Chernobyl - Disaster or Myth?

williamgrogan

Some statistics for Belarus and some other countries.

Of interest is that the Infant Mortality rate is quite good, worse than Poland but better than Lit. & Lat. and much better than Russia and Ukraine.

Amazing is the ratio of Doctors which is higher than the EU average. Is was looking for this to see could I find evidence to support Syke's point about under-reporting. I expected to find less doctors. If there are at least as many doctors as in the EU I cannot see how under reporting could exist and therefore the statistics for cancer rates would be valid.

GDP isn't bad either.

Vaccination rates are excellent.


........Infant Mortality........Life Exp (Male)

Belgium..........4.57...................74.97
Poland...........8.95...................69.77
Estonia.........12.03...................64.36
Belarus.........13.87...................62.54
Lithuania.......14.17...................63.78
Latvia..........14.59...................63.46
Romania.........18.40...................66.88
Russia..........19.51...................62.46
Ukraine.........20.87...................61.10
Bosnia..........22.70...................69.56
Brazil..........31.74...................67.16
Mongolia........57.16...................61.63
Kazakhstan......58.70...................58.16
Bangladesh......66.00...................61.46
Uzbekistan......71.51...................60.53
Angola.........193.00...................36.13

................GDP.....Military $/Head

Ukraine.........4541.67.........12.88
Latvia..........8695.65.........37.83
Belarus.........9000.00.........17.60
Russia.........12252.17........
Ireland........28500.00........175.00

Measels/Polio Vaccination.Rate..........98.2%.&.99.1%

................Doctors.

Belarus (1994)....4.43.per.1000...
Ireland...........2.30.per.1000....
EU................3.50.per.1000....

GuanYin

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Some statistics for Belarus and some other countries.

Of interest is that the Infant Mortality rate is quite good, worse than Poland but better than Lit. & Lat. and much better than Russia and Ukraine.

Amazing is the ratio of Doctors which is higher than the EU average. Is was looking for this to see could I find evidence to support Syke's point about under-reporting. I expected to find less doctors. If there are at least as many doctors as in the EU I cannot see how under reporting could exist and therefore the statistics for cancer rates would be valid.

GDP isn't bad either.

Vaccination rates are excellent.

As skeptics, I assume you have good abstract thinking and are able to make logical deductions.

Some questions for you to consider.

1. Is an infant mortality rate "better than Lit. & Lat. and much better than Russia and Ukraine" a good determinant and classable as "quite good"? For instance, if Ireland had an infant mortality rate marginally higher than those countries, would the population deem it acceptable?

2. Do you believe that Belarus has funded the excess doctors themselves?

3. Do you believe that the medical standards would be so high in Belarus without the foreign aide and post-chernobyl support received?

4. As such, do you believe that had Belarus recieved no support that the infant mortality rate would still be "quite good"?

The reporting issue isn't to do with numbers of Doctors, its to do with geography, bias of the reporters (many of the workers, such as NP's friends undoubtedly have emotional ties to the subject) cultural issues (think of which countries are lending support and what Belarus was politically) and so on.

The fact of the matter is, without our tax-payers money (at least those of us who actually pay tax). Belarus wiuld quite probably be much much father down that list.

Bosco

Originally posted by williamgrogan
If you read the Chernobyl fund raising web sites (which may exhibit a cult of the founder – 3 pictures of the founder on one home page) you see many statements that are obviously rubbish, “holidays provide respite to the children during the most dangerous time of the year for them to be in Belarus and Western Russia where the intense heat contributes to the spread of radioactive materials”, or this, “"For each child taken to Ireland they are "returned" two years of life”.

Please explain why you dismiss the above statements out of hand.

Could not a hot summer dry out contaminated soil and given a strong breeze cause it to take to the air to be inhaled by old and young alike? Could not a short break from these poisons at a vulnerable age not contribute to better health on reaching adulthood?

williamgrogan

2500 Irish homes have been identified as at a dangerous level Radon

Where did you get this figure? I think the figure is much higher than that.

Anyway we are discussing what a dangerous level is. Is this not at the crux of the matter? The jury is out as regards what a safe level of radiation is. Some say no level is safe and others that we can tolerate a level higher than the back ground level without an increase in deformities or cancer.

It think it is true to say that the dangers of radiation were exaggerated and if this is so far less people than suggested originally will die as a result of Chernobyl. One Thyroid related death is quite small from a “disaster”. I don’t even know if that death can be attributed to Chernobyl, as Paul said people get Thyroid disease anyway. If we knew who this person was and where he lived etc we might have a better idea. Syke mentioned over 50 years 15,000 cases of Thyroid disease, yet in this period 500,000 people will DIE in Belarus of cancers caused by smoking. Aidi Roche would save far more lives if she ran an anti-smoking campaign in Belarus, but that’s not part of her world view. A world view that led her to decide that the world was too bad a place for her to have children in, according to her own comments. I think it’s this nonsense that I object mostly to. She and others are using grossly exaggerated “stories” to push what is essentially a myth. The myth that Chernobyl killed and deformed thousands.

What makes you think that Radon has the same effect as ionisation radiation?

This is a funny question. It is radioactive! It emits ionising radiation.

Afaik, the lung cancer risk with Radon is a similar “quirk” to the Thyroid risk in so far as the Radon gas gathers in houses with no Radon trap or poor under floor ventilation and then gets into the lungs of the occupants and stays there because its much heavier than air. Those at risk can may getting far higher doses of radiation than those in “non dangerous” parts of the country.

Most of those that get Thyroid cancer will be permanently completely cured and your point about a lower life expectancy is probably incorrect.

No one would have got this disease if the communists had dished out the Iodine tablets that had stock pilled for this very event, therefore the culpability lies as much with the authorities as the reactor operators. The reactor operators had seen to it that in the event of a release of radiation that those most at risk, young children, would be protected but they weren’t.

Apart from the financial drain on family, state and healthcare service in treatment you have quality of life effected for all those involved.

The semi-totalitarian nature of the current Belarus government is a much bigger problem than any industrial accident.

williamgrogan

1. Is an infant mortality rate "better than Lit. & Lat. and much better than Russia and Ukraine" a good determinant and classable as "quite good"? For instance, if Ireland had an infant mortality rate marginally higher than those countries, would the population deem it acceptable?

