The UN report on Chernobyl, 20 years on: NYT.

[NNadir]

The UN has reported on the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, which happens to be a country, by the way, where all the citizens will die:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/international/europe/06chernobyl.html

"ROME, Sept. 5 - Nearly 20 years after the huge accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a new scientific report has found that its aftereffects on health and the environment have not proved as dire as scientists had predicted.

The report was prepared by a panel of more than 100 experts convened by United Nations agencies...

...The report, "Chernobyl's Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts," says 4,000 deaths will probably be attributable to the accident ultimately - compared with the tens of thousands predicted at the time of the accident.

Only 50 deaths - all among the reactor staff and emergency workers - can be directly attributed to acute radiation exposure after Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 exploded in April 1986, the panel found. The rest will be from cancer at a higher rate than would otherwise be expected in people exposed to radiation near Chernobyl in the wake of the accident...

...The panel found that contrary to previous forecasts, there had been no observed rise in the incidence of leukemia, a blood cancer widely associated with radiation exposure - except for a small increase among workers who were in the contaminated plant. Nor has there been the expected detectable decrease in fertility or increase in birth defects...

...The only concrete health impact in the region has been thyroid cancer in people who were young at the time of the accident and drank contaminated milk from cows that ate grass contaminated with radioactive iodine dispersed during by the accident. Radioactive iodine, which is short-lived, concentrates in the thyroid gland. Because the disease is generally treatable, only 9 of the 2,000 who have come down with the disease have died..."

In a separate editorial the NY Times opines thusly:

"In the long run, the experts predict, some 4,000 emergency workers and residents of the most contaminated areas may die from radiation-induced cancer. That qualifies Chernobyl as a very serious accident but not a catastrophe..."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/opinion/08thu3.html

Now let's hear from the Society of People Who Are Afraid That the Oil Rigs Have Disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course, no matter what those dumb scientists say, we know really that Chernobyl is the worst disaster ever anywhere at any time. Shit, we'd bet the air we breathe on it in fact.

[Maple]

1. Chernobyl is not a country

and we have had far worse disasters.

[tridim]

2. Ghost Town

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

[NNadir]

3. Um, this lady has been exposed many times as a fraud.

She gets linked here whenever Chernobyl is mentioned.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/05/fraud-exposed-and-true-thing.asp

Of course, I never got the point of the motorcycle trip anyway.

Of course the NY Times article refers to a scientific report and not a website and a girl on a motorcycle.

The geneticist Robert Baker and his research team has been to Chernobyl many times as his website details:

http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/ang.htm

Dr. Baker is the one on the right.



http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/wildlifepreserve.htm

[jpak]

4. Only 4000 deaths

nothing to see here - move along...

[NNadir]

5. Over the entire history of nuclear power...

Over 50 years of commercial operation that comes down to 80/deaths a year. All accidental deaths are unfortunate, but when you consider that all of these deaths came from improper operation at a type of plant that is rare, that these deaths are not immediate but represent deaths accrued over decades and that, unremarked by twits who think that plutonium toxicity is the world's largest energy related health problem, no major source of energy has a death rate so low.

Now members of the International Society of People Who Panic When the Oil Platforms Are In Trouble like to pretend (as opposed to demonstrate) that they give a shit about humanity, but at the end of the day they are just fossil fuel apologists, coal and oil, coal and oil, coal and oil, punctuated with empty promises about what solar power will do after everyone now living has died from old age.

The fact is though that the moral indifference of the members of this society will not revive even one person who is killed by air pollution, even though hundreds of thousands of such people will be killed this year alone, it will not revive one person killed in coal mine accidents this year, even though thousands of such people will die, and of course not revive one person killed by global climate change related effects although this may ultimately mean the end of a large fraction of humanity, the destruction of myriad ecosystems and maybe, just maybe, everything.

In fact the claim made by the International Society of People Who Shutter Even To Think of Milligrams of (gasp) Uranium is that every person who died at Chernobyl is worth thousands of people killed in every other type of energy operation.

Why? Because they say so.

[jpak]

6. Yes, let's ignore uranium miners, millers and transporters

http://www.joem.org/pt/re/joem/abstract.00043764-200003000-00008.htm;jsessionid=DhRJ1QQ4GfHF5hkROr9TxVW7HqVL9fZ6o1xYd97PYR418BCBRGmp!1971627109!-949856144!9001!-1

...and let's not talk about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program (which compensates uranium workers for illness and death resulting from workplace radiation exposure).

...and NO, there is no elephant in that room...

[NNadir]

9. Um, as usual the fossil fuel apologists ignore

1) http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/05/content_431458.htm

"Fires, cave-ins and other accidents killed 1,113 miners from January to March, up 20.8 percent over the same period in 2004, said Li Yizhong, the minister in charge of the State Administration for Work Safety..."

Why don't anti-environmental immoral anti-nuclear twits don't care? Well they don't look. No statistical inferences are necessary of course in the China case because the men were killed directly and immediately.

2)
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FTK/is_1_108/ai_96963825

"Fatal accidents in the nation's coal mines dropped to an historic low of 27 in 2002, according to preliminary figures from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Forty-two miners died in chargeable accidents in 2001, MSHA said."

Now we know that the members of The International Society of People Who Weigh Deaths on the Basis of Whether The Scary Word "Radiation is Used - 10,000 to 1 don't give a shit that the historic low for one year is the same order of magnitude for the (statistically inferred) numbers for uranium miners who got cancer over a period over 24 years, because coal mine dead don't matter.

Coal miners are not human beings apparently.

3)

http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2004/171/mos/

Here's a good one, since we wish to rely on statistical inference:

"Approximate number of Americans who had died in the aftermath of the Iraq War, with these deaths becoming a major national political issue, as of late 2003: 300
Number likely to die each year, according to widely accepted statistical models, as a result of diseases caused by the Monroe, Michigan coal-burning plant—the plant where George Bush chose to give a speech touting his new energy policy giving high priority to building new coal-burning power plants: 300."


