Chernobyl killed millions of people over time. Tons of thyroid cancers that would have never existed if Chernobyl didn’t explode.
[1] See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di....
[2] The model assumes that any amount of radiation is harmful and estimates the harm of low doses as a corresponding fraction of the harm of large doses. Empirical evidence is unclear, at best, but it functions as worst-case estimate.
> In 2009, the New York Academy of Sciences published a book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. A team of European scientists led by Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to Russian Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, assembled over 5,000 research studies, most written in Russian and not previously published.
> The results were staggering. Yablokov’s team estimated that just in the first 20 years after the Chernobyl meltdown, some 986,000 deaths attributable to it occurred, many in parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The percent of children living in these areas considered in good health plunged from 80% to 20%. Rates of certain cancers soared, including childhood thyroid cancer in Ukraine (20 times higher) and Belarus (200 times higher). Rates of disease in covering many organs in the body all increased in areas closest to Chernobyl.
> Yablokov’s team indicated that the number of casualties would continue to grow, well after publication of the book.
However, its methodology and rigour have been criticised [3]. As I am not an expert in this area I cannot evaluate the source directly, but several general heuristics apply. The source is a single book. (I am aware that the book claims to rely on numerous non-english sources, but I do not believe that they make the same claims.) The book relies on observational epidemiological data, which is generally hard to get right, and dose-response curves seem to be not analysed (seeing a relationship between doses and effect sizes is a good way to exclude spurious correlations). Finally, since the article mentions Yablokov's prior occupation I will also note that he founded and lead the Soviet chapter of Greenpeace, an organisation with a strong anti-nuclear position.
So I do not think that this is strong evidence. (But as I said earlier, I do currently consider it weak evidence.) In any case, the book claims one million deaths, not multiple millions, and only a fraction of those is attributed to thyroid cancer.
[1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/02/russian-takeover-of-...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20110419144513/http://www.strahl...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...
> The IAEA/WHO have often sought to justify their dismissal of eastern European epidemiological studies by citing questionable scientific practices: but epidemiology is not an exact science, and the same shortcomings exist in western studies uncriticised by the IAEA. The IAEA also point to shortcomings with pre-Chernobyl Soviet cancer registries, but cancer registries in western countries had similar issues at that time.
Indeed, where is the criticism for the IEAE and WHO applying a very selective "conservativism" about epidemiological research, much like big tobacco and DuPont? They're the reason nuke fanboys make risible claims like "< 100 people died because of Chernobyl" and don't get laughed out of the room.
Pointing out that the author was affiliated with Greenpeace without noting the systemic bias of nuclear organizations against epidimiological data is questionable.