Horizon - Nuclear Nightmares

[aurora green]

...but what I don't understand is, if the majority of pregnant woman had abortions after Chernobyl, then how can scientists or anyone say what the possible effects would have been?

 

[fudgefactorfive]

The only thing that infuriates me more than faceless corporations and governments pretending problems don't exist or belittling them, are environmental lobbies that unnecessarily terrify the populace with predictions of Armageddon.....

This is indeed unfortunate but you have to ask why they do that - most of the reason being, in my view, that they are pushed into using media-style fear tactics since it's the only weapon they think they can bring to bear against the monolithic vested interests in pushing nuclear power as "environmentally friendly".

Part of the problem is that you can't actually wish for case studies on humans. The Chernobyl zone was evacuated and that's why we have to watch documentaries about voles. No-one's going to argue they should have stayed there so we get a better picture of the medium- to long-term effects of irradiation.

 

[EastEnder]

...but what I don't understand is, if the majority of pregnant woman had abortions after Chernobyl, then how can scientists or anyone say what the possible effects would have been?

They can't absolutely, all they can do it base their conclusions on the women who didn't have abortions. Chernobyl is not the only example, much research has been carried out the offspring of those affected by the A-bombs.

Sadly, it was the lack of knowledge at the time that led to possibly the biggest mass abortion in history.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Sadly, it was the lack of knowledge at the time that led to possibly the biggest mass abortion in history.

Without knowing anything about it, it does occur that there may well have been other social, economic and political pressures at work here

 

[gnoriac]

I don't think they were suggesting that people weren't badly affected - they were trying to establish the relationship between radioactive exposure and cellular damage. Obviously, exposure at certain levels has disastrous consequences. They were trying to determine at what level it becomes dangerous.

I'm guessing they were probably correct in their limited remit, that at low exposure levels, the straight-line graph between exposure and cancer breaks down.
There are other dangerous aspects though, e.g. plutonium particles becoming lodged in lung tissue (do tiny bits of other radioisotopes have the same nasty effect?). Are there other medical effects to cause concern, or is cancer the only danger?
I can't say I share the anger of some other posters, but I do think it's right to regard this programme rather sceptically, particularly as a hefty chunk of it seemed rather devoted to how big a PR disaster Chernobyl, Hiroshima and suchlike had been for the nuke industry rather than getting stuck into the science.

 

[gnoriac]

Without knowing anything about it, it does occur that there may well have been other social, economic and political pressures at work here

The Soviet govt's attitude at the time seemed to be to do anything to cover up what had happened. They probably modified their stance a bit to get international aid to build the sarcophagus, which last I heard, hadn't got too long before it collapses.

 

[scarecrow]

Voles that were conceived, born, lived full lives (for a vole...) and died, right next to Chernobyl received a daily radiation does equivalent to at least 1000 chest X-rays, and were found to have suffered no more chromosomal damage than other voles living no where near contaminated areas..

But how many ears were they born with?

 

[fudgefactorfive]

There are other dangerous aspects though, e.g. plutonium particles becoming lodged in lung tissue (do tiny bits of other radioisotopes have the same nasty effect?). Are there other medical effects to cause concern, or is cancer the only danger?

Yeah, or I assume so anyway, I know ingesting radium isn't exactly good news, and then there's radioactive gases like radon (got xenon mixed up with radon earlier) that you can inhale very easily ...

Scanning some articles it sounds like low to medium doses of nuclear radiation tend to cause cell replication problems (ie. cancers) in the long term, while it's only high doses which kill cells, causing tissue damage. "Radiation sickness" is the latter - you die of bust-up membranes and lack of functioning blood cells faster than you can die of cancer.

Edited to add, one article quotes the average exposure per year for American citizens at 300 millirems, of which radon apparently contributes two-thirds, while some of the Chernobyl clean-up crew who died within 3 months of exposure received 80,000 to 1,600,000 mrem.

 

[WouldBe]

When I was a teenager we were doing a physics lesson on radiation, placing various radioactive sources under a geigercounter, kitted out with gloves, tongs and a lead lined box to keep the sources in.

At one point in the experiment the geiger counter went mental and it took us a while to work out it was my luminous watch which was more radioactive than any of the lab samples.

