Reactor disaster

The television is full of panic stricken horror about the supposedly horrible horrible horrible horrible nuclear disaster in Japan.

This disaster looks like being worse than three mile island, but not nearly as bad as Chernobyl.

How many died as a result of Chernobyl?

Sixty people died.   Pretty similar compared to coal mining disasters, of which there are many each year, killing in total world wide thousands of people every year, usually without making much news.

People have been trying to get alarming cancer statistics from the vicinity of Chernobyl, and have come up empty.

If Chernobyl has elevated cancer rates in its vicinity, as is frequently alleged, somehow no one has been able to produce persuasive epidemiological evidence for it, the only epidemiological evidence being a high risk of thyroid cancers among children that were under four at the time of the incident or conceived but not yet born – leading to the deaths of nine children from thyroid cancer!  Nine!  Nine!  Nine! That is the worst anyone has been able to come up with for a great horrible horribly disastrous Chernobyl cancer epidemic disaster.

Nine!