Not relevant. I was pointing out that with a better rate than some of its neighbours those stats don’t indicate a major problem.

2. Do you believe that Belarus has funded the excess doctors themselves?

I do not have the stats that show the ratio between the Belarus government spending on health and external sources nor similar stats for other countries that receive outside assistance. Ireland was a net beneficiary of EU aid until recently.

3. Do you believe that the medical standards would be so high in Belarus without the foreign aide and post-chernobyl support received?

Again I don’t have figures. However if you are implying that they are higher than they would have been then that might help prove my contention that Belarus may actually have a better net health situation because of the exaggerations over Chernobyl.

4. As such, do you believe that had Belarus recieved no support that the infant mortality rate would still be "quite good"?

Again I don’t have any stats that would translate into numbers.

Certainly the 50 cent per Belarusian per year raised by the Chernobyl Children’s Charity can hardy have affected the above figures significantly. (I use the normal meaning here.)

The reporting issue isn't to do with numbers of Doctors, its to do with geography, bias of the reporters (many of the workers, such as NP's friends undoubtedly have emotional ties to the subject) cultural issues (think of which countries are lending support and what Belarus was politically) and so on.

Sorry, I’m not even remotely convinced by this argument. You cannot say, as you have, that there is an increase in cancers and deformities because there might be under-reporting in a country with a lower than average cancer rate.

GuanYin

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Where did you get this figure? I think the figure is much higher than that.

Its not.
Its the published Dept Health/NDSC figure.

[sniped out waffle]

Originally posted by williamgrogan
This is a funny question. It is radioactive! It emits ionising radiation.

Afaik, the lung cancer risk with Radon is a similar “quirk” to the Thyroid risk in so far as the Radon gas gathers in houses with no Radon trap or poor under floor ventilation and then gets into the lungs of the occupants and stays there because its much heavier than air. Those at risk can may getting far higher doses of radiation than those in “non dangerous” parts of the country.

I could go into a lesson on the subject, but I've a feeling that we are all getting tired of my preachy posts correcting scientific facts on this forum just because someone goes "I don't believe that".

The risks and factors of both types of radiation are quite different. Most notably because one is naturally occuring and the other is not. Pharmacokinetic effect due to exposure and apoptotic mediation caused by both types differ greatly two (read up on bik, bcl2 family etc etc in radiation related apoptotic repression if you want to know more)

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Most of those that get Thyroid cancer will be permanently completely cured and your point about a lower life expectancy is probably incorrect.

Says who?
Can you show me facts, statistics and peer reviewed sources to show that this is nothing more than an uninformed opinion on your part?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
No one would have got this disease if the communists had dished out the Iodine tablets that had stock pilled for this very event, therefore the culpability lies as much with the authorities as the reactor operators. .

actually some research now suggests that these tablets probably wouldn't do much good anyway. Itsmainly due to, again pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics involved with the iodine tablets. Its a nice little diversionary tactic though. Sorry.

GuanYin

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Again I don’t have figures. However if you are implying that they are higher than they would have been then that might help prove my contention that Belarus may actually have a better net health situation because of the exaggerations over Chernobyl.

Your refusal to make an educated guess at yes or no answeres speaks volumes WG.

As for the above point, I never contended the main point (in fact I've stated I agree withit several times), however your stance that "nothing disasterous happened" is simply overkill.

I'm not trying to prove it was as bad as reported, I'm sinply saying it was bad in itself for the factual merits.


Incidently, 50 cent un-taxed for medial supplies would contribute quite alot in taht area. Although I'm not sure what charity taxation is like, maybe you do?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Sorry, I’m not even remotely convinced by this argument. You cannot say, as you have, that there is an increase in cancers and deformities because there might be under-reporting in a country with a lower than average cancer rate.

Thats not what I am saying. I'm saying that there is an observed increase. This is a fact pointed out by journals. But because of poor reporting and un-trained epidemiologists who may be biased, the groups surveyed and population statistics are unreliable. That means its not possible to say that there is a direct significant link, or indeed if it is higher than estimated.

williamgrogan

Please explain why you dismiss the above statements out of hand.

I could be flippant and say that they are obviously very silly, but I won’t.

I do accept that roughly speaking heavy smokers live ~15 years less than non smokers but do you seriously think that a holiday to Ireland from Belarus “saves” two years of a child’s life? (Notice my posted quote from the Adoption board above where it was stated that not a single adopted child from Belarus in America had any illness caused by Chernobyl or where the children being born today are not affected by the accident.)

If you believe this why do you? People raising money for a charity cannot just make a statement like this. I have never come across any evidence from which one could prove such a statement.

How do you know its not 5 years or 5 minutes of their life saved? Your quoted statistic is nearly as bad as Sykes one on 15,000 or was it 100,000,000 Thyroid cancers? (Joke – down boy…..)

Would 2 holidays save 4 years, 4 save 8 years etc? How about a year here?

Very roughly, if a holiday here saved 2 years of a child’s life then I would expect that the life expectancy in Belarus would be about …

(let me see, 2 weeks holiday=2 years of life, therefore 50 weeks in B. = 100 years of dead so all the children in B. are dead for say 1,000 years (based on average child of 10 years), maybe divide by something?, eh, 2 because 2 weeks is as good as double because of the detox effect so 500 years dead, divide by something else, eh, Irish brown soda bread v Communist white sliced pan = 60 years))

…. zero!

Could not a hot summer dry out contaminated soil and given a strong breeze cause it to take to the air to be inhaled by old and young alike? Could not a short break from these poisons at a vulnerable age not contribute to better health on reaching adulthood?

If I went to Belarus during a hot summer would I get poisoned? If I came back and had a holiday would I be OK again? How about going on Booths chemists 5 day detox plan?

There is no evidence that the air or soil where people live is contributing significantly (either meaning) to their ill health. The biggest risk in the summer would almost certainly be cancer caused by exposure to the Sun.

I think the statement is 100% typical CAM scare mongering and is equivalent to the notion that we live in and consume toxic chemicals and need treatment, supplied of course by the con artist that draws your attention to the problem in the first place.

BTW, they were two statements I found the other day, I have heard & read far more stupid utterances over the years from the Chernobyl Charity businesses.

PaulP

Syke:

I still don't get it.