International Society for Pretending Because of Limited Comprehension Skills that Risk Free Energy Does Not Exist.

4) This one comes from the Ukraine, the country about which the members of
The International Drinking Society for While Claiming That They Give A Fuck About the Impact of Energy on the Environment pretends loudly to give a flying fuck about.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2142310.stm

"A methane gas explosion at a mine in eastern Ukraine has left six people dead - the second major accident at a Ukrainian pit in two weeks.
Fourteen others were injured in the blast at the Yubileinaya mine in Dnipropetrovsk region - some seriously, officials said.


The explosion comes just two weeks after a fire at another mine in the east of the country left 35 miners dead...

...The number of miners killed in industrial accidents in the past 10 years is put at more than 3,700.

On 7 July, 35 miners died and 12 others were injured in a fire at the Ukraina pit in Ukrainsk."

Let's see, the Ukraine, Chernobyl, Ukraine, Chernobyl, 4000 dead, 20 years ago, Ukraine 10 years, 3700 dead...um...um...um...what could that mean?

Now I could go on and on with case 6, 7, 8...1000, 1001, 1002, etc, and still I'd be hearing insipid remarks about "elephants."

Pink elephants, I bet.

Just because some twit isolates uranium mining from all other mining does not make the other mining safer. It just exposes, as usual the selective attention of the members of International Society of Indifferent Thinking.

The fact is that radiation paranoids with weak minds are desperate, absolutely desperate to suggest, by isolating incidents in nuclear energy production from the alternatives, to reinforce a very, very, very, very weak case, a case that a sane person would need to be completely stupefied to believe. (On the other hand, for a complete nutcase - say a person who claims nuclear expertise on the basis of working with a few milligrams of an element with a specific activity in the microcurie per gram range - apparently will believe anything, pickled or sober.)

I repeat, not that I expect to be understood by the one or two idiots who keep pressing this case: I have not said nuclear energy is risk free. I have not said that it is harmless. What I have said is that it is risk minimized.

Now, the fact is that the anti-nuclear case is all hype. Events like New Orleans, the Floridian hurricanes last year, like the droughts plaguing Africa and the American West and Mid West, the disappearance of glaciers on which much of humanity depends for drinking and farming water, etc, etc, etc, are kicking the prop of ignorance and superstition from under the anti-nuclear house of cards.

Chernobyl was most definitively the worst possible nuclear case. The core of the reactor, one of the few in the world with a chemical fuel in it (carbon) burned for weeks and released a huge percentage of its radioactive inventory directly into the environment. Moreover the people who ran the reactors, representatives of the anti-capitalist workers people's state, deliberately suppressed the nature of the accident, and failed to act in a timely manner, that is they behaved with the maximal indifference, almost as much indifference as a white trust fund spoiled brat greenpeace twit might.

The world has exhaustively examined that tragedy and while no one denies that it was a tragedy, everybody who is sane acknowledges that it will not be anything like the scale of a typical and increasingly regular climate related catastrophe.

It's not like anti-environmental anti-nuclear activists have anything to offer as an alternative. They make big claims for solar energy, but they can't and don't deliver. I note that the first solar powered satellite was launched in 1958, by the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_III, just one year after the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US, Shippingport, came on line. It's not like solar energy is some kind of new fucking idea; it's an old idea that just doesn't work very well except in very limited situations, like satellites in space orbiting inner planets. Solar power has had practically the same 5 decades to work that nuclear power has had. One form of power exists and provides 20% of the world's electricity. The other form is basically one hyped demonstration plant after another and provides 85% of the world's specious bullshit blabber and blather about the subject of energy.

In 1958, we still had time to wait for talk to be translated into reality. Now we don't. The earth's atmosphere is collapsing. Not in 2050. Now. Immediately. Today. Fucking dead bodies are lying in the streets, not just here, but worldwide.

So what have we got? We have pronuclear environmentalists and we have doublespeak coal and oil apologists. All the jumping up and down in the world, all the whining and crying, all the misrepresentation confusing the difference between a megawatt and a megawatt-hour can't change this. It should be pretty straight foreward, with the caveat that seeing this requires a modicum of sanity, something apparently which can never be assumed.

In fact 440 nuclear reactors continue to operate and many more are being built or are planned. Chernobyl happened. After 20 years a comparable accident has NOT occurred anywhere else on earth. This is experimental evidence that we have learned through experience by learning by doing how to make nuclear energy work and work well.

People often sell bullshit through marketing. That, for instance, accounts for the existence of the Bush administration. However, the more you oversell your bullshit, the harder you will fall and the more ridiculous you will seem when you cannot deliver on what you're marketing. The Bush administration, having oversold its "emergency preparedness" is now much more the subject of international derision than it would have been if it had simply remained silent on the subject.

I was once anti-nuclear, right up to the years immediately following Chernobyl. One of the things that made me look and think for myself was the fact that I expected that the loss of life from that accident would be an unparalleled catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. In short, I was oversold. Now of course, with my children's lives at stake, I have absolute contempt, as in disgust, as in total revulsion, for the salesmen, especially those who keep representing, in obvious defiance of reality, that their sales pitch ever had or still has merit.

Such people, in my opinion, simply have no honor.

[jpak]

15. Typical blather from Chernobyl apologists

...and devotees of radiation hormesis psudeoscience....

...and Larouchian twit radioisotope laboratory contaminators...

...and Molten Salt Guys that will become fabulously rich REAL SOON with their make-believe super-secret molten salt reactor design...

:evilgrin:

...and Anti-Nuclear-Solar-Only-Anti-Environmental-Fossil-Fuel-Apologists...with no honor???????

:rofl:

Chernobyl was a real disaster - get over it.

