Monday, March 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
When an invisible cloud of radiation spread around the world from Chernobyl's Unit 4 nuclear reactor after it was destroyed in April 1986, scientists prepared to track major cancer epidemics.
But the epidemics didn't develop.
Results have surprised researchers such as Dr. Robert Gale. Except for thyroid tumors in children, he doesn't see an increase in cancer risks.
Gale, who traveled to the former Soviet Union and visited the crippled reactor, said at an international environmental conference in Las Vegas that no one expected to see leukemias or other cancers. Nor did they expect genetic abnormalities.
"Fortunately, those predictions are so far correct 10 years later," he said. "There hasn't been a detectable increase in cancers, except thyroid cancers in children."
For the 1,000 children suffering thyroid tumors, the good news is the cancer is treatable, Gale said. There were fewer than 10 deaths among the children, many of them living in the Ukraine, site of the disaster.
The risk for birth defects from Chernobyl has also expired.
"The risk for leukemia is over, but the risk for other cancers is not," Gale warned. Based on considerable data from atomic bomb survivors and nuclear power plant workers, other cancers such as those of the breast did not begin increasing for at least 10 years.
"In fact, they are still occurring," Gale said.
One in 10 women in the United States develops breast cancer, he said. A slight increase from Chernobyl or radiation exposures might not be detected. That is because different parts of the country receive varying radiation amounts.
For example, Las Vegas residents receive a quarter of the radiation that Denver residents receive, because of that city's altitude.
"Radiation can clearly cause cancer, but one didn't really expect a major cause of cancers after Chernobyl," Gale said.
The low level of cancer cases from the nuclear accident shouldn't make people complacent, because the increase could come in the next 10 years.
"Just because Chernobyl didn't cause huge increases of cancer doesn't mean physicians don't need to be careful in ordering X-rays," Gale said.
"We've got to be careful with nuclear power stations, we have to be careful of nuclear wastes and we shouldn't be exploding nuclear weapons."
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