The question is not about illnesses, it's about rates of illnesses. And that is a matter of statistical analysis in the end, after questions about the validity of the raw numbers being analysed statistically have been settled.
So we are faced with two sets of statistics, one for illness rates pre-accident and one for the post-accident period. Whether the difference between the two rates for the same illness is significant is a matter of applying standard test(s) for statistical significance.
I cannot understand how you have a problem with this. I cannot understand why in this one question you think it is ok to throw out standard scientific methodology in favour of ad hoc, make-it-up-as-we-go flummery. Surely in the matter of human life and death, the most valuable thing we have, we should be using the best of everything we have?

You describe the results in these papers as significant but admit they are not statistically significant. So when you describe them as significant you are not speaking as a statistician and are therefore speaking outside your area of expertise. In which case you are expecting me to accept your authority in an area in which you are not an authority, which is a fairly basic logical fallacy.


And BTW you have yet to define "significant" as you are using it here.

PaulP

Re-reading my last post, it might come across as ferocious. If so apologies.

williamgrogan

Your refusal to make an educated guess at yes or no answeres speaks volumes

I'm sorry I cannot as I do not know the amount of money spent on health care by the Belarus government from their own resources v that donated by outside agencies, so I cannot make an educated guess. If all there is is the 50 cent per year per person donated by CCP then obviously the outside agencies have made no measurable difference. It could well be that Belarus is quite self sufficient in medical resources, the large Doctor/Patient ratio would indicate this.

The risks and factors of both types of radiation are quite different

I agree but humans can still withstand a certain level of radiation without spouting extra arms in subsequent generations. Most of the large doses were in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Precautions have been taken since to reduce exposure. There was a clean up.

I do accept we are nit picking now to some extent as we all agree that the effect was exaggerated but consider the following…

10,000,000 Belarusians will die in the coming 70 years.
3,000,000 will get cancer
700,000 will die early from smoking.
Several hundred thousand will die early from alcohol abuse and bad diet.
~70,000 will die in car accidents

A handful may die from Thyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl.

After that …. pure speculation.

If the Irish Times and other newspapers did not have erroneous headlines within days of the explosion such as “2,000 dead in Nuclear Disaster” and if there was no worldwide anti-Nuclear movement would we be discussing the possibility that there might be a tiny increase in cancers caused by this accident? I have no doubt that many people will die early deaths due to the massive pollution caused by industry because under communism there was little or no respect for the environment or for the safety of the workers. This applies to their Nuclear Industry as well.

Does this excuse the activities of the various charities that in my opinion collect money under false pretences?

The following is from CCP web site, http://www.adiccp.org/whatwedo/restandrecuperation.asp

"For each child taken to Ireland they are "returned" two years of life. We are hostages to the hazardous aftermath of radiation, and the future of our very race is threatened with extinction, as our children, our gene pool, are seriously ill."

Do you agree with this? In particular with the stuff in bold.

I do know that in the past the Belarus government stopped convoys of aid until “tax” was paid.

GuanYin

Originally posted by PaulP
I cannot understand how you have a problem with this. I cannot understand why in this one question you think it is ok to throw out standard scientific methodology in favour of ad hoc, make-it-up-as-we-go flummery. Surely in the matter of human life and death, the most valuable thing we have, we should be using the best of everything we have?

Basically what I'm saying is in the case of Chernobyl, where there is poor economy and travel infrastructure, a former communist country, foreign workers (who would previously have been trated with suspicion) and untrained staff, the bias of these surveys is often looking at reported incidence of those coming to clinics and hospitals or a survey of populations where occurance is expected. What the ned to do, if basically randomly choose a population to survey, either general hospital admittance, an open clinic or even door to door. If you read the epidemiological literature, this is well documented.

This will give a biased result because it is not a random population or a blind survey.
*IF* you get a rise in incidence that is not statistically significant, it does not mean that there is no statistically significant rise nor does it mean that there is a rise. It could be that they actually have surveyed all affected and that the slight rise is all that there is. Or it means that they may have surveyed some of the expected norm and some of those caused by the accident (and the ration will be unknown) and that those not taken into account by the survey would swing the result either way.

The fact that there is a slight rise is noted as significant (and by this we mean the english language definition of the word...perhap they should have said "noteworthy", I didn't write or edit these particular papers, nor did I coin the term in this reference, I'm just conveying the message) because the survey isn't blind. The literature tentatively notes that there is no significant rise. However, they also state that the surveys are loaded. This is poor reporting in itself because it allows either side of the extremists to twist the findings in their favour.

I would take it as "It looks like there probably is a small but significant rise, but we really need to do a proper population study to be sure" which would probably make it into a medical paper as "the resulst are inconclusive"

It has always been my contention that we would be 100 years more scientifically advanced if scientists were taught how to write papers in simple concise english.

Originally posted by PaulP
You describe the results in these papers as significant but admit they are not statistically significant. So when you describe them as significant you are not speaking as a statistician and are therefore speaking outside your area of expertise. In which case you are expecting me to accept your authority in an area in which you are not an authority, which is a fairly basic logical fallacy.


And BTW you have yet to define "significant" as you are using it here.

Apart from putting words in my mouth and using loaded logic, you are missing the point entirely here. I am not describing anything as significant, I am relaying the message of these papers in a way that is neither biased or loaded. Excuse me if I didn't dwell on pedantic games of semantics and word definitions. I have tried to convey to overall general message, rather than pick and poke at single word definitions. This is because I am not trying to bias the argument for my own means in any way.

The only "authority" that I tried to put forward is my knowledge and experience in dealing with the different types of scientific literature. I've yet to see anyone else on this thread reference anything but websites (and very biased websites it should benoted), which begs the question, if *THEY* know so much about scientific journal reporting then why weren't tehy referencing these sources themselves.

I think the above paragraph shouldn't leave any questions in your mind about what the message in the journal is. If it does, please state the specifics.

GuanYin

Originally posted by williamgrogan
I'm sorry I cannot as I do not know the amount of money spent on health care by the Belarus government from their own resources v that donated by outside agencies, so I cannot make an educated guess. If all there is is the 50 cent per year per person donated by CCP then obviously the outside agencies have made no measurable difference. It could well be that Belarus is quite self sufficient in medical resources, the large Doctor/Patient ratio would indicate this.

