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> Those are the official Soviet figures, right?

official international numbers

There is consensus that a total of approximately 30 people died from immediate blast trauma and acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in the seconds to months after the disaster, respectively, with 60 in total in the decades since, inclusive of later radiation induced cancer

The contested numbers are those related to long term radiation exposure

There is no strong evidence of an increase in deaths

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_...



If you talk to people born in the late 80s to early 90s in the areas near Chernobyl you’ll find out that many kids died in their teens and early 20s or are living with cancer today. Maybe they didn’t die, but they no longer have thyroids. Saying that 60 total died from Chernobyl is insulting.


WHO talked to them

Still no strong evidence found

WHO is not working for USSR AFAIK

> that many kids died in their teens and early 20s or are living with cancer today.

that's not surprising

there are many people who are living with cancer worldwide

radiation exposure is not the only cause for cancer

I truly wish it was

My dad worked in oncology, he saw too many people die of cancer in the past 45 years.

Long before Chernobyl was a thing.

> Maybe they didn’t die, but they no longer have thyroids

Half of my family no longer has thyroids, they are all from Italy, born between 1945 and 1974.

All of them are still alive and well.

> Saying that 60 total died from Chernobyl is insulting

but it still might be the truth


High rates of cancer in teenagers is not surprising? I’m not talking about 50+, I’m talking about tumors at 16-25 at a rate high enough that you can ask a Belarusian kid if they still talk to their high school friends and they’ll answer “many died already” which is not the normal answer you get from those questions. I don’t understand your correlation of people who are 90 without thyroids vs people in their 20s that had tumors and had to have them removed. Your dads job is to see people with cancer, of course he sees a lot of them. It’s like a mechanic saying “I see lots of broken engines, therefore any engine that’s broken is normal, even if it’s at 20000km”


Fair enough, though detractors would probably quibble about the “direct” part.




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