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The Long-Term Effects of the Chernobyl Accident

On April 26, 1986, an explosion ripped open the core of a nuclear power reactor--a Soviet-design RBMK, one of the largest in the world for its time--at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. Deadly radioactive clouds were released that floated on the wind and contaminated large areas. In 2003, the United Nations and the governments of the three most severely affected countries--Russia, Belarus and Ukraine--formed the Chernobyl Forum, whose 2005 report is considered by most governments and mainstream scientific organizations as the definitive assessment of the long-term effects in the 20 years following the accident. These findings are disputed as being incomplete, however, by Greenpeace and other environmental activist groups.

  1. Thyroid Cancer

    • Childhood thyroid cancer is one of the main long-term health consequences of the Chernobyl accident. Radioactive iodine found its way into the environment and then, via dairy animals, into milk that was consumed by children. Iodine concentrates naturally in the thyroid, so cancers of the thyroid spiked after this exposure. The Chernobyl Forum reports that by 2002, four thousand cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in individuals who were children at the time of the accident, and that Chernobyl is the likely cause of the large majority of these cancers.

    Non-Thyroid Cancers

    • It is very difficult to scientifically differentiate between cancers, including leukemia, caused by the Chernobyl radiation and those due to other causes. The Chernobyl Forum's opinion is that, up to 2002, the accident caused about four thousand cancer deaths. One hundred thousand other cancer-related deaths due to other causes were documented in the same population group for the same time span. Their analysis included the most highly exposed groups, such as emergency-response workers and residents in the immediate vicinity of the power plant. A 2006 Greenpeace report contends that in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the actual cancer deaths attributable to Chernobyl totaled 200,000 .

    Other Health Effects

    • Medical evidence clearly shows that a consequence of the Chernobyl accident was development of cataracts in the eyes of children and emergency response workers. No decrease in fertility, in either men or women, was noted. There was an increase in congenital deformities in infants born in the years following the accident, but the Chernobyl Forum states that the deformities were not the result of radiation exposure. Many people were also traumatized by the general anxiety about their health and the stresses caused by dislocation after the accident; these may have caused long-term psychological problems.

    Environmental Effects

    • Chernobyl fallout contaminated agricultural land as well as forests and waterways. Dairy milk was immediately contaminated by radioactive iodine, and later, as other radioisotopes penetrated the soil, so were vegetables. Radioactive contamination is found in higher concentration in the forests than on farms. Lichens readily absorb radioactive material and consequently, in some Scandinavian countries, reindeer who feed on lichen, as well as the indigenous Sami people who hunt them, were found to be contaminated by the Chernobyl fallout.

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