UN blamed Chernobyl illnesses and birth defects on stress, handouts and smoking

In other words it was all in their heads.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jan/06/socialsciences.highereducation

'Myth' of Chernobyl suffering exposed

Relocation and hand-outs have caused more illness than radiation, a new UN study concludes.

Anthony Browne The Observer, Sunday 6 January 2002 10.38 GMT Article history

It is seen as the worst man-made disaster in history, killing tens of thousands, making tens of millions ill, and afflicting generations to come. Exhibitions of photographs of the deformed victims have toured the world, raising funds and awareness.

Now a report from the United Nations on the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 15 years after the event comes to a very different conclusion. It says the medical effects of radiation are far less than was thought. The biggest damage to health has instead come from hypochondria and well-meaning but misguided attempts to help people.

The report suggests the reloca tion of hundreds of thousands of people 'destroyed communities, broke up families, and led to unemployment, depression, and stress-related illnesses'. Generous welfare benefits, holidays, food and medical help given to anyone declared a victim of Chernobyl have created a dependency culture, and created a sense of fatalism in millions of people.

The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, published by the UN Development Programme and Unicef, is a challenge to those who seek to highlight the dangers of nuclear energy.

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This non-human study indicates they were full of crap:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-chernobyl-birds.html

Chernobyl Birds' Defects Link Radiation, Not Stress, to Human Ailments

Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News

April 18, 2007

Twenty years after the infamous catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, scientists were cheered by the explosion of wildlife that seemed to be thriving in the 19-mile (30-kilometer) "exclusion zone" around the disaster site.

Healthy-looking deer, boar, lynx, and eagle owls were among the animals found throughout the zone, despite the blast that had showered radioactive material over huge swaths of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia (see a map of Europe).

But a new study shows that barn swallows living near Chernobyl, which is in Ukraine, suffer from many more birth defects and abnormalities than would ordinarily be expected.

In addition, the swallows are not living as long and are not breeding as successfully as their distant counterparts.

By studying birds rather than humans, the researchers have been able to separate the physiological effects of the radiation from sociological and psychological ones.

"Birds don't drink, birds don't smoke, and they don't suffer the same kind of stresses as humans" that can cause diseases such as cancers, said study co-author Tim Mousseau, a biology professor at the University of South Carolina and a National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration grantee.

It was a total joke, and and insult to the ones affected.