"Yet in a BBC Horizon report to be screened on Thursday, a number of scientists argue that 20 years after the accident there is no credible scientific evidence that any of these predications are coming true.
... according to figures from the Chernobyl Forum, an international organisation of scientific bodies including a number of UN agencies, deaths directly attributable to radiation from Chernobyl currently stand at 56 - less than the weekly death toll on Britain's roads.
...
Chernobyl was about as bad as a power station accident gets - a complete melt down of the reactor core - yet the lessons of the accident suggest that among the myriad of issues surrounding nuclear power, the threat to human health posed by radiation has been overstated."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5173310.stm