You are trying to shift the burden of blame onto me, for some reason, without accepting that you made a mistake, deliberate or not. Sadly, that you won't acknowledge what you did and instead try to blame me for pointing it out makes me think the deception was deliberate. See, you are not contradicting my claim that the report denied your assertion that it was radiation/cancer that decimated the population of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, instead you are trying to divert the argument to other parts of the report. But let's review the problematic original statement:
There are debates about "extra" cancer cases caused by nuclear power, but I know of no proof that there have been any.
The claim can be made for two reasons. [snip first reason] However the UNICEF report "Human consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident" summarised it neatly;
"Life expectancy for men in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, for example, is some ten years less that Sri Lanka, which is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world and is in the middle of a long drawn out war"
Maybe Pournelle is just to lazy to look and since cancer takes years to gestate I think it's premature to understand the damage done to the Japanese populace by Fukushima.
It is a perfectly obvious implication that you are here representing the report as saying that the low life expectancy is due to cancer contracted by radiation from the Chernobyl power plant accident. Talking about the cancer effects, not only on the population of the Fukushima prefecture and neighbours, but on the population of the whole of Japan, certainly underscores this implication. (And I'm sad that "Fukushima" will inevitably come to mean the nuclear power plant accident rather than the beautiful prefecture that was hitherto famous for its tasty rice...)
But as I showed, the report does not support this implication! But instead of showing that my correction is somehow wrong, you are now arguing that the details, such as what the cause really is, don't matter because the situation as described in the report is pretty darn horrific at any rate, and who can argue with that?
But the details do in fact matter very, very much!
I will take the time to clarify exactly why and my reasons for taking offense at what you did. I will do this entirely for your benefit even though I feel I have no obligation to reveal personal information and background, merely for objecting that the facts didn't support your statement. Nevertheless...
I have family living in a town called Minamisoma about 30km north of the Fukushima #1 power plant, right on the border of the evacuation zone. Unlike most people posting here about the accident, I have driven past that nuclear power station many times on the way to Tokyo (where in fact all the electricity generated by the plant also went, but I digress...)
There has been a lot of misinformation spread through-out this catastrophe, misinformation (to not call it straight out fear-mongering!) that can cause a lot of anxiety for people who are affected by the accident (cf. your own point about the psychological effects of Chernobyl!) Saying that radiation has induced cancer that's killing the population enough to drastically lower the life expectancy in a huge area caused me personal scare, for obvious reasons, and when I found out that it was, in effect, a lie[*], I felt it very necessary to point out that out, not the least for the sake of others who might be equally unduly worried by your statement, and especially since you didn't provide a direct link to the report so that they could quickly check for themselves.
([*] I'm sure you will take offense at this, and say that it makes no differences whether it was indirect effects, such as psychological or economical, rather than direct effects of radiation, but trust me, it makes a big fucking difference to the people who are personally affected by the Fukushima #1 situation and who are already scared about the effects of the radiation!)
Perhaps you are not a fan of nuclear power. If so, that makes two of us. However, I would advice you to not use these deceptive tactics when discussing these matter.
PS. Since you are, for some reason, asking me what is an appropriate quote to use for support about increased cancer risks, I would support the last one you nominated:
"some two thousand cases of thyroid cancer have so far been diagnosed among young people exposed to radioactive iodine in April and May 1986. According to conservative estimates, this figure is likely to rise to 8-10,000 over the coming years."
