5 ms·

> while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". that is on the right scale. The Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus took the

by trhway 7y ago

> while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". that is on the right scale. The Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus took the brunt of the fallout, and the cancer rates there is significantly higher. For example, the rate of the breast cancer (the most frequent cancer - normally more than 1 in 10 women would get it during lifetime) is 2x there (so with total 1M+ women living in those 2 regions more than 100K of them would get the breast cancer due to Chernobyl). In general, comparing Belarus cancer rates to Russia, Ukraine, Poland - the surrounding countries with a lot of similarities wrt. environment, ethnicity/DNA, lifestyle/unhealthy habits/etc. - Belarus gets about 10K extra cancer cases per year (with about 50% mortality).

tptacek 7y ago
Belarus is different from its neighbors in more significant ways than its proximity to Chernobyl; it's famously "the last dictatorship in Europe". Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's economy has been weaker than its neighbors, as has its ties to the European Union.
- trhway 7y ago
  That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.
  - yareally 7y ago
    I believe much of that drop is due to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed by the invasion of Donbass. The drop off can be seen in the link below starting in 2014 when the invasion was initiated: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=UA-BY https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... You're technically correct (depending on where you find the GDP data), but I don't believe it would be the case if the invasion and annexation had not happened. The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Poland is also a neighbor of Belarus and a former Eastern Bloc country. But I will cop to not researching this carefully; if I had the comment to write over again, I would have stopped at "last dictatorship in Europe". I have never been to Belarus or Ukraine and have no real desire to, though Poland is pretty high on my list.
    - trhway 7y ago
      >The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus Not really. Even back then the Ukraine per capita was still noticeably below Belarus - having 4.5x population it had 3x GDP at best. Anyway, my point is that the macro-economical/macro-social things like for example per-capita GDP or government style have nothing to do with cancer rates there (overwise Poland, Russia, Ukraine would have huge differences among themselves), and definitely those macro-factors dont have geographical distribution like Chernobyl fallout to explain the Belarus cancer picture.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        Here's a pretty detailed report on health care in Belarus from 2013: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/232835/HiT-Belarus.pdf http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/232835/H... Of note: * Rates of smoking in Belarus are also high. * The indirect impact of Chernobyl includes a lack of health care facilities in the (rural) regions most impacted. If the stat you're working from was breast cancer mortality, I'd push back harder, but I don't think that's what you're saying.
        trhway 7y ago
        > * Rates of smoking in Belarus are also high. Russia and Poland have higher rates of smoking. Anyway, it would be mostly about lung cancer which isn't the main component here. > * The indirect impact of Chernobyl includes a lack of health care facilities in the (rural) regions most impacted. Lack of healthcare facilities doesn't really impact cancer incidence rate. >If the stat you're working from was breast cancer mortality, I'd push back harder, but I don't think that's what you're saying. Breast cancer incidence rate is the main component here. It shows the largest increase in absolute terms. Thyroid cancer shows largest percentage increase, though it is "just" a 1K of cases. Geographically correlates with fallout too. So far i really fail to see how any argument you've put forward can explain such a significant and regionally (Mogilev and Gomel are large regions, so it is not some local effect) regionally correlated increase in the cancer rate. Especially given that those regions received several Hiroshimas worth of fallout which explains that increase perfectly. So your explanation need to be at least as good as the Chernobyl fallout provides. Specifically any such explanation has to account for the observed size of the rate increase as well as its geographical distribution, i.e. it should clearly answer - "why Gomel and Mogilev?"

by trhway 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago

Belarus is different from its neighbors in more significant ways than its proximity to Chernobyl; it's famously "the last dictatorship in Europe". Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's economy has been weaker than its neighbors, as has its ties to the European Union.

trhway 7y ago
That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.
- yareally 7y ago
  I believe much of that drop is due to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed by the invasion of Donbass. The drop off can be seen in the link below starting in 2014 when the invasion was initiated: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=UA-BY https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... You're technically correct (depending on where you find the GDP data), but I don't believe it would be the case if the invasion and annexation had not happened. The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Poland is also a neighbor of Belarus and a former Eastern Bloc country. But I will cop to not researching this carefully; if I had the comment to write over again, I would have stopped at "last dictatorship in Europe". I have never been to Belarus or Ukraine and have no real desire to, though Poland is pretty high on my list.
  - trhway 7y ago
    >The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus Not really. Even back then the Ukraine per capita was still noticeably below Belarus - having 4.5x population it had 3x GDP at best. Anyway, my point is that the macro-economical/macro-social things like for example per-capita GDP or government style have nothing to do with cancer rates there (overwise Poland, Russia, Ukraine would have huge differences among themselves), and definitely those macro-factors dont have geographical distribution like Chernobyl fallout to explain the Belarus cancer picture.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Here's a pretty detailed report on health care in Belarus from 2013: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/232835/HiT-Belarus.pdf http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/232835/H... Of note: * Rates of smoking in Belarus are also high. * The indirect impact of Chernobyl includes a lack of health care facilities in the (rural) regions most impacted. If the stat you're working from was breast cancer mortality, I'd push back harder, but I don't think that's what you're saying.
      - trhway 7y ago
        > * Rates of smoking in Belarus are also high. Russia and Poland have higher rates of smoking. Anyway, it would be mostly about lung cancer which isn't the main component here. > * The indirect impact of Chernobyl includes a lack of health care facilities in the (rural) regions most impacted. Lack of healthcare facilities doesn't really impact cancer incidence rate. >If the stat you're working from was breast cancer mortality, I'd push back harder, but I don't think that's what you're saying. Breast cancer incidence rate is the main component here. It shows the largest increase in absolute terms. Thyroid cancer shows largest percentage increase, though it is "just" a 1K of cases. Geographically correlates with fallout too. So far i really fail to see how any argument you've put forward can explain such a significant and regionally (Mogilev and Gomel are large regions, so it is not some local effect) regionally correlated increase in the cancer rate. Especially given that those regions received several Hiroshimas worth of fallout which explains that increase perfectly. So your explanation need to be at least as good as the Chernobyl fallout provides. Specifically any such explanation has to account for the observed size of the rate increase as well as its geographical distribution, i.e. it should clearly answer - "why Gomel and Mogilev?"