Sunday, May 16, 2010

Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book


thanks to angela bischoff for sending this in her "no nukes" e-newsletter.

photo is from a neighbourhood near havana where approximately 15,000 chernobyl victims were housed and treated, the best that cuban doctors could in light of the usa imposed economic blockade.

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Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.

The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.

The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html
http://www.alternet.org/health/146619