but I have seen estimates of the cancer toll that are a lot higher than most accidents

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Most of those estimates haven't held up, after this many years those deaths should be noticeable. The only cancer they can observe Chernobyl having an effect is thyroid cancer, which kills very few people.

> which kills very few people.

I really don't understand the exclusive focus on deaths here. Cancer and genetic deformations can make your life hell even if they don't cause death.

It is not an exclusive focus on deaths, it is on all cancers and they did not spike as claimed by more pessimistic models. There were a few slight increases (mostly in thyroid cancer) but also a lot more testing being done that makes it a bit harder to normalize the statistics -- this may also have dropped the death rate slightly, as cancers caught early due to increased testing are more likely to be treatable.

Do you mean the number of death because of Tchernobyl is negative (less death than if Tchernobyl did not occur) ?

No, I am suggesting that part of the reason the death rate is much lower than predicted is that the testing rate has gone way up (and stayed up as testing became better and cheaper) and treatments have improved significantly, so incidences of cancer that might have been discovered late with few treatment options in the 90s are now detected early and treated as a chronic condition. More deaths overall, but a lot less than what was expected.

If you live in the fallout region then you are going to be placed in a high-risk category and are going to be watched more closely for cancer than the general population. By observing something we change it.

Most of the cancer treatments that make your life hell aren't commonly used on thyroid cancer. Generally you have part of the thyroid removed, and quite often it can safely be ignored with no harm done to the patient.

What about child birth defects ?

I don't think the UN team was able to attribute any child birth defects to increased radiation. The horror books with pictures of them are shock collections of deformed children. It's possible that the rampant alcoholism of the latter Soviet era was the likely cause.

Alcoholism causes birth defects? How?

A simple google search will bring up hundreds of articles linking alcohol consumption during pregnancy to birth defects. It is a well established relationship.

In the US we even have warnings on all alcoholic beverages that say pregnant women should not drink alcohol.

I looked at the CDC's page (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/alcohol-use.html). It contains a number of very negative effects from drinking alcohol while pregnant. But because the context was birth defects caused by radiation, I was thinking more in terms of visible deformities - which can be caused by radiation, but which are much less significant from alcohol.

Perhaps I was being too limited in my concept of "birth defects" - including for radiation. If the radiation while pregnant (or before) gives the child cancer at five, is that a "birth defect"? Maybe not, in the way I was thinking, but I can see how it might be thought of that way.

What childbirth defects?

I'd rather have 50,000 displaced than 5,000 dead. Being dead is pretty bad vs displaced. I move around a lot; although I can see the argument it is bad it is not a fate worse than death.

If Oroville Dam had given way back in 2017 that could easily have been America's Chernobyl. It made for exciting news.

I found your comment quite cynical and hand wavy. The nuclear fallout affected a huge area and still impacted parts of central Europe. This goes hand in hand with increased cancer rates. Yes, better than dying immediately, but still not a fate you would wish upon anybody.

> I move around a lot

Others don't.

Also, did you into account all the indirect effects of radiation?

This is like saying than Kalashnikovs clubbing people to death are rare events, so they are very safe.

Having cancer death after ten years, because radiation was released, is a direct death. Direct origin, direct cause, Wouldn't be happening without the event. This child would had born normal. This woman would not die in an hospital at 52 years old.

We have registered increases in thyroid cankers, we have plenty of healthcare centers data showing that something abnormal is still happening with this population. Is embarrassing to see nuclear related people claiming after all this years that, if you can't trace it, is not their problem, specially when half of Europe was about to be seriously poisoned forever.

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