The remaining 87 have suffered other complications, included four cases of solid cancer and two of leukaemia. Nineteen others died later, but generally not from diseases associated with radiation( 6). Of the workers who tried to contain the emergency at Chernobyl, 134 suffered acute radiation syndrome 28 died soon afterwards. Here is what it says about the impacts of Chernobyl. Like the IPCC, it calls on the world’s leading scientists to assess thousands of papers and produce an overview. The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (Unscear) is the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They now claim that 985,000 people have been killed by Chernobyl, and that it will continue to slaughter people for generations to come. For the past 25 years, anti-nuclear campaigners have been racking up the figures for deaths and diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster, and parading deformed babies like a mediaevel circus. The scarcity of references to scientific papers and the abundance of unsourced claims it contains amaze me.īut it gets worse much worse. I have just read her book Nuclear Power is not the Answer(5). (I have posted our correspondence( 4a, 4b), and my sources, on my website).
#NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS REPORT ON GUNS DEBUNKED SERIES#
I pressed her further and she gave me a series of answers that made my heart sink – in most cases they referred to publications which either had little or no scientific standing, which did not support her claims or which contradicted them. It supports none of the statements I questioned: in fact it strongly contradicts her claims about the health effects of radiation. But one of the press releases referred to a report by the US National Academy of Sciences, which she urged me to read. None were scientific publications none contained sources for the claims she had made. Caldicott’s response has profoundly shaken me.įirst she sent me nine documents: newspaper articles, press releases and an advertisement. So I did what anyone faced with questionable scientific claims should do: I asked for the sources.
In the debate she made some striking statements about the dangers of radiation. She has received 21 honorary degrees and scores of awards, and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize( 2). Dr Caldicott is the world’s foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. I began to see the extent of the problem after a debate last week with Helen Caldicott( 1). We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged and wildly wrong. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. Over the past fortnight I’ve made a deeply troubling discovery. The green movement has misled the world about the dangers of radiation.īy George Monbiot.
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