Nicholas Low ("Nuclear deaths", The Age, Letters 16/5) demonstrates how emotional baggage associated with nuclear issues trumps cool analysis. The authoritative source on the accident is the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. It has found no sign of the hundreds of thousands of excess deaths quoted by activists.
The UN reports include the following: "So far a statistically significant excess of cancers has been observed only in Russian clean-up workers. In those of Belarus and Ukraine, no significant excess has been observed to date. There is no significant increase of leukaemia in adults or children living on contaminated territories of the three affected countries."
Premature deaths as a result of an accident releasing 200 times the radioactivity of Nagasaki 19 years after the event have been much less than 100.
There has been an increase in thyroid cancers among children with some 10 excess deaths attributed to the accident but, these apart, the UN report says, "no increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality have been observed that could be attributed to ionising radiation.
"The risk of leukaemia, one of the main concerns (leukaemia is the first cancer to appear after radiation exposure, because of its short latency time of two to 10 years), does not appear to be elevated, even among the recovery operation workers.
"Neither is there any proof of other non-malignant disorders that are related to ionising radiation."
Sloganising is no substitute for scientific research.
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