Chernobyl's legacy: no likely return to normality and a never-ending bill

[bananas]

Source: Guardian

Twenty five years on from the world's worst nuclear accident, the number of cancers is rising, there are still restrictions on tens of thousands of square miles of land, and Ukraine and Belarus, the two countries most affected, are saddled with costs which they will continue to bear for thousands of years.

The full legacy of the 1986 explosion is still not clear, but a new study by international scientists for the National Institutes of Health, the US government's medical research agency, has found exposure to radioactive iodine-131 from Chernobyl fallout is likely to be responsible for thyroid cancers that are still occurring among people who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident. The researchers say they found no evidence to suggest that the increased cancer risk to those who lived in the area in 1986 is decreasing over time.

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There are still widespread bans or restrictions on collecting or hunting mushrooms, berries, and game in many areas where high concentrations of caesium-137 are still found. Countries as far away as Britain, Sweden and Norway have still not lifted all restrictions on the sale of milk and other products. High contamination levels are still found in reindeer in Scandinavia and more than 300 hill farms in Wales still have to have their milk and animals tested before sale.

In Germany, the government paid out $555,000 in 2009 to hunters in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated to be sold. In some areas this is more than 7,000 becquerel per kilogram, compared to the 600 bequerels which is considered safe.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/26/chernobyl-legacy-no-return

[Demeter]

1. Yup. A Nuclear Disaster Is Forever--and Every Reactor, too

black holes of eternal, death-spewing radiation.

[LiberalEsto]

2. My cousin in Estonia has thyroid problems

and to the best of my knowledge, nobody else in the family has had them. I can't help wondering if the stuff from Chernobyl, which drifted over Estonian among other places, might be responsible.

[bananas]

3. Could be. nt