[struggle4progress]

12. Oooh! Isn't Robert Baker the Texas Tech Faculty Athletic Adviser?

http://www.big12sports.com/schools/text/big12-text-body.html

And he studies "the Systematics of the American Leaf-Nosed bats, family Phyllostomidae." His papers include:

Baker, Robert J., Jonathan L. Longmire, Mary Maltbie, Meredith J. Hamilton, and Ronald A. Van Den Bussche. DNA synapomorphies for a variety of taxonomic levels from a cosmid library from the New World bat Macrotus waterhousii. 1997. Systematic Biology 46(4): 579-589

Baker, R. J., C. J. Phillips, R. D. Bradley, J. M. Burns, D. Cooke, G. F. Edson, D. R. Haragan, C. Jones, R. R. Monk, J. T. Montford, D. J. Schmidly, and N. C. Parker. Bioinformatics, Museums and Society: Integrating Biological Data for Knowledge-Based Decisions. 1998. Occas. Papers. Museum of Texas Tech University. 187:i + 1-4

Baker, R. J., Makova K. D., and Chesser R. K. Microsatellites indicate high frequency of multiple paternity in Apodemus (Rodentia). 1999. Molecular Ecology; 8, 107-111 http://www.biol.ttu.edu/fac_staff.asp?tp=faculty&name=Robert%5FBaker


He has certainly reached sweeping conclusions from a few visits to Chernobyl: "No birth defects or physical deformities have been detected" http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/conclusions.htm


Of course, other researchers HAVE reached different conclusions:

Increased deformities in Belarus since Chernobyl

LONDON - Congenital deformities in children in Belarus have risen by 83 percent since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a weekly science magazine said on Wednesday.

The increase in cases of cleft palate, Down's syndrome and deformed limbs and organs is highest in areas hardest hit by the fallout from the world's worst nuclear disaster 12 years ago.

But even in lightly contaminated regions of the former Soviet republic doctors have reported a 24 percent rise in deformities, that earlier scientific studies have linked to radiation damage. <snip>

The latest statistics resulted from a re-analysis of data collected in 1996 for a national genetic monitoring programme. Rose Goncharova, of the Institute of Genetics and Cytology at the Academy of Science in Minsk, re-examined the data. http://chronicle.home.by/9810/9810072.htm


Maybe Baker should choose what he wants to be and restrict his energies accordingly: does he want to be a museum director, a bat scholar, or a public relations hack for the nuclear industry ...

[struggle4progress]

13. With Texas Tech's all-too-frequent NCAA troubles, Baker's athletic ..

advising responsibilities must take up a LOT of time. Here's the NCAA contact info for him: http://web1.ncaa.org/ssLists/perInfo.do?perID=131404&title=FR

Since serious research scientists usually don't wander off into byways like this, it sounds like he might be headed for the administrative pastures.

February 27, 2005
Texas Tech confesses to supplement violations

Texas Tech confessed to providing illegal supplements to athletes. The report by athletic director Gerald Myers and faculty athletics representative Robert Baker details 15 illegal supplements that were purchased for athletes over a two and half year span. <snip>

Given the current steroid flap in baseball, the Red Raiders could get a heavy penalty despite having fired the trainer that ordered the illegal supplements. The big hiccup here is that Mike Leach's signature is on the orders. Not good. http://www.fanblogs.com/texas_tech/004954.php

[NNadir]

23. Thanks for the Reuters article.

Oh, and thanks for the resume sifting too. To be honest, I found it, as usual, incoherent, but look I live in the age of low expectations.

As for your attempt to sweep the truth under the rug because it points of the vacuuity of the anti-nuclear position: Take it up with the UN. Or the New York Times.

The fact is that weak minded anti-environmental anti-nuclear coal apologists are losing everywhere. This is because they have no case, other than the use of logical fallacy, loud cant demonstrating a poor grasp of even basic science, very selective attention and, given the number of people who are killed by fossil fuel apologetics of the type they routinely make, ethics that can only be regarded with contempt.

Contempt aside, I find it amusing also to see the ultimate practioner of "appeal to authority," in which the 50 year old work of senile cranks like John Gofman on the subject of lipoproteins is offered to suggest his competance in the wholly unrelated field of actinide toxicity, now complaining that among Dr. Baker's work is some on small mammals. In fact, Dr. Baker is an expert on small mammal genetics, and it certainly would stand to reason that he would be interested in studying the subject in the Chernobyl environment.

Now, I know that this isn't quite as impressive as the nutcase Ernest Sternglass running around Long Island playing neo-natal dentist and publishing in journals that have nothing to do with the subject he is hysterically discussing, but what the hell?

Here is a list of 31 publications by Dr. Baker on the subject of his long work at the Chernobyl reactor:

Publications on Chornobyl

Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University



1. Matson, C. W., B. E. Rodgers, R. K. Chesser and R. J. Baker. 2000. Genetic diversity of Clethrionomys glareolus populations from highly contaminated sites in the Chornobyl region,Ukraine. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 19:2130-2135.

2. Rodgers, B. E. and R. J. Baker. 2000. Frequencies of micronuclei in bank voles from zones of high radiation at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 19:1644-1649.

3. Baker, R. J. and R. K. Chesser. 2000. The Chornobyl nuclear disaster and subsequent creation of a wildlife preserve. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 19:1231-1232.

4. Chesser, R. K. et al. 1999. Concentrations and Dose Rate Estimates of 134, 137Cesium and 90Strontium in Small Mammals at Chornobyl, Ukraine. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 19:305-312.

5. Makova, K.D., A. Nekrutenko and R.J. Baker. 2000. Evolution of microsatellite alleles in four species of mice (genus Apodemus). Journal of Molecular Evolution 51:166-172.

6. Nekrutenko, A. Makova, K.D. and R.J. Baker. 2000. Isolation of binary species-specific PCR-based markers and their value for diagnostic applications. Gene 249:47-51.