That is a rather convenient about turn from your earlier statement that "The semi-totalitarian nature of the current Belarus government" and otehr references to the post communist regime. You really think that Belarus would have a health system of the standard it does without outside influence? I think you are being conveniently blind to further your own argument.

Originally posted by williamgrogan
I do accept we are nit picking now to some extent as we all agree that the effect was exaggerated but consider the following…

10,000,000 Belarusians will die in the coming 70 years.
3,000,000 will get cancer
700,000 will die early from smoking.
Several hundred thousand will die early from alcohol abuse and bad diet.
~70,000 will die in car accidents

Semantics, by this reasoning 911, The Madrid Rail Bombings, Titanic, Lockerbie and evern the Iranian Earthquake were not disasters.

The fact of the matter is that the people of Chernobyl sufferened death and disease that they would not otherwise have suffered. Thousands are effected when you measured the combined disease, depression, economic and social repercussions of Chernobyl, not to mention associated pestilence that occured.

Originally posted by williamgrogan
A handful may die from Thyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl.

Last post you implied that they would all recover, now you say a handful. Considering your inconsistant arguement, again I say:Says who?
Can you show me facts, statistics and peer reviewed sources to show that this is nothing more than an uninformed opinion on your part?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
If the Irish Times and other newspapers did not have erroneous headlines within days of the explosion such as “2,000 dead in Nuclear Disaster” and if there was no worldwide anti-Nuclear movement would we be discussing the possibility that there might be a tiny increase in cancers caused by this accident? I have no doubt that many people will die early deaths due to the massive pollution caused by industry because under communism there was little or no respect for the environment or for the safety of the workers. This applies to their Nuclear Industry as well.

Does this excuse the activities of the various charities that in my opinion collect money under false pretences?
<SNIP>

I have no idea why you bringthe rest of this up?

Do you thin it will be some victory for your standpointif I conceed these points?

I never argued them in the first place so is this some kind of diversion or did you have a point tomake with me?

Victor

Originally posted by syke
That is a rather convenient about turn from your earlier statement that "The semi-totalitarian nature of the current Belarus government" and otehr references to the post communist regime. You really think that Belarus would have a health system of the standard it does without outside influence? I think you are being conveniently blind to further your own argument.

Eh, I think the policy in the Soviet Union was to have quite a large number of doctors per capita, although typically they were paid teacher level rather than western doctor level salaries. I'm not certain a 10 year old figure is necessarily representative of today.

Yes Chernobyl did contribute to the fall of communism - the Soviet leadership realised that 10 or 100 Chernobyls would devastate the country, nevermind 10,000.

To say there has only been 40 or so deaths would be to grossly underestimate the effect had the civil defence program not been undertaken (which did include iodine doses being distributed, although questions are now being raised about iodine).

PaulP

Syke:

I trained as a physicist. It was taught to me that when dealing with statistics the minimum acceptable was to deal with the appropriate statistical standards, which in this case and pretty much everywhere else are tests of statistical significance. If this is expected of physicists, chemists, biologists etc then I do not see why medical or medical-statistical researchers cannot be held to the same standards.


As for the papers in question they fail to meet this minimum standard for being taken seriously in science, so the idea that there are ill-health effects from the accident in the general population remains unproven scientifically. Which is what we are debating here.


One of the more interesting logical fallacies is the category error. For example if a falling meteorite kills someone it is a category error to treat it as murder. One of the aspects of progress is to figure out the appropriate category for analysing a phenomenon and then to use the intellectual apparutus we have invented/discovered appropriate to that category. When faced with the problem of determining whether something has increased rates of illness the appropriate category is statistical analysis and the apparatus is tests of statistical significance. Nothing else is good enough.


BTW: and here I am getting a little fed up with you: you introduced your experience as a medical-statistical researcher laymen. Yet your expertise should have told you that the papers you cited did not pass muster. Instead, as far as I am concerned, in a show of bad faith you attempted to engage in intellectual bullying of your opponents in an effort to gloss over the lack of the only relevant significance in the papers' results. Statistical significance is not an option, it is a necessity, and a fairly bare one at that.

williamgrogan

I was reminded of something Oscar Wilde said when I saw the news tonight, showing the 14 truck loads of aid head off to the, "victims of the Chernobyl disaster".

************
When The Old Curiosity Shop was approaching its emotional climax -- the death of Little Nell -- Dickens was inundated with letters imploring him to spare her, and felt, as he said, "the anguish unspeakable," but proceeded with the artistically necessary event. Readers were desolated. The famous actor William Macready wrote in his diary that "I have never read printed words that gave me so much pain. . . . I could not weep for some time. Sensations, sufferings have returned to me, that are terrible to awaken." Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish member of Parliament, read the account of Nell's death while he was riding on a train, burst into tears, cried "He should not have killed her," and threw the novel out of the window in despair. Even Carlyle, who had not previously succumbed to Dickens's emotional manipulation, was overcome with grief, and crowds in New York awaited a vessel newly arriving from England with shouts of "Is Little Nell dead?"

Oscar Wilde, who was no fan of Dickens, would later say, “.. no one could read the death-scene of Little Nell without dissolving into tears -- of laughter”

GuanYin

Originally posted by PaulP
I trained as a physicist. It was taught to me that when dealing with statistics the minimum acceptable was to deal with the appropriate statistical standards, which in this case and pretty much everywhere else are tests of statistical significance. If this is expected of physicists, chemists, biologists etc then I do not see why medical or medical-statistical researchers cannot be held to the same standards.

Whatever you may have learned as a physicist doesn't mean anything in the world of biological and medical sciences. All disciplines have their "ways" which can be attributed to the nature of the discipline. Medicine and Biology aren't as clear cut as Physics when it comes to research in any case.

I don't know where or why you would think that it is *expected* of biologists and medics in their journals. Pick up any genetics journal where the presence of a gene is indicated by a band achieved by a southern blot. You will often see a band described as "significantly" brighter or "negligable". While these can be statsictically measured using sophisticated imaging software, they rarely are in publciations. There are many examples of this throught the different branches. In the cases of Pharmacology you will see a greater trend towards statistics in the literature, but different sciences use different language, it doesn't make their standards less, it just means you are not trained to understand it.

Originally posted by PaulP
As for the papers in question they fail to meet this minimum standard for being taken seriously in science, so the idea that there are ill-health effects from the accident in the general population remains unproven scientifically. Which is what we are debating here.