 

[lostexpectation]

I was a bit perplexed by the whole thing. For years we've been shown pictures of countless damaged children from Chernobyl, and I've seen charity-funded groups visiting the UK, with terrible disfigurements and disabilities. If their afflictions weren't caused by the accident, what happened?

the main criticism of these groups from skeptics is if you go out to find deformed children, you will find them, doesn't mean there illness were directly related to chernobyl

 

[EastEnder]

the main criticism of these groups from skeptics is if you go out to find deformed children, you will find them, doesn't mean there illness were directly related to chernobyl

This happens whenever people investigate anything with a purported adverse effect. A telecoms firm puts a mobile phone mast near a school, much fury ensues, researchers are sent in to discover any adverse effects on the kids, a couple of them show pre-cancerous growths. The fact that they'd probably have found the grows, if they'd looked for them, whether the phone mast was there or not is rarely mentioned.....

Separating that which would have occurred anyway from that which was induced by an outside agent is a fiendishly difficult task. And, sadly, that uncertainty benefits both sides - those for and those against. If you're pro whatever it is, the results merely show that better monitoring picks up more effects; if you're against whatever it is, the results clearly show a causal link and it must be stopped......

 

[lostexpectation]

Every breath you take has radioactive elements in it. If radiation = bad, then we should all be dead. Clearly it's the level of radiation that counts, and it's that relationship that requires more research.

is that all the show was telling us, we already know that!

I'm against nuclear for various reasons, but one thing that's been overlooked that no modern nuclear reactor can suffer a Chenobyl-style accident, on account of failsafe systems (which were deliberately overidden at Chenobyl), and modern reactors are designed to be passively safe, in other words, the chain reaction stops the moment the reactor overheats as the moderator (heavy water, as opposed to graphite in Chenobyl) evaporates, preventing fission from occuring.

TomA you faith in people is remarkable....

read this sentence again

no modern nuclear reactor can suffer a Chenobyl-style accident, on account of failsafe systems (which were deliberately overidden at Chenobyl)

no other power sation will have its safties over ridden, no station will cover up flaws?

 

[gnoriac]

Separating that which would have occurred anyway from that which was induced by an outside agent is a fiendishly difficult task. And, sadly, that uncertainty benefits both sides - those for and those against. If you're pro whatever it is, the results merely show that better monitoring picks up more effects; if you're against whatever it is, the results clearly show a causal link and it must be stopped......

Added to that, cancer is a probabalistic disease, you can only do reasonable estimates against relatively large numbers of people.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Been running around reading.

The thing is, though, that all the arguments against "radiation" tend to get bunched together and people carry their attitudes about one of them over to the others, the lack of understanding about the difference between ionising and non-ionising (radiological versus electromagnetic) radiation being key. It's a major distraction to discuss mobile phone masts in a conversation about nuclear reactors and bombs. (Didn't stop me on page 1 though )

It's definitely very hard to prove causal links between "clean" radiation - microwaves, EM fields around power cables and pylons - with damage to cells. But the radiation spread wide by dissemination of fallout isn't the same thing on several levels. Particles of radioactive material, doing local damage, is a lot worse than a single fierce burst of gamma waves from a very long way off. That's what all the media fuss about "dirty bombs" was about. A dirty bomb (a conventional explosive laced with fissile materials) or a power plant explosion could actually be worse long-term than a simple direct small nuke on London. Worst of all would be a nuke let off in a nuclear power plant, of course.

One article puts the radiation release from Chernobyl at 200 times Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined ... another cited the number of Chernobyl clean up workers alone to have died from acute radiation sickness at over 150, so I'm wondering about the 56 "total deaths" figure quoted from the BBC earlier ... it's a typically woolly patchwork BBC science article IMO. Casting around to see who formed the "Chernobyl Forum", it appears to be a UN body made up of various existing bodies including the WHO and with extra input from Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Certainly a thought-provoking programme, though I was a bit sceptical over there being no dissenting voices.

Agreed, although to clarify I found it not thought-provoking in the sense 'hey there might be something in this, wow has scientific research uncovered all this?' but more in a thought-provoking Hmmm.... where are the dissenting voices, where's the balance... kind of sense...

Also, it seemed a bit strange that radiation was lumped all in together. I'd have thought the effects of beta rad. is rather different from gamma from again cosmic rays like aircrew get.