7. Baker, R.J., J. A. DeWoody, A. J. Wright and R. K. Chesser. 1999. On the utility of heteroplasmy in genotoxic studies: an example from Chornobyl. Ecotoxicology. 8:301-309.

8. Makova, K. D., J. C. Patton, E. Yu. Krysanov, R. K. Chesser, and R. J. Baker. 1999. Microsatellite markers in wood mouse and striped field mouse (genus Apodemus). Molecular Ecology. 7:247-255.

9. DeWoody, J. A., R. K. Chesser and R. J. Baker. 1999. A translocated mitochondrial cytochrome b pseudogene in voles (Rodentia: Microtus). Journal of Molecular Evolution. 48:380-382.

10. Baker, R. J., K. D. Makova and R. K. Chesser. 1999. Microsatellites indicate high frequency of multiple paternity in genus Apodemus (Rodentia). Molecular Ecology. 8:107-111.

11. Nekrutenko, A., K. D. Makova, R. K. Chesser, and R. J. Baker. 1999. Representational differences analysis to distinguish cryptic species. Molecular Ecology 8:1235-1238.

12. DeWoody, J. A. 1999. Nucleotide variation in the p53 tumor-suppressor gene of voles from Chernobyl, Ukraine. Mutation Research. 439:25-36.

13. Dallas, C. E., S.F.Lingenfelser, J. T. Lingenfelser, K. Holloman, C. H. Jagoe, J. A. Kind, R. K. Chesser and M. H. Smith . 1998. Flow cytometric analysis of red and white blood cell DNA in fish from Chernobyl-contaminated ponds in the Ukraine. Ecotoxicology.7:211-219.

14. Jagoe, C. H., R. K. Chesser, M. H. Smith, M. D. Lomakin, S. K. Lingenfelser, and C. E. Dallas. 1998. Levels of cesium, mercury and lead in fish, and cesium in pond sediments in an inhabited region of the Ukraine near Chernobyl. Environmental Pollution 98: 223-232.

15. Jagoe, C.H., C. E. Dallas, R. K. Chesser, M. H. Smith, S. K. Lingenfelser, J. T. Lingenfelser, K. Holloman, and M. D.. Lomakin. 1998. Contamination near Chernobyl: radiocesium, lead and mercury in fish and sediment radiocesium from waters within the 10 km zone. Ecotoxicology 7: 1-9.

16. Nekrutenko, A., Hillis, D.M., Patton, J.C., Bradley R.D., and R.J. Baker. 1998. Cytosolic Isocitrate Dehydrogenase in Humans, Mice, and Voles and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Enzyme Family. Mol.Biol.Evol. 15(12):1674-1684

17. Baker, R.J., R.A. Van Den Bussche, A.J. Wright, L.E. Wiggins, M.J. Hamilton, E.P. Reat, M.H. Smith, M.D. Lomakin, and R.K. Chesser. 1997. High levels of genetic change in rodents of Chernobyl. Nature. 390:100.

18. Lingenfelser, S. K., C. E. Dallas, C. H. Jagoe, R. K. Chesser, M. H. Smith, and M. D. Lomakin. 1997. Variation in blood cell DNA in Carassius carassius from ponds near Chernobyl, Ukraine. Ecotoxicology 6:187-203.

19. Chesser, R. K. and R. J. Baker. 1996. Life Continues at Chernobyl. La Recherche. 286:30-31. (in French).

20. Baker, R.J., M.J. Hamilton, R.A. Van Den Bussche, L.E. Wiggins, D.W. Sugg, M.H. Smith, M.D. Lomakin, S.P. Gaschak, E.G. Bundova, G.A. Rudenskaya, and R.K. Chesser. 1996. Small mammals from the most radioactive sites near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Journal of Mammalogy. 77:155-170.

21. Baker, R.J., R.A. Van Den Bussche, A.J. Wright, L.E. Wiggins, M.J. Hamilton, E.P. Reat, M.H. Smith, M.D. Lomakin, and R.K. Chesser. 1996. Accelerated mutation rate in native rodents from a polluted site at Chernobyl. Nature. 380:707-708.

22. Dallas, C. E., C. H. Jagoe, S. K. Fisher, K. A. Holloman, R. K. Chesser, and M. H. Smith. 1995. Evaluation of genotoxicity in wild organisms due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In, Animal World and Ecosystems in Conditions of Radioactive Pollution. Ecology of Industrial Regions 1:44-54.

23. Sugg, D.W., J. W. Bickham, J.A. Brooks, M. D. Lomakin, C. H. Jagoe, C. E. Dallas, M.H. Smith, R. J. Baker, and R. K. Chesser. 1996. DNA damage and radiocesium in channel catfish from Chernobyl. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 15:1057-1063.

24. Dallas, C. E., C. H. Jagoe, S. K. Fisher, K. A. Holloman, R. K. Chesser, and M. H. Smith. 1996. Evaluation of genotoxicity in wild organisms due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In, Animal World and Ecosystems in Conditions of Radioactive Pollution. Nauka Science Publishers, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. (In Russian).

25. Dallas, C. E., C. H. Jagoe, S. K. Fisher, K. A. Holloman, R. K. Chesser, and M. H. Smith. 1995. Evaluation of genotoxicity in wild organisms due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In, Animal World and Ecosystems in Conditions of Radioactive Pollution. Ecology of Industrial Regions. 1:44-54.

MANUSCRIPTS (IN PRESS AND IN PROGRESS)

25. Rodgers, B. E., J. K. Wickliffe, C. J. Phillips, R. K. Chesser and R. J. Baker. Experimental exposure of naïve bank voles, Clethrionomys glareolus, to the Chornobyl environment: A test of radioresistance. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. In press.

