
Top UCLA Doctor Denounces HBO's “Chernobyl” as Wrong and “Dangerous” - krzyk
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/06/11/top-ucla-doctor-denounces-depiction-of-radiation-in-hbos-chernobyl-as-wrong-and-dangerous/#6f1a0e491e07
======
nrjames
The author of this piece is the President of Environmental Progress, a pro-
nuclear lobbying group. He's posted multiple articles to Forbes to try to
discredit the Chernobyl show....

... which is a TV show meant to entertain people. Since when did people get
their authoritative facts about science from a dramatized TV show?

Anyhow, the people and their horrifying decision making processes are the real
enemies presented in Chernobyl, in my opinion.

~~~
erentz
> The author of this piece is the President of Environmental Progress, a pro-
> nuclear lobbying group. He's posted multiple articles to Forbes to try to
> discredit the Chernobyl show....

I’ve seen this pseudo ad-hom rolled out every time one of his articles comes
up on HN. Is he really a nuclear lobbyist? Does that make anything he is
saying not factual? Can we engage with the facts of the article rather than
just attack the author?

In this case it’s an article about what a doctor who _treated_ some of the
Chernobyl patients is saying. Is that a lie? Is he not a doctor who treated
the Chernobyl patients?

> which is a TV show meant to entertain people. Since when did people get
> their authoritative facts about science from a dramatized TV show?

That’s probably how a majority of people learn things especially about topics
they otherwise would never engage in or dig deeper on such as the true details
of a nuclear accident.

~~~
mlevental
> Is he really a nuclear lobbyist?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger)

> Does that make anything he is saying not factual?

it's a smell test - burden of proof goes up

~~~
erentz
Is he paid by the nuclear industry is what I was wanting to know?

This label “lobbyist” gets used to malign people and cast aside anything they
might have to say a lot. It’s usually only used against those which are
promoting an idea that someone already disagrees with. So for example an anti-
nuclear but pro-wind power person will throw out a “he’s a lobbyist” label to
an article by this guy then ignore what he’s saying. But without any irony
completely lap up something written by a wind-power producer who makes money
selling wind turbines or similar.

If the guy writing this is a lobbyist because he is making the case for
nuclear, and thus we must disregard him, then anyone making the case for
anything is de facto a lobbyist and we should disregard everything.

I would much rather see people actually try to refute or counter the facts and
claims this author presents, but that almost never happens which leads me to
believe the only way people have to rebut him is the ad-hom route as the
person I replied to did: label him with that despised “lobbyist” word so
people tune out.

~~~
mlevental
> Is he paid by the nuclear industry is what I was wanting to know?

wrong question. right question: does he have a vested interest misrepresenting
the position?

if i own a burger king franchise i'm not a beef lobbyist but i do have a
vested interest in misrepresenting the facts on beef farming.

------
BrockSamson
Coal power stations produce around 5-10 tonnes of radioactive waste every
year. This seems to be ignored for the most part when discussing nuclear
energy.

~~~
jhayward
It is not useful to use the many failings of coal as a fuel to promote nuclear
power. Nuclear power does not compete against coal, it competes against
wind/solar and natural gas.

The constant refrain of 'but coal ..' from nuclear advocates is just an
admission that nuclear power is un-economic and unable to compete in the
marketplace against the best options.

~~~
scott_s
Nuclear power does not compete against wind and solar, as wind and solar are
_intermittent_ power sources. Nuclear is a _firm_ energy source, in that we
can use it to create steady-state power during periods that intermittent
sources are not available. Coal is also a firm energy source, so coal and
nuclear definitely compete.