The papers are a very high standard, they just don't use language you are used to. I tried to explain it simply in lay language for you to understand, you seem unhappy with this.

Originally posted by PaulP
One of the more interesting logical fallacies is the category error. For example if a falling meteorite kills someone it is a category error to treat it as murder. One of the aspects of progress is to figure out the appropriate category for analysing a phenomenon and then to use the intellectual apparutus we have invented/discovered appropriate to that category. When faced with the problem of determining whether something has increased rates of illness the appropriate category is statistical analysis and the apparatus is tests of statistical significance. Nothing else is good enough.

For you perhaps, but you aren't atrained biologist and I'm sure you would have come across the old adage if you ever went past undergraduate physics (or even as an undergraduate, depending on your brushes with research) that the most difficult aspects of multi-disciplinary sciences is the communication problems between the different sciences. I have pretty much explained the journal to you here, I'm quite happy to hold my hands up and say a physics journal or an organic chemistry journal would be lick reading arabic to me, mainly becaue I am not trained in those areas. You don't seem to get this :dunno:.

Originally posted by PaulP
BTW: and here I am getting a little fed up with you:

I think this is a rather personal statement. Its hardly my fault you don't realise that physics and biology are written for a different audience.

Originally posted by PaulP
you introduced your experience as a medical-statistical researcher laymen. Yet your expertise should have told you that the papers you cited did not pass muster. Instead, as far as I am concerned, in a show of bad faith you attempted to engage in intellectual bullying of your opponents in an effort to gloss over the lack of the only relevant significance in the papers' results. Statistical significance is not an option, it is a necessity, and a fairly bare one at that.

I never introduced my experience as a laymen of anything, least of all statistics. The journals I cited have some of the higher citations (specifically a couple of those papers). I don't think i tried intellectual bullying anywhere, however YOU have repeatedly casted insults at the qualifications and intelligence of otehrs with the tone and wordingof your posts (see above). I'll say it very simply for you. The word "significant" is an english dictionary word that does not HAVE to be statsitcially related. While MOST scientists will be wary of using it, medical people, who wouldn't be as verbose as the more pompous pre-clinical ilk (of which I'd probably be counted) aren't as au-fait with this, so you see a gap in language between clinical and pre-clinical. This doesn't effect the science if you understand what you are reading.

What part of this do you not understand?

Just as a matter of interest, is anyone else having difficulty with this point or am I explaining it poorly?

williamgrogan

The high ratio of doctors, 4.3 per thousand, at least goes back to 1994 so presumably before that and therefore was not affected by the consequences of the accident.

here is one of the most complete summaries I have read of the consequences of the accident, it is from the Nuclear Radiation Protection Board

http://www.nrpb.org/publications/bulletin/no1/editorial.htm

the Soviet leadership realised that 10 or 100 Chernobyls would devastate the country, nevermind 10,000.

I don't follow you here. A demand for openness (Glasnost) which gained strength after Chernobyl was probably the main contribution of the accident to reforms in the USSR. I don’t think the fear of other accidents was relevant.

To say there has only been 40 or so deaths would be to grossly underestimate the effect had the civil defence program not been undertaken (which did include iodine doses being distributed, although questions are now being raised about iodine).

Obviously if everyone sat around watching the fire and sat about in the radiation then far more would have died but that applies to any accident. The same could be said of a ‘flu epidemic.

The Iodine tablets were distributed too late, that was the main problem.

By coincidence, there was a letter to the Irish Times on Saturday which strongly advised the Irish Government to keep stock of Iodine and even suggested ensuring that salt sold in Ireland was iodised as a preventative measure.

See http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2004/0410/index.html#1079399174534

Extract:

Iodine tablets were issued not only for use in the aftermath of an accident at Sellafield but also in case of accidents at nuclear reactors elsewhere.

….. does not mean that we no longer need protection - as would be provided by the tablets - against the possible contamination of our thyroid glands.

Iodine tablets are effective against all kinds of radioactive iodine, not just iodine-131 as was reported. ….

The likelihood of an adverse effect from taking a tablet at the time of an accident is tiny and is outweighed by the collective protective effect. This was the experience in Poland in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident.
….

A feature of the Chernobyl accident was the relative dietary iodine deficiency of the populations living around the reactor in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, resulting in iodine-deficient thyroid glands taking up greater amounts of radioactive iodine. The most effective method of achieving iodine sufficiency recommended by the WHO is iodisation of table salt.

…..
……

It is to be hoped that the Department of Health, by considering iodine prophylaxis, will build on the success of its earlier proactive response to a potential nuclear threat and not be swayed by the aforementioned report. - Yours, etc.,

PETER SMYTH Ph.D, Iodine Study Unit, Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, UCD, Dublin 4;

FJ TURVEY, Radiation and Environmental Science Centre, DIT, Dublin 2.

PS

I see that Belarus are through to the semi-finals of the Tennis Davis cup. They beat Argentina & Russia. I mention this just to add weight to the idea that Belarus is not some barren, radiation swept wilderness that some people might think it is, that some people try to fool us into thinking it is.

Victor

Will aborting deformed foetuses have made some of the figures supect (as it has in Cuba, where a high abotion rate on "medical" grounds has led to a lower infant mortality rate).

williamgrogan

Do the infant mortality rates not apply to births only?

Otherwise are you suggesting that there are that many pregnancies in Belarus, where the foetus is so deformed as a consequence of the accident, that it would cause those foetuses to die at birth and to affect the statistics negatively if they were not aborted?

Victor

Odd way to ask the question.

I am only asking a question. The pattern that emerged in Cuba was if a foetus had any deformity or condition that would seriously affect it's survival chances, it would be aborted.

davros

Originally posted by williamgrogan
I was reminded of something Oscar Wilde said when I saw the news tonight, showing the 14 truck loads of aid head off to the, "victims of the Chernobyl disaster" “.. no one could read the death-scene of Little Nell without dissolving into tears -- of laughter”

I can't read this as anything other than a gratuitously offensive insult to the other side of the debate.

Originally posted by PaulP
BTW: and here I am getting a little fed up with you: you introduced your experience as a medical-statistical researcher laymen. Yet your expertise should have told you that the papers you cited did not pass muster. Instead, as far as I am concerned, in a show of bad faith you attempted to engage in intellectual bullying...