26. Chesser, R. K., B. E. Rodgers, J. K. Wickliffe, C. J. Phillips, S. Gaschak and R. J. Baker. Accumulation of 137Cesium and 90Strontium through abiotic and biotic pathways in rodents at Chornobyl. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. In press.

27. Rodgers, B. E., R. K. Chesser, J. K. Wickliffe, C. J. Phillips and R. J. Baker. Sub-chronic exposure of BALB and C57BL strains of Mus musculus to the radioactive environment of the Chornobyl exclusion zone. Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis. In Review.

28. Wiggins, L. E., R. A. Van Den Bussche, M. J. Hamilton, R. K. Chesser and R. J. Baker. Analysis of heterochomatin in voles (Microtus sp.) from Chornobyl. Journal of Heredity. Submitted.

29. Wicklife, J.W., B.E. Rodgers, R.K. Chesser and R.J. Baker. Assessing the genotoxicity of chronic, environmental irradiation using mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy in the bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus) at Chornobyl Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis. Submitted .

30. Baker, R.J., A.M. Bickham, M.Bondarkov, S.Gashsak, C.W.Matson, B.E. Rodgers,J.W. Wicklife and R.K. Chesser. Consequences of polluted environments on population structure: The bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus) at Chornobyl. Invited paper Ecotoxicology. In Press.

31. Rodgers, B.E. and L.K. Baker. An examination of chromosome damage in residents of Slavutych Ukraine and radiation workers at Chornobyl. In Manuscript.

These certainly look like papers written after a twenty minute visit, and they must all be nonsense because poorly educated anti-environmental anti-nuclear radiation paranoids say so.

And let's face it, they have no fear of sounding like idiots, having spent so much time contemplating Lyndon Larouche, the boogie man who scares them almost as much as gasp terror horror oh my god a few hundredths of a microcurie of shit duck scream fear fear fear uranium.

Now of course, a person who had a religious bent, who wanted to swear up and down that Chernobyl is the worst disaster ever because he is terrified of the word "radiation," would likely swear that these 31 publications, with international scientists including Russian, American and Ukrainian researchers are part of a plot by the nuclear industry. What else could you do. You don't like the message try to kill the messenger. And the New York Times is part of a plot by the nuclear industry. And the UN too.

But I know that not one of the radiation paranoids here has been to chernobyl. They think their heads would fall off and that they'd mutate into deformed giants as in those 1950's Japanese monster movies. But they know all about Chernobyl. They read about it on the Greenpeace site and Ratical.org.

These of course are great places to learn how to chant and how to recite, and how to draw amusing attention to yourself, but they certainly aren't places to address the important issues of humanity, to learn issues, and as we see again and again and again and again, or to learn how to think independently. When it comes to teaching thinking what they teach at Greenpeace is either how to think poorly or how to think not at all.

Let's face it, you can't be a member of the church of Our Lady of the Curse on Alpha, Beta and Gamma and know doodly squat about how science works.

Now about Dr. Baker.

Dr. Baker heads an international team of scientists. He, unlike radiation paranoids who cower at the thought of having to put uranium on their microscope slides (if we believe that they ever have, been in the presence of a microscope), has been to Chernobyl. Many of his co-authors are in fact Ukrainian. His research team consists of 7 Americans and 18 Ukrainians. His work is posted and cited in reputable journals that are relevant to his work, journals like Nature, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry...and many other journals that are relevant to his speciality.

That would certainly contrast with the anti-environmental anti-nuclear twit hero, Ernest Sternglass, who finds the need to be published in public health social science journals, like this precious bit of toomfoolery:

http://www.radiation.org/journal/nuclink_jan3104.html.

Of course, I do not expect either of the two most religious anti-nuclear chanters, the coal apologists, the bemoaners of lost oil rigs, to know the first thing about rational argument. I have too much experience with them all ready. I am familiar with their writings, all of which, were they not so morally disgusting, would almost be amusing and it really hard for me to imagine myself thinking any worse of them, since I have zero respect for them already.

And even the word zero is not hollow enough.

[struggle4progress]

24. A number of those articles probably have little to do with Chernobyl.

Microsatellites indicate high frequency of multiple paternity in genus Apodemus (Rodentia), for example.

[struggle4progress]

25. Oooh! And he's one of Cham Dallas's collaborators! Cham, of course, ..

.. is one of those nuclear apologists who has coauthored a paper or two on some small aspect of Chernobyl and then misrepresented the contents of the paper to the popular press in order to push his nuclear views.

If I remember correctly, Cham has moved out of Chernobyl research into the now more lucrative field of terrorism expertise and has continually clanged the rightwing bell about Iran building nuclear weapons (IAEA analysis to the contrary notwithstanding).

[struggle4progress]

29. Yep. Cham's being ringing the Iran bell for Bush:

The sheer size of the developing nuclear weapons program in Iran is a dangerous portent of the future
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1004/29weapons.html

Wingnutters at NewsMax love him too:

.. In his presentations, Dallas typically soothes the natural paranoia generated by recent events by declaring that the country is now better prepared to handle the next attacks. He attributes this preparedness to the public’s sense of belonging to a larger community. "It is an excellent response when you look at it from an organizational anti-terrorism point of view” ...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/11/14/183901.shtml

Looks like the fellow has a history of lifting cowpatties for the rightwing. So it's no surprise to find him spewing BS on nuclear issues.

[NNadir]

36. Whoops, that proves it! Everything in the exclusion zone is dead.

How to Argue When Your Arguments Are Pathetic.

I guess that the contention here is that Dr. Dallas's contentions about nuclear terrorism - something that anti-environmental anti-nuclear activists love to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about endlessly by the way - proves that everybody in the Ukraine was killed by Chernobyl.

Thanks for enlightening us all.