For more, "There is No One Energy Solution",
[https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/there-is-no-
on...](https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/there-is-no-one-energy-
solution/)

~~~
jhayward
This mis-states how electrical generation markets work and relies on the
fallacy of "baseload", which is an artifact created by the past-grid
domination of large thermal plants for generation.

In my market (Texas/ERCOT) there is no separate market for "firm" power. You
either run or you don't on an every-15-minutes basis. You are either a price
"taker", or a price "maker". In this market the NPPs are always, always, price
"takers". They absolutely compete with the price makers, which are always
either wind, solar, or most commonly, natural gas.

Coal is always a price "taker" in this market as well.

Whether a generator is a "taker" or "maker" in terms of pricing is a function
of the economic impact to it of not running in a given bid segment, and its
ability to compete in the bidding for the "last MW" of the bid-price stack.

Large thermal plants like NPPs rely very much on the economics of being able
to get premium pricing for every single minute of the day and night. In a
competetive market they can't do that, because gas/wind/solar can under-price
them by very large margins. So the NPPs become un-economic to run (if already
running), and very much un-fundable to build as new capacity. The same market
force applies to coal.

~~~
scott_s
Your rationale does not address the core argument of the piece, which is that
as reliance on intermittent energy sources approaches 100%, their cost will
rise steeply.

~~~
jhayward
It's not necessary to do a piece by piece rebuttal of a professional
"skeptic", who is a neuroscientist, and whose reasoning relies on someone who
worked at Shellenberger's "breakthrough institute", which existed solely to
provide pseudo-scientific buttressing for the message that renewable energy is
bad, and the climate change, if it's happening, isn't really that bad.

You are essentially using Shellenberger-provided articles as proof that
Shellenberger isn't a con artist. It's all bunk. Top to bottom, same game
plan.

~~~
scott_s
I refer to them because their arguments make sense to me - they seem measured
and nuanced. I've encountered a lot of pseudo-science, and this has none of
the hallmarks that I associate with it. The argument is not that renewables
are bad, but they alone are not enough. Can you point to something that
provides a counter-argument?

------
Al-Khwarizmi
I'm not an expert, but this doesn't look too credible to me:

\- I know that many death estimates for Chernobyl are highly exaggerated, but
sticking to the official Soviet death toll of 31 seems ludicrous.

\- Lyudmilla Ignatenko existed in real life and there are interviews with her
telling how they didn't let her hug her husband at the hospital due to
radioactivity, and she had to hid her pregnancy to be let in. Of course she
could be lying, but those would be strange lies to tell.

\- If victims could not be radioactive, why were they buried in metal caskets
covered in concrete? This is well documented an there are photos.

\- Regarding the Ignatenko's claim that the foetus had somehow protected her
from radiactivity by absorbing it, personally I never interpreted it as a
statement that the show was claiming as true. I saw it as the character's own
interpretation. The show portrays different characters with various degrees of
ignorance, and no one in the show portrayed as knowledgeable defends that
theory.

\- There are photos of radiation victims from various incidents and they look
not unlike what is seen in the series. Here are some (trigger warning, very
graphic images):
[https://imgur.com/gallery/3x7RcLk#QrTJTm5](https://imgur.com/gallery/3x7RcLk#QrTJTm5)

There may be things to criticize about the show but this person looks like he
is telling a quite biased story.

~~~
mjames083
>> I know that many death estimates for Chernobyl are highly exaggerated, but
sticking to the official Soviet death toll of 31 seems ludicrous.

That's the immediate death toll from radiation poisoning, not the total years
lost as a result of radiation exposure. The article is correct to point out
however that the total death toll must be much less than many other disasters
and certainly not comparable to what people commonly believe about the death
toll at chernobyl.

>>\- Lyudmilla Ignatenko existed in real life and there are interviews with
her telling how they didn't let her hug her husband at the hospital due to
radioactivity, and she had to hid her pregnancy to be let in. Of course she
could be lying, but those would be strange lies to tell.

>> If victims could not be radioactive, why were they buried in metal caskets
covered in concrete? This is well documented and there are photos.

Those were firefighters who ingested radioactive products in the air. Normal
human tissue cannot be induced to be become radioactive. I'm not surprised
that they would quarantine a firefighter and bury his body in a metal casket
but that doesn't apply to the majority of the victims of radiation poising by
Chernobyl. The show at one point shows such a burial for liquidators who
wouldn't have radioactive material in their body and is almost certainly
ahistorical. The show never makes this clear.

>>\- There are photos of radiation victims from various incidents and they
look not unlike what is seen in the series. Here are some (trigger warning,
very graphic images):
[https://imgur.com/gallery/3x7RcLk#QrTJTm5](https://imgur.com/gallery/3x7RcLk#QrTJTm5)

He was literally standing over a tank of radioactive material when the
accident occurred thus explaining the extent of his skin damage. The radiation
exposure for the firefighters wouldn't have caused them to suffer skin damage
to the same extent and not in the way portrayed in the film. The ingested
fission products would have harmed internal tissue before reaching the surface
of the body. The show's portrayal of the first responder firefighters is
almost entirely completely wrong.

>>There may be things to criticize about the show but this person looks like
he is telling a quite biased story.

I disagree and I'm quite concerned about how the show mistakenly portrays the
effects of radiation. At the very least they could explained how radiation
works and why the firefighters had to quarantined but they never do anything
like that. Instead, we hear dramatic warnings of a thermonuclear blast unless
our heroes take immediate action which is completely nonsensical.

