Where Are Chernobyl’s Children?

The news was almost over and just in passing they quickly mentioned there was "a malfunction" at the Chernobyl power plant. They showed a quick picture of some smoke rising. And that's it. Nothing more. It was like they were announcing about how the local sports team won a medal or something.

My dad said, yeah this is not good.

We didn't live too close but we were a bit downwind. The only thing I remember then was that my mom's flowers on the balcony outside died. It was probably not related now that I think about it, but she believed it was. People didn't know what to believe. They obviously didn't trust the official channels.

There was a lot of fear mongering and people making up stories.

It got worse later when people from Chernobyl were sent to live in other cities. Unbelievably, they carried a stigma! People would shun them, as if those people were carrying a disease or were somehow responsible for it. I can't even imagine being uprooted from your home, irradiated with an unknown dose, sent to live in a new city starting with nothing, and then have your new neighbors and coworkers shun you as well.

But that's not all. At some point they called for volunteers. Basically people to help clear up the mess. They promised money and free apartments for those that went. Many went but, when they came back they didn't enjoy the apartments too much longer because they got cancer.

Anyway just a few personal anecdotes if anyone is interested.

'I arrived the next morning to be greeted by two men, with cheap suits and attaché cases, looking like the East German Stasi. They were government officials. They asked, “So what do you want to do here?” I said openly, “I want to take photos here because I’m looking for victims from Chernobyl.” Their answer, “None of these kids here are in any way connected with Chernobyl. You know that malformations can happen anywhere, none of this is connected to Chernobyl.”

Even though it was still very early in the morning, I had a great thought — I had obviously already had enough coffee — and I responded, “Okay, if you give it to me in writing that not a single kid here is in any way connected to Chernobyl, I will pack up my bags and my cameras, and I’ll leave.” And then I said, “But of course, we will need to report in National Geographic that because none of the kids’ diseases are related to Chernobyl, you’re no longer interested in receiving funds from Chernobyl charities.”

P: Wow. Power move.

G: You should have seen how fast they changed their minds. “Oh, there may be this child, and may be this one, and, well, the parents of this kid lived in Chernobyl.” All of sudden the whole situation turned. So in that kind of encounter you learn that you cannot trust officials today any more than you could in the past. It’s gotten better in Ukraine, but Belarus was pretty bad.'

I was born in Romania in May of 1986 about 700km from the plant[1]. My mom tells me stories about how all the pregnant women in the area were encouraged to eat pre-packaged food (no fresh veggies, for example), and drink powdered milk.

Luckily, I was almost completely developed by the time of the disaster (born May 8, meltdown happened April 26), but I am very cognizant about some health problems that people affected by Chernobyl might have, notably thyroid cancer[2].

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Chernobyl,+Kyivs'ka+oblast,+...

[2] https://www.mskcc.org/blog/study-reveals-genetic-causes-thyr...

Birth defects seem to only increase with every generation to the point where the 3rd and 4th generation are hitting a genetic roadblock as all the small genetic defects have reached a "boiling point".

Some local doctors actually proposed to assign a genetic passport to the residents of the area to let them know what's the chance of them being able to reproduce without defects. There have been quite a few documentaries about this VICE included it in a segment on their HBO show https://youtu.be/YMnpnd0T4gE?t=802. WARNNING!: Some of the images especially in the medical center are very disturbing to the point of looking more like a set of a scifi movie ala the thing than real life.

So the true ramifications of Chernobyl might not be visible for another 1 or 2 generations, on the good side the population which was exposed to the Chernobyl incident is much less isolated than various native populations exposed to nuclear test in Siberia, Kazakhstan and in the pacific so they have a much bigger (unexposed) genetic pool to have children with which might result in a smaller likelihood of enough genetic defects to accumulate to the point where they cannot actually produce sufficient children to sustain a population.

The essay seems to imply that this stuff is irresponsible, but doesn't really delve into specifics.

Full disclosure: I've done a lot of construction work in the nuclear power industry, so I'm pretty familiar with radiation, contamination, and their effects. A lot of contamination events result in exposure that is statistically insignificant (e.g. eating a banana would result in more exposure), but there are certainly more harmful forms. My admittedly limited understanding is that a lot of the areas surrounding Chernobyl have detectable