I wonder how much enthusiasm there would have been for the Iraq war without nuclear mysticism and frankly rank stupidity. As I recall Cheney, Powell, Georgie II et al were shouting (Fear) Nuclear! (Fear) Nuclear! (Fear) Nuclear! rather loudly. The shouted this so loud in fact, and with such disconnection from reality, I wondered to myself as to whether they planned to join Greenpeace.

I of course, knew this prowar nuclear fear was ridiculous and stupid right from the get go, but the American people, informed by radiation paranoid kooks, nutcases, and "dirty bomb" worry worts, apparently thought otherwise.

So, let's get to your brilliant exegesis of the scientific literature: Dr. Dallas's work - according to your iron clad memory -demonstrates that all the photographs of living things in the exclusion zone are photoshopped.

Thank you for enlightening us.

I am surprised of course, even with my astonishment at the immoral selective attention of the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/674542.stm">Only Radiation Related Deaths Count As Real Deaths crowd, that the IAEA is suddenly being cited to justify completely stupid arguments. After all, they say exactly the same thing as what the New York Times and the UN say:

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/index.shtml">The IAEA only makes valid statements for use in the Guilt By Association Logical Fallacy.

Take it up with the IAEA.

Take it up with the Journal Environmental And Toxicology as well, after you're done with the NY Times and the UN.

http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/wildlifepreserve.htm

-With Deepest Respect and Appreciation,
Ole' Lyndon LaRouche himself. :crazy:

[struggle4progress]

37. He's misrepresented his research, echoed nonsense about Iran, and

went around the country babbling "we're better prepared now" when it looked like he could get War-on-Terrorism money that way. Am I seeing a pattern here?

[struggle4progress]

41. From an oft-posted link on Cham etc:

In Hot Pursuit: Research in the Exclusion Zone

"We would have expected to see more deleterious effects in these species, given the enormous radiation loads we're seeing. So far we've investigated several species of fish and several species of rodents, all of which were chosen because of the high radioactivity in them. Yet we aren't finding mutations of any kind" ... Science Spectra (No. 15, 1999)
http://home.earthlink.net/~douglaspage/id26.html

Actually, the published research doesn't seem to show that Cham and his researchers did any systematic search for "mutations of any kind."

And inspection of the abstracts might suggest a rather different interpretation than Cham's spin:

Variation in blood cell DNA in Carassius carassius from ponds near Chernobyl, Ukraine
S.K. LINGENFELSER, C.E. DALLAS, C.H. JAGOE, R.K. CHESSER, M.H. SMITH and M. LOMAKIN
Ecotoxicology Volume 6, Number 4, July 1997 (187 - 203)
Abstract <snip> While further work is needed, particuarly in areas with substantially higher levels of radioactivity, these results suggest that the Chernobyl accident may have long-term genetic consequences for wild organisms inhabiting contaminated areas.

http://www.springerlink.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=59d0946682674016a9b3c10aa8754f96&referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,5;journal,45,48;linkingpublicationresults,1:100168,1

[NNadir]

42. Yes and transistors don't work because Schockley was a racist.

Einstein was a lousy husband to his first wife. He also wrote a letter to President Roosevelt requesting that research for a nuclear weapons be undertaken, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nakasaki.

This disproves the theory of relativity, and the photoelectric effect. (Thank goodness that I don't have a CRT computer.)

Both of these guys should return the Nobel Prize, since obviously their science was wrong owing to their moral decisions.

As for an ability to see patterns, I certainly don't want to go there. I'm really not into CT stuff: I really don't believe that the UN, the IAEA, the New York Times, the American Chemical Society blah, blah, blah are controlled by Lyndon LaRouche.

Sorry.

Now, I have understood that the pattern that you see is that there really is a Chernobyl "desert;" everything in the exclusion zone is dead because Ralph Nader types don't like the politics of one co-author of Robert Baker's papers. Of course, Ralph Nader didn't like Al Gore's politics either and since Gore was one of the only politicians ever to take global climate change seriously, we see that global climate change doesn't exist either. This explains why anti-environmental anti-nuclear activists are so sanguine about coal and more coal and more coal and more coal, and more coal.

Speaking only for myself, over the years, I have met many scientists whose personal politics I found objectionable, although I nonetheless thought their scientific work respectable. Now that I have been informed that in the future, I should ask a Nader twirp for judgement on their scientific results.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html">A Textbook On How to Argue When the Facts Make One's Arguments Look Ridiculous

I'm dying to hear the attacks on the 18 Ukrainian Scientists in Baker's group. What's wrong with their science? I'm dying to hear some detail from their personal or political lives that invalidates all of their thinking.

[struggle4progress]

44. Show me which papers by Dallas and Baker justify the claim ..

.. that there are no deformities and no genetic damage in Chernobyl wildlife ...

[NNadir]

46. My the anti-environmental anti-nuclear activists are in a tizzy!

Post after post, and you can select one at random and find the same failing grades for thinking.

Show me one paper proving that there is no genetic damage from mercury and coal. Please show me one form of energy that is harmless both in failure and normal operation modes.

Or why don't we just, as usual change the subject.

One of the things that coal apologist weak minded anti-environmentalist anti-nuclear activists try to claim is that in order to be acceptable, nuclear power must prove that it is harmless.

Prove that the seas won't rise and cover Bangladesh if we buy into the Spoiled Brat Dunderheads Promising Solar Nirvana remain consistent with their last 50 years of promising everything and delivering nothing.

The report that obviates the complete stupidity of the anti-nuclear postion. I did not claim that Chernobyl was harmless. It simply stated that the damage was not as great as advertised.

It states that 4000 people died, which is less than the number of people killed by air pollution in New York City alone in a typical year year in and year out.

The point - which is typically and obviously avoided in celebration of stupidity and poor thinking - is that the worst possible nuclear accident, one which released the vast majority of the radioactive inventory is not as bad as the normal operations of coal fired power plants.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html">A Textbook on How To Argue When the Facts Make Clear One's Inability to Think.