Personalised attacks are not acceptable. You owe syke an apology, especially since he provided you with clear and complete answers to your questions.

Note to everybody: I have deliberately avoided banning people up until now. No longer. It is the only sanction I have left since appeals and warnings have not made the debates on this forum any more pleasant.

PaulP

Davros: So it's ok for Syke to refer to us as armchair experts but not for me to give an accurate description of the effect of what he wrote on me? Can you explain to me what his mention of his field of expertise was, other than an attempt to cow his opponents? ("I'm the expert here, what do you know?") I let arguments stand for themselves but he did not. And BTW if you look at my many posts in other topics you will see I do not engage in personalised attacks.


Syke: you still do not get it. It's not about illnesses, it's about RATES of illnesses, in other words statistics and nothing else. And the only tools we have for determining whether a change has ocurred in rates of illnesses (or road accidents or sales of icecream or anything at all in this universe) are tests of statistical significance. If medical researchers cannot attain this standard then they are incompetent and nothing they produce is worth anything. (They teach how to do these tests to people taking maths as a minor subject in their science degrees, pass or honours, so we we are not talking about Quantum Field Theory.)
Science has progressed by trying to do away with subjective feelings and introducing objective rules that can be followed by everyone. Hence the invention of the idea of statistical significance, to allow any of us to analyse before and after numbers to see if something is going on (among other things). The situation you describe in medical research is a step back into ignorance. As far as I am convcerned you are defending the indefensible.

PaulP

Syke:

One last thing: you talk of the difficulty of inter-disciplinary communication. This does not apply because there is only one discipline in question, statistics. Which is not a part of physics or biology or any other science. When people of different backgrounds use statistics they are supposed to abide by its rules. There are enough communciation problems without introducing another one, especially when it's not that difficult to learn those rules.

GuanYin

Originally posted by PaulP
Syke: you still do not get it. It's not about illnesses, it's about RATES of illnesses, in other words statistics and nothing else. And the only tools we have for determining whether a change has ocurred in rates of illnesses (or road accidents or sales of icecream or anything at all in this universe) are tests of statistical significance. If medical researchers cannot attain this standard then they are incompetent and nothing they produce is worth anything. (They teach how to do these tests to people taking maths as a minor subject in their science degrees, pass or honours, so we we are not talking about Quantum Field Theory.)
Science has progressed by trying to do away with subjective feelings and introducing objective rules that can be followed by everyone. Hence the invention of the idea of statistical significance, to allow any of us to analyse before and after numbers to see if something is going on (among other things). The situation you describe in medical research is a step back into ignorance. As far as I am convcerned you are defending the indefensible.

You brought up statistics not me.

I explained in very simple english that the papers use of the word "significant" was not in reference to statistics. I explained exactly why. I explained why they felt there were problems with the survey. It doesn't take away from the facts put forward by the paper.

I didn't quote the papers statistics. I mentioned where there were statistical rises and where there wasn't.

The journal is there for everyone to see, if you are that annoyed about your ideals being disproved, don't take it out by having a go at me.

GuanYin

Originally posted by PaulP
Syke:

One last thing: you talk of the difficulty of inter-disciplinary communication. This does not apply because there is only one discipline in question, statistics. Which is not a part of physics or biology or any other science. When people of different backgrounds use statistics they are supposed to abide by its rules. There are enough communciation problems without introducing another one, especially when it's not that difficult to learn those rules.

See any number of the above posts which you don't seem to have read properly.
I pointed out that it wasn't a statistical reference several times.

PaulP

Syke:
1) "if you are that annoyed about your ideals being disproved". What ideals and how can they be disproved?


2) "You brought up statistics not me". How can you claim to KNOW that the accident caused increased levels of illness without using statistics? I state that it is ultimately a matter of statistical methodology, once questions about the the accuracy of the figures input into that methodology have been settled. What are you claiming? Unless there are illnesses that could only have been caused by the accident then we have to compare rates of illnesses , in other words statistics.


3) "Whatever you may have learned as a physicist doesn't mean anything in the world of biological and medical sciences. All disciplines have their "ways" which can be attributed to the nature of the discipline."

What I learnt about statistics came from professional statisticians. Of which you claim to be one. Tell me: is the concept of, say, standard deviation different in physics to medicine? Of course not. So why do you, as a medical statistician, not stand up for universal statistical standards in medical research?


4) "I explained in very simple english that the papers use of the word "significant" was not in reference to statistics". Then why mention your expertise in medical statistics which, by this statement, is not relevant? Go back to the beginning. You are trying to convince me that the rates of illnesses increased. This is a statistical question. You cite papers that are statistical analyses but whose results are not statistically significant. Yet you leave in the claim that they are "significant", in some way you have still to define. I started by asking for some papers with statistically significant results so that I could make up my mind. I am still waiting.

Victor

Whoot! Handbags at dawn! :rolleyes:

davros

One would think that people would be treading more softly after the mod steps in and threatens banning.

But no, I still see PaulP trying to tear strips off syke. So, take the rest of the week to cool off. You can post again from next Monday.

williamgrogan

While you are at it, why don't you ban Victor for copyright violation of the eVoting logo? You might get sued.

I'm having an early night, but I will reply to your scurrilous charge that I purposely with malice aforethought insulted the sensitive souls on this thread by quoting a literary giant out of context.

williamgrogan

I strongly refute the allegation that I made “a gratuitously offensive insult to the other side of the debate”.

In fact I was being gratuitously offensive to the organisers of the (non existent) Chernobyl Victims convoy.

These people pull on our heart strings by implying that there are hundreds of thousands of children that are currently being poisoned, were deformed and are in orphanages as a result of the Chernobyl accident. This is not the case. In other words they are dishonest in their manipulation of our pity.

This is precisely the point Oscar Wilde made regarding Dickens and Little Nel.

davros

Yes, but they are sincere people who genuinely want to help others. And there seem to be plenty of children in Belarus that are benefiting from that help.

I could just see people wading in to condemn your laughing at pictures of deformed children and I wanted to nip that in the bud.

Victor

Off topic, but:

Originally posted by williamgrogan
While you are at it, why don't you ban Victor for copyright violation of the eVoting logo? You might get sued.