~~~
close04
You are perfectly right. This series was a good opportunity to actually show
people how radiation works. They did make a good step by step of how the
disaster unfolded though, which is great. Just above I made the point that
most people don't understand how radioactivity works and they will probably
mostly pick up the details of the series that are added for dramatic effect
since they're mixed with real events. TV series have a strong influence on
people's beliefs. My comment wasn't too appreciated.

Being irradiated does not really make human tissue radioactive. You absorb the
radiation particles, not the radioactive material emitting it. But ingesting,
inhaling, or absorbing the material through the skin will not only kill the
person (from the inside), it will also make the remains dangerous enough to
not want them seeping into the ground. Now the tissue carries around the
radiation source. [0]

To use the bullet analogy from the series, what I said above is akin to being
shot with bullets or ingesting a gun that's still firing. The first case might
kill you, the second case will definitely kill you but it won't really kill
others unless they plan on ingesting you, firing-gun and all.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome)

------
emiliobumachar
The key point is that radiation victims of Chernobyl did not became
radioactive themselves -and harmful to others- as depicted in the series.

Fear and panic caused more harm than the accident itself - including one
million unnecessary abortions.

I think the danger implied is that it could happen again.

~~~
tssva
For someone concerned about facts he presents no actual facts to backup his
claim of 1 million unnecessary abortions. What is this based upon? How did
they identify which were abortions driven by bad medical advice and which were
abortions which women claimed were based upon the medical advice but for which
that was just a cover to avoid the social stigma often associated with
abortion?

Of course this also assumes that an abortion is some kind of harm.

~~~
otabdeveloper4
> Of course this also assumes that an abortion is some kind of harm.

How is a killing of a person not considered harm?

(Unless, of course, you're some sort of extreme psycopath.)

~~~
tssva
Abortion isn't killing a person.

------
ishanjain28
People are taking the wrong takeaway from the show. The point of
Chernobyl(HBO) was not to show the dangers of Nuclear reactors, It was to
show, The Lies, Politics and other disgusting elements can and will ruin lives
of thousands of people.

Chernobyl was the result of lies and deception. Soviet Russia's wanted to be
number 1 everywhere while completely disregarding how they got there, That is
what led to Chernobyl.

People, Including the Doctor have taken it incorrectly in my humble opinion.

They even had a separate podcast where they discussed exactly this and more
details related to the series in great detail. Look it up on Pocketcast or
whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and you'll find it.

~~~
lostmsu
> Soviet Russia's wanted to be number 1 everywhere while completely
> disregarding how they got there, That is what led to Chernobyl.

What led to Chernobyl is a reactor design flaw (could happen to anyone), and
irresponsible behavior of the plant staff, who run the experiment against "the
book".

Only the later probably is because of the culture-wide trait. The rest of it
could have happened to anyone.

Though I do agree, that the show displays the need for open information
through the lack of it in Soviet Union like nothing else.