I am, by the way not obligated to show anything to the illiterates. I have no confidence in their ability to understand even the most basic scientific literature. In fact, their normal reaction is to ignore the science and talk about resumes. What purpose would it serve? As I have indicated many times before, I regard it as the obligation of the illiterate to learn how to read.

[struggle4progress]

47. In short, there is no such paper, and their claims are false. eom

[struggle4progress]

45. Cham made the bogus Iran and preparedness claims speaking ..

.. in his "expert capacity" ... The conlusion to be reached is that other claims made in his "expert capacity" may require scrutiny and should perhaps not be assumed true without further specifgic evidence ...

[struggle4progress]

39. The issue of whether human cities are more destructive of ..

.. wildlife than the Chernobyl contamination is, is certainly an interesting question. But of course a full and accurate comparison cannot be made for some time yet. In any case, I cannot see that this "wildlife refuge" issue sheds any light on the human cost of the accident -- unless you are planning to argue next that dense populations of people are just as harmful to humans as to wildlife and that by reducing population densities the accident was beneficial to any humans that did not evacuate ...

<edit typography>

[struggle4progress]

40. "Nature" ran a piece on Chernobyl and wildlife about a month ago:

here's a snippet from a DU thread then; the rest is now only available to subscribers:

<snip> "It's evolution on steroids. There are a lot of deleterious mutations in species but these seem to be very quickly weeded out," Morris explains. Many young fish living in the reactor's cooling ponds are deformed, but adults tend to be healthy, implying that those harmed by radiation die young. <snip>

Humans spending long periods of time there would suffer a build-up of radiation that would shorten lives and raise newborn mortality. "It would be a disaster for humans," Morris says.

Many birds are also showing the harmful effects of the fallout. Morris's colleague Timothy Mousseau found that barn swallows nesting around Chernobyl have lower survival rates, fewer eggs and are in generally worse condition than those living southeast of Kiev, away from the exclusion zone. <snip>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=28616

[struggle4progress]

26. Why does Baker misrepresent his research?

It's all very well to write papers on murine genomics, say, but Baker insists on reaching the conclusion "No birth defects or physical deformities have been detected."

Which paper involves a methodical and detailed wildlife survey devoted to the detection of morphological abnormalities? As far as I can tell, none do. But if Baker is not doing careful morphological surveys, why does he publicize the results of his work as if the results were produced by such surveys?

If I remember correctly, Baker's collaborator Cham Dallas has similarly misrepresented the results of their joint paper

Sugg, D.W., J. W. Bickham, J.A. Brooks, M. D. Lomakin, C. H. Jagoe, C. E. Dallas, M.H. Smith, R. J. Baker, and R. K. Chesser. 1996. DNA damage and radiocesium in channel catfish from Chernobyl. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 15:1057-1063

which appears to be a molecular study, not a morphological one.

The sweeping conclusion is, in any case, probably incorrect: there should be a Chernobyl thread in this forum from earlier this year pointing out that in some fish populations in the Chernobyl area, gross abnormalities ARE common among the juveniles, but that for the most part the abnormal fish do not tend to reach adulthood.

[struggle4progress]

27. delete

delete

[struggle4progress]

30. And before I forget, thank YOU for the NYT article.

You're complaining that I posted a Reuters article referencing a real study when you posted a NYT article referencing a digest? :P

[struggle4progress]

7. IAEA deliberately downplays Chernobyl death toll to pave way for ..

.. nuclear renaissance

<snip> During a two-day conference in Vienna, the Agency presented a report claiming that ultimately some 4,000 deaths can be expected as a result of the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. According to the IAEA "fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster," to date. The IAEA study does not cover all of the populations affected by Chernobyl fall-out but merely considers those who received a high radiation dose in the immediate wake of the accident - namely those 'liquidators' drafted in to carry out the immediate clean up of the site.

However, at the IAEA hosted conference another UN body, The World Health Organisation (WHO), produced its own report, showing that the death toll would be over 8,000 if the local population around the stricken reactor where included. WHO also estimates from a study of some 76,000 'liquidators' that 216, and not 50, died by 1998.

Neither UN body takes into account the hundreds of millions of Europeans exposed to low doses of radioactivity as a result of the cloud of contamination which spread throughout Europe from Chernobyl. <snip>

http://www.ems.org/nws/2005/09/08/iaea_deliberatel

[dcfirefighter]

10. don't forget the 'biorobots'

In addition to running a reactor the same way a drunk 16 year old would run his father's corvette, the communist Soviet Union sent in 1000's of soldiers who bravely 'volunteered' to act as biorobots. These men, with little more than a dust mask, ran onto the reactor building roof, and while attempting to limit their exposure time to 1 minute, dumped 4 110 lb graphite blocks over the side.

This is of course, after the local fire brigade, uninformed, undertrained and ill-equipped, received lethal doses of radiation while they extinguished the graphite fire.

The Chernobyl catastrophe was a tragedy of errors, from design, management, operation, all the way to notification, response, and clean up.

The first news of the accident to the free world came not from the USSR, but from a Swedish nuclear pland 1000's of miles away, after their safety procedures had detected fallout on employee's clothing.

[struggle4progress]

11. Well, they seem to be having trouble accurately counting the deaths ..

.. in such groups ...

[struggle4progress]

32. ... The exact number of liquidators is unknown as no completely ..

.. accurate records were kept of the people involved in the clean-up ...
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/Chernobyl-15/liquidators.shtml

[struggle4progress]

31. ... When questioned about the confusing figures presented ..

.. at the conference, Mr. Bennet - chair of the Chernobyl Forum - confirmed that "the 4,000 figure was up in the air and was a very rough scoping estimate". The WHO report on which he contributed also confirms that "the actual number of deaths caused by this accident is unlikely to ever be precisely known" ... http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0908-08.htm

[struggle4progress]

8. How about a link to their epidemiological data?

Have we got a good collection of individual data on the exposed populations, including reliable estimates of their actual exposures, and accurate information about their pre- and post-exposure disease rates?