Well, I'm not aware of any copyright on that material. If there is let them sue me. I'm sure a defence of parody would work.

I would e-mail them, but well from their contact page, they don't seem to be into the whole e-mail thing. They must be luddites or something. Damn the can't even include their extensive nationwide roadshow details

williamgrogan

Yes, but they are sincere people who genuinely want to help others

Isn't that the claim made by all CAM artists?

Victor

Originally posted by williamgrogan
Isn't that the claim made by all CAM artists?

CAM ... Computer Aided Manufacturing?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=CAM%20
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?p=dict&String=exact&Acronym=CAM

nadir

I havnt read all the posts cause im a bit busy/lazy/whatever.
but i do remeber one thing about this topic.

When I was learning radiation stuffs in college the head of radiation in the physics department (this guy knows his stuff) said that the whole chernobyl thing was blown out of proportion, that in a population sample that large you will find those numbers of deformaties anyway. Now this guy is like a leading expert , and afaik he has no motives behind saying that.

Another thing im sure of is that people generally dont know what they are talkinga bout and its very easy to scaremonger, radiation is something we are all exposed to everyday, i mean we all get 2 millisieverts or so from background radiation, but the body can cope with it easily. Now I dont know what these people we exposed to but we also have to consider how localised this was, I mean its very possible taht the radiation would have been blown off and that some other unfortunate place would have suffered more than the actual area of origon. Anyhow in short I think its totally possible that it was blown out of proportion, but without the hard scientific facts for something like this, then we are all just talking crap really.

williamgrogan

but without the hard scientific facts for something like this, then we are all just talking crap really

we posted the hard scientific fax back early in the post, man



btw ta for your support anyway

williamgrogan

Re C.A.M.

close ....

but it really means Con All Morons or some have suggested Complementary Alternative Medicine.

williamgrogan

I am opposed to energy production by the burning of fossil fuels and the following statement by the United Nations Environmental Protection Agency reinforces my position.

The report, compiled by an international team of experts, says that coal-fired power stations and waste incinerators now account for around 1,500 tons or 70 percent of new, quantified man-made mercury emissions to the atmosphere. The lion's share is now coming from developing countries with emissions from Asia, at 860 tons, the highest.

"As combustion of fossil fuels is increasing in order to meet the growing energy demands of both developing and developed nations, mercury emissions can be expected to increase accordingly in the absence of the deployment of control technologies or the use of alternative energy sources," says the report.

A study of women in the United States, also cited in the new report, has found that about 1 in 12, or just under five million have mercury levels in their bodies above the level considered safe by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Just three years ago, the United States Research Council estimated that about 60,000 babies born each year in the U.S. could be at risk of brain damage with possible impacts ranging from learning difficulties to impaired nervous systems. However, based on more recent exposure data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some scientists think the number of at risk babies could be as high as 300,000. Globally the number could run into the millions.

Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's Executive Director, said: "Mercury is a substance that can be transported in the atmosphere and in the oceans around the globe, travelling hundreds and thousands of miles from where it is emitted. It has long been recognised as a health hazardous substance".

These are some of the findings to emerge from the global study of mercury carried out by experts for UNEP. The report is being presented to environment ministers from across the world who are attending UNEP's Governing Council, and will form the basis for political decisions that will set the course for global action on mercury for years to come. The Council is meeting at the organization's headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, from 3 to 7 February 2003

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=284&ArticleID=3204&l=en

How many of the deformed babies in Belarus were deformed because their mother’s or themselves ingested Mercury?

Syke

from the little ive read im having a hard time figuring out who are the skeptics and who are the fanatics.

williamgrogan

What's wrong with being a fanatical skeptic?

What's your opinion on the matter?

watty

I'm so unconvinced...

It seems to me that people have such particular agendas (Anti-Nuke, Pro-Nuke, Aid fund rasising and compensation claims) that an accurate unbiased view is hard.

So I won't vote for either option

http://www.geocities.com/dtmcbride/hist/disasters-war.html

He claims 126,000 deaths, which I don't believe

http://english.pravda.ru/accidents/2001/04/24/4071.html
Claims 10,000


http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/chernobyl.html

"The government of Ukraine gives much larger figures for the number of people who got sick or died because of Chernobyl. I don't believe these figures have been verified by outsiders. The large figures are presented in support of claims for compensation from Russia and donations from Western countries."

also

"Unsupported large estimates of the casualties from Chernobyl are a staple of the anti-nuclear movement. It is interesting that the UN scientific committee on the effects of radiation has found it necessary to criticise the UN office on humanitarian affairs. The latter takes the common journalistic view of Chernobyl.


UNSCEAR Letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan [rtf file 21kb] 6 June 2000 "Sir, I write to you as Chairman of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), which has just concluded its 49th session in Vienna. As you know, UNSCEAR is the body within the United Nations system with a mandate from the General Assembly to assess and report levels and health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation. The Committee has taken note of a publication by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) entitled "Chernobyl - a continuing catastrophe" (OCHA/99/20, New York and Geneva, 2000). This report is full of unsubstantiated statements that have no support in scientific assessments. I should therefore like to draw your attention to the Committee's finding with regard to the radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident..."

Also

In order to prevent the reactor from shutting itself off from xenon poisoning, the operators pulled the control rods almost all the way out. This caused an enormous increase in the nuclear reaction to many times the reactor's normal power level. This caused a steam explosion that blew the top off the reactor, probably stopping the nuclear reaction. Then the carbon caught fire and burned for about nine days. This scattered the reactor contents and large amounts of radioactivity. 32 people died in the accident and in efforts to put out the fire. 38 more people died of acute radiation sickness in the following months. There were measurable health effects in Ukraine and Belarus.
The radioactivity spread over northern Europe caused some plants and wild animals to be more radioactive than was legal for human consumption. However, there were no identifiable illnesses outside the Soviet Union. There may be some increase in cancer but this is unlikely to be detectable, because of the large numbers of cancers from other causes.

He claims < 100 deaths directly, but no exact claim of susbsequent deaths


I conclude that perhaps under a hundred died directly at the time and that very accurate statistics and knowledge + control groups is needed to have any idea at all as to how many subsequent deaths, illness and deformaty would have occurred anyway and how many are because of Chernobyl.

