Health effects of the Chernobyl accident

SHIBATA Yoshisada

doi:10.11513/jrrsabst.2006.0.87.0

Twenty years have elapsed since the Chernobyl accident, which discharged a total of 300 MCi radionuclides including I-131 of 40 MCi and short-lived radioiodine of 100 MCi. More than 5 million residents are living in contaminated areas in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, among whom about 270,000 are living in highly contaminated areas. The mode of radiation exposure in general population is very complicated and is different from that in atomic bomb survivors. They received internal exposure through ingestion of food and drink contaminated by fallout as well as external exposure by fallout, and furthermore they have to live in contaminated areas being exposed to low dose-rate radiation for a long time. The health effects observed in the past 20 years are also different from those in atomic bomb survivors. No significant increase in leukemia has been observed in general population, while an unexpectedly rapid increase in childhood thyroid cancer is noticeable. Although, up to this time, only thyroid cancer and thyroid nodule in those exposed to the accident in their childhood are recognized to have been caused by the accident, careful monitoring of residents' health is necessary since they will be exposed to radiation, though low, for a long time.

Health effects of the Chernobyl accident

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