If we did, we could crunch the numbers.

But what will we actually have? Well, we'll have some info from the IAEA on a very small number of people for whom reliable data is available, and some calculations completely unsupported by epidemiological data, justified by blather about "expert opinion" and handwaving and "estimates."

Give me a link to detailed epidemiological data for the exposed populations.

[BeFree]

14. The Great Pumpkin

Nadir's great pumpkin has failed the test again. That great pumpkin - the idea that nuclear power is gonna save the world - still hasn't arrived. Oh, we saw a temporary reflection, and that just a gleam in someone's eye, but it was squashed before it even arrived.

Funny how the same group of scientists, engineers and designers who want so badly to play in the nuclear sandbox are pretty much the same who told us that coal and oil burning was gonna save the world. They forgot(?) to mention that the resultant polltion from all that burning was not gonna be too good for us. Yet, we have folks here saying their great pumpkin is a-ok, while the facts speak for themselves - it's as dangerous as can be.

Thank gawd we didn't buy into the scientists and engineers "New and Improved" great pumpkin before it totally out of hand like the coal and oil burning has done.

BTW: Chernobyl ain't over yet. They still have to figure a way to entomb it for ten thousand or more years, eh?

[phantom power]

16. You sound like Bush. He doesn't listen to scientists or engineers either.

How's that been working?

[BeFree]

34. Wow, you can read but not comprehend

I am saying that if we believe the same scientists and engineers who allowed air pollution to be foisted on us tell us nuclear power is a-ok, then we are the idiots.

We can't trust them. They may tell us they have it all figured out, but they don't. They are bought by the centralized power producers who want their way with us.

I throw my faith in with the scientists and engineers who claim nuclear power has far too many questions needing to be answered before we take one more step.

And, as I've always said, an immediate program designed to clean up present day emissions needs our support. Am I the only one who thinks they might be able to safely harness nuclear power and give us clean emissions from coal?

Who here thinks they can harness the atom, but not hydrocarbons? Such thinking is ridiculous.

[phantom power]

35. Burning fossil fuels produces CO2. Nothing can change that.

You can't scrub it. If you think we can sequester it somewhere, good luck with that.

Running nuclear reactors produces nuclear "waste." It's not gaseous, and there's much, much, much, much less of it. It can be sequestered. Better yet, it can be reused. You can't re-use CO2.

You throw your "faith" in with "scientists and engineers". Still sounding like Bush to me. Science and engineering aren't faith-based activities.

[BeFree]

38. Having fun, eh?

Throwing such inane barbs at me.

Yes, I have faith in those scientists who claim we don't know enough about nuclear pollution to go further with the process. Unlike b**h who believes in the propoganda of the power industry reps who say it's a-ok, don't worry.

Yet you hold to the idea that we can control the atom but not molecules. Both are pollutants in their own form. I say we work at controlling those molecules - I believe it can be done, it just hasn't been tried yet because they'd rather chase the great pumpkin of nuclear power.

Why, I'd wager if they spent the billions instead on controlling the pollutant molecules that they've spent trying to inflate the great pumpkin they'd have figured out how to control CO2 by now.

[phantom power]

43. If you say so. Get back to me when you know how to control CO2.

[jpak]

17. Here's someone who agrees with you on Chernobyl....

www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/ Spring2004/Jaworowski_on_Chernobyl.pdf

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/chernobyl.html

...and how to defeat Greenpeace Twits...

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/spring01/Brazil_defeats_greenpeace.html

[struggle4progress]

18. Isn't he a LaRouche enthusiast who doesn't believe in global warming?

[jpak]

19. yup

:evilgrin:

[struggle4progress]

20. Cancer in Belarus increased 40% after Chernobyl

In November 2004 The Swiss Medical Weekly published findings by workers at the Clinical Institute of Radiation Medicine and Endocrinology Research in Minsk, Belarus. It shows that between 1990 and 2000 cancer rates have risen by 40% overall, compared with rates before the catastrophe in April 1986. <snip> http://www.llrc.org/belarusokeanov.htm

[Massacure]

21. That article in the Swiss Medical Weekly is interesting, but I have doubts

For example in his reference there is a table with the incidents of cancer between 1976 and 1985 as well as 1990-2000.

While the 1990-2000 period has more cancer incidents than the 1976-1985 period, I wonder how 1976 and 1977 compares to 1984 and 1885. If cancer goes up during this time period, it could mean that there is something else causing the increased instances of cancer.

It would also be interesting to see how Chernobyl relates to other factors in cancer.

[struggle4progress]

22. At least the article is based on actual epidemiological data. eom

[struggle4progress]

28. Why isn't this "scientific" study published in a peer-reviewed journal?

The authors have done a great job getting the corporate press, including the NYT, to cover their "report."

But the actual "report" doesn't seem to be part of the peer-reviewed literature.

I wonder if there's no new scientific work here at all. It really sounds like a cheap publicists' trick: comb the literature for stuff that supports your own case, wrap it in a lot of blather, and then go wave it at the media for whatever press coverage you can get ...

[struggle4progress]

33. Chernobyl Impacts Wrongly Downplayed

.. the 4,000 fatality estimate appears to be based on a population of only 600,000 exposed individuals. Given that tens of millions of people were exposed to Chernobyl radiation, a study using the standard method of accounting for radiation damage (the “linear no-threshold” method) among the entire affected population would be expected to find far greater casualties.

This is especially significant considering that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in June 2005 2005 (in a report entitled “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, VII”) reaffirmed the “linear no-threshold” model and concluded that there is no safe exposure level to radiation ... http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0906-07.htm