------
WAHa_06x36
The claim that external exposure to radiation does not make you radioactive is
true in _most_ cases. However, Chernobyl is not most cases.

First, I'm not sure you can claim that people working during the disaster
would only suffer external exposure. There was a reactor core on fire, there
was probably plenty of isotopes in the air that would have been breathed in
and possibly taken up by the body.

Second, neither alpha, beta nor gamma reaction will induce any significant
amount of radioactive in materials that are exposed to them. And under normal
circumstances, that is all you would be exposed to. But this was, again, an
exposed reactor core. There might very well have been a significant amount of
neutron radiation present, which does in fact induce radioactivity.

So the claims of the article are way too strong for this very, very
exceptional situation.

------
alex_young
It's sad to see them use inflated numbers to criticize the numbers they claim
are inflated:

“Although the 31 immediate Chernobyl-related deaths are sad,” he concludes,
“the number of fatalities is remarkably small compared with many energy-
related accidents, such as the Benxihu coal mine disaster in China 1942, which
killed about 1500 miners, and the 1975 Banqiao dam accident, also in China,
which killed about 250,000 people.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#Casualties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#Casualties)

The dam failure killed approx. 26,000 people, and 145,000 died as a result of
subsequent epidemics and famine according to the official record.

While this was a very significant loss of life, inflating it to argue with
other numbers you contest seems pretty shallow.

~~~
292355744930110
Sort of like how people try to conflate the problems of the earth quake and
tsunami with those of Fukushima Daiichi.

------
kamarad
I lived in socialistic country in Eastern Europe and government DID try to
cover it up. There were no new for at last several days. Then they said
everything is fine, go outside, eat vegetables, drink mil, everything is OK..
it is just Western propaganda that there are problems. We trust our comrades
in Soviet Union. While the news in Western Europe was: Minimize your stay
outside. Do not drink mil. Do not eat vegetables (the farmers in West were
actually destroying crops so it cannot be consumed).

~~~
AstralStorm
Yeah, scientists in Poland were told to shut up and smart ones immediately
took potassium iodide to protect thyroid.

The first news anyone got was from Sweden a few days later.

------
app4soft
Dear, YCombinator Admins!

Please, stop share fakes written by _Michael Shellenberger_ [0] on HN!

[0] [http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-
monitor/853/exposin...](http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-
monitor/853/exposing-misinformation-michael-shellenberger-and-environmental-
progress)

~~~
pdkl95
> wiseinternational.org

This organization self-description[1] (emphasis added by me to highlight
important phrases):

>> We publish the Nuclear Monitor, a unique international newsletter _serving
the worldwide movement against nuclear power_. Produced 20 times per year, it
_gives an anti-nuclear perspective_ on what is happening in the nuclear power
industry and the _resistance against it_.

An anti-nuclear activist group is an interesting choice to use as a
reference...

[1] [https://www.wiseinternational.org/what-we-
do](https://www.wiseinternational.org/what-we-do)

------
michaelgiba
Not to mention everyone in the show has a British accent, even Gorbachev.
Hilarious

~~~
ilogik
option A)

1\. Have people speak perfect English, thus letting the actors shine, and not
have the viewers have to read subtitles.

2\. Have really good British/American actors do a fake (and probably bad)
Russian accent, just for funsies

3\. Hire actual Ukrainian/Russian actors, and use subtitles all the way.

Option 2 just seems stupid to me, the characters didn't speak in a foreign
accent, they spoke in their own. Between Option 1 and 3, I prefer 1.

~~~
nindalf
Option 3 can work really well. Narcos had folks speaking in Spanish with most
of the world reading subtitles. As someone not from South America, it felt
more authentic than if Escobar was speaking English throughout.

Of course, I'm glossing over the fact that the actor playing Escobar didn't
sound like he was from Colombia at all, but that's not apparent to most of us
non-Spanish speakers.

~~~
dragonwriter
Arguably, the artistic choice was a strong for one Narcos because the
foreignness of the majority of the setting to the viewpoint characters was
central to the theme; that's arguably the opposite of what Chernobyl was
aiming for.