Agreed. Seemed to have just enough 'Here's the science bit...' to make it appear boffiny enough, but not enough distinctions...

I was particularly appalled by the whole generalisation towards the end: Wow! It appears some random research (and a random map of North America with blue blodges and red blodges) has *proven* (with the Carlsberg "probably" proviso) that people who live furthest away from nuclear plants are more susceptible to cancer, and that means, therefore, that the closer you live to a nuclear plant, the less likely you are to die from cancer, so that "probably" *proves* that radiation is not only not bad for you, but is in fact "probably" good for you! Woohoo! Were those maps weighted for population density for a start? I mean in the more densely populated east coast cities, you're bound to get more incidences of cancer than in a remote, massive state...

Timing was also a little peculiar - day or 2 after Blair seems to have made a definite decision to go for nuke plants.

The programme will have been in production for some time, and in a 'news' and media sense, yes it was good timing in that they were probably waiting for Blair to make his announcement, so the timing of the broadcast isn't peculiar in that sense, but what I did find very peculiar was the totally and blatantly propagandistic nature of it

Blimey, anyone would think the BBC funding review was being considered in the near future!

Oh and does this mean that suntans are OK again?

Probably. You're probably more likely to die from a terrorist attack on a newly built nuclear facility (coming soon, to a neighbourhood near you!) than you are to die from malignant melanoma...

I lied, I'm making that up, it's a Tobyjug-style fact.

 

[EastEnder]

I was particularly appalled by the whole generalisation towards the end: Wow! It appears some random research (and a random map of North America with blue blodges and red blodges) has *proven* (with the Carlsberg "probably" proviso) that people who live furthest away from nuclear plants are more susceptible to cancer, and that means, therefore, that the closer you live to a nuclear plant, the less likely you are to die from cancer, so that "probably" *proves* that radiation is not only not bad for you, but is in fact "probably" good for you! Woohoo! Were those maps weighted for population density for a start? I mean in the more densely populated east coast cities, you're bound to get more incidences of cancer than in a remote, massive state...

I agree that the program could definitely have done with more balance, it did seem a little too enthusiastic. However, I think they were trying, albeit a bit simplistically, to address the latent phobic attitudes towards radiation and other nuclear issues. Whether their hypotheses hold true or whether the bias was unacceptable, either way, I don't think that changes the fact that challenging the status quo is a good thing. Maybe this will lead to a slew of counter arguments, igniting a more balanced debate.

Like many people of my generation, I've grown up with the idea that nuclear radiation is a horrifically terrible thing. There's no way I'm about to suddenly consider it a good thing, but I for one have never really questioned the de facto assumptions before. The only thing worse than ignorance is blind faith - whether that be blind faith in it being good or bad. I want to know the facts - whether those facts contradict or confirm established ideology is irrelevant. I'd rather just know the truth.

 

[gnoriac]

Like many people of my generation, I've grown up with the idea that nuclear radiation is a horrifically terrible thing.

Same here; currently reading Lovelock's "Revenge of Gaia" and in within the context of the *far* nore nightmarish scenarios of global warming I can appreciate how he's swung to being pro-nuclear. The thing is if this programme was supposed to reassure us, to some extent it's done the opposite by looking like a PR job,

 

[muser]

How do you, or they, know it's been poisoned?

Do half a dozen stray gamma rays constitute a risk to the environment? What about 10 tons of highly enriched uranium accidentally dripped onto Cadbury's production line.....?

I want to know the facts, not the fears. Ignorance breeds fear. Lets do the research, establish the true risks, separate fact from fiction. If the end result suggests that you wouldn't want to live closer than 1km from a nuclear power station, then personally I wouldn't want to live closer than 100km - I'm just as susceptible to paranoia as the next bloke. But I'd still rather know the true risks, even if knowing them makes little difference to my own personal fear of glowing in the dark.

My fear is that goverments already bend science to match their needs.
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=581
In American where they have alot more land space they require farmers to be outside a certain radius in order to spray pesticides. As energy demand increases and energy supplies wane, the world will become more dependant on nuclear fission. Fast breeder reactors were once talked about as a possible solution, though because of the increased risk, the project to introduce them was scrapped. It won't be long until it is back on the agenda. Stockpiles of uranium will last a century at best (at current usage levels), fast breeders reactors will prolong that for several thousand years to come.