Back to Chernobyl: Some Aspects of Cancer Diagnostics

After the Chernobyl accident massive screening using initially poor equipment, the lack of modern literature and “radiation phobia” contributed to an overdiagnosis of malignancies [1-7]. The “Chernobyl victim syndrome” (i.e. pressure to be registered as a victim) [8] resulted in the registration of patients from noncontaminated areas as having been exposed to radiation. At the time, the exaggeration of Chernobyl’s impact facilitated the financing and creation of numerous doctoral theses. Subsequently, deeper motives for overestimation have emerged the accident has been exploited for the worldwide strangulation of nuclear energy [9] driven by antinuclear resentments. That said, the attitude of the Green movement has been not without merit: nuclear technologies should have been prevented from spreading to regions where conflicts and terrorism cannot be excluded. Today, there are no alternatives to nuclear energy: non-renewable fossil fuels will become more expensive in the long term, contributing to increased population growth in oilproducing countries and global poverty. Therefore it is time to clarify some mechanisms, unrelated to radiation, that have contributed to the overestimation of medical consequences of the Chernobyl accident.