I have no idea if this is hundreds, 1000s, 10,000 or 100,000s all of which are quoted by different sources. My "instinct" is that the highest figure being part of Ukraines compensation claim is inflated and the lowest figures come from the Nucular industry so likely grossly understate.

William, I'll not agree to fission power till someone tells me what they are going to do with the waste. I have no doubt a Power Station can be made safe and in general the NP industry Generation can be low risk. But in terms of total picture the waste disposal and plant decomission costs seem to be under estimated to give a false picture of the Economics "long term". In the short term or if you want plutonium for bombs it is economic.

A plutonium bomb is easy to make and proliferation of NP plants *may* make it easier for a terrorist or maniac to get Plutonium.

I suspect WG of having the real agenda of his posts to promote NP and not to correct myths about Chernobyl.

It is undoubtably true that there *ARE* myths surrounding the accident but that it was a major disaster with a large and possibly unknown loss of life.

ecksor

Originally posted by watty
I suspect WG of having the real agenda of his posts to promote NP and not to correct myths about Chernobyl.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1395258#post1395258

williamgrogan

Well written piece Watty.

{Aside: My wife had an Aunt Watty who was a nun with a good sense of humour and knew well that I was very anti-religious but when she died she asked that I carry her coffin which I was happy to do. }

About 10,000 people died as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear powers station, Minister of the Interior Boris Gryzlov said Tuesday.
Speaking at a meeting of liquidators of the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, the head of the Russian Interior Ministry said that a "high price has been paid" for the accident. More than 35,000 people have become disabled as a result. The minister pointed out that among the victims, there were also quite a few Interior Ministry employees.

The 10,000 quote also came with a quote that 35,000 people became disabled. This is total rubbish and it’s the first time I heard of this claim. I think if he says 10,000 and a stupid claim for 35,000 disabled in the same speech we can dismiss the lot. I think the researchers would have spotted the 35,000 extra disabled people.

There is a very important point here that arises all the time in similar circumstances. If there is no evidence of an increase in deaths or proof then you cannot believe there were any.

You can believe there may have been but that’s all. It is not logical to take a selection of guesses and simply pick one in the middle. The very fact that all these figures exist is evidence that none of them is correct, a bit like the thousands of contradictory religions proving that at least most of them must be wrong.

I thought that the UNSCEAR letter was amazing. Where’s the rest of it?

Not alone have I made it clear that I support NP in several threads and that the Chernobyl-killed-thousands “movement” is a myth but that one of the downsides is it is keeping NP effectively shut down in many countries, including Ireland, and that was one of the main reasons I oppose the myth. Obviously I also oppose it because I oppose all lies & myths, that’s what someone who is a Skeptic does.

I’m beginning to realise, partly thanks to my nemesis Ecksor, that even people who realise that something is a myth will carry on and sort of defend it. It bit like shooting the messenger.

watty

No I wouldn't pick a lower and upper beleivable figure and "average" them. The point I'm making is that because of the agendas behind most figures (high or low) the ordinary "Joe Soap" can have no idea at all as to real figure. Both "sides" are building myths. Maybe in 20 or 30 years some truely independant research will tell us how many consequent deaths there were.

I think though that deaths actually at time of accident can be more easily tied down and seem from reports to have been < 100 rather than >1000. But the number and cause of any later deaths and amount of later deformities etc, etc, I woudn't comment on except to agree that most of the sources must be wrong as no two different "groupings" of interested parties or vested interests seem to agree.

If I found an Aid Agency, a East European/Russian paper and a nuclear industry source even within a magnitude of each other then we could conclude an approximate size of subsequent casualty. It is the only event I have ever read of with such obviosly irreconcilable HUGE differences in the figures. From Everyone.

It was definately a horrendus disaster. But the size of it is definately obscured in Propaganda.

williamgrogan

The point in Watty's post of the 21-04-04 is invalid because of one major flaw, those that say that there is no evidence of any deaths (notice they did not say a low number) other than 37 in the 2 weeks around the accident and 1 Thyroid case after use science (studies, research etc), including the WHO, and those that say thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, do not. You cannot compare the two points of view.

This article (no subscription regd.) is in today’s UK Independent, here

'Only nuclear power can now halt global warming'
Leading environmentalist, James Lovelock (of Gaia fame) urges radical rethink on climate change.

So one of the founders of Greenpeace and now Lovelock have advocated NP. The power that dare not mention its name may be coming back into fashion.

I suspect that we may start hearing more about Chernobyl as the anti-nuke brigade try to use it as "evidence" of the catastrophic dangers inherent in NP.

williamgrogan

A follow up article in today's UK Indo.

Scientist's plea to use nuclear energy starts new climate change debate by green groups
By Charles Arthur Technology Editor
25 May 2004

A former Labour energy minister and the nuclear industry both welcomed the call by the scientist James Lovelock yesterday for a massive expansion of the nuclear industry to combat global warming.

here

williamgrogan

On the thread where I am arguing that the anti-eVoting lobby are in the same category as the anti-MMR brigade, I discovered that one of the leading lights of the anti-eVoting lobby thinks 30,000 people died at Chernobyl.

see here

Wolff

interesting old thread especially after last night episode of Horizon where they summarised a lot of research into Chernobyl

Based on a un report last year which included contributions from the who etc

basically

only i think 47 deaths directly attributable to chernobyl - no major increases in any cancers at all

wildlife living in vicinity of chernobyl unharmed to this day

no mention of any of this on the chernobyl childrens webstie - they quote much older reports going back to 1995

seems the origional poster may have been correct after all

what do other people think ?

davros

I watched that last night, and also had this thread in the back of my mind.

In recent months, more people have been saying that nuclear energy is not such a bad way to go and actually is very helpful in averting possible climate change. But will we ever have a rational debate on the topic in this country? Are we scientifically literate enough to let the facts convince us one way or the other?

I wonder if the Chernobyl Children's Fund could be persuaded to stop ascribing every birth defect in Belarus to the release of radiation. It seems to me that the desire to help unfortunate children in a very poor country could easily be separated from speculation about how they got that way. Not only that, keeping the spectre of radiation poisoning alive in these countries is, according to the programme, causing stress that is more harmful than any effects directly attributable to radiation exposure.

Horizon has been a consistently great programme for many years. I'd love to see RTE have a stab at something similar. Maybe the ISS could do a lecture on nuclear energy?