Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is a translation of a 2007 Russian publication by , Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko, edited by Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger, and originally published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009 in their "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences" series. The book presents an analysis of scientific literature and concludes that medical records between 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster, and 2004 reflect 985,000 premature deaths as a result of the radioactivity released. The
Effects of the Chernobyl disaster been a high incidence of chromosomal changes in plant and animal aquatic organisms, and this generally has correlated with the contamination and resulting genetic instability. Most of the lakes and rivers surrounding the Chernobyl exclusion zone are still highly contaminated with radionuclides (and will be for many years to come) as the natural decontamination processes of nucleotides with longer half-lives can take many years. One of the main mechanisms by which radionuclides were passed to humans was through the ingestion of milk from contaminated cows. Most of the rough grazing that the cows took part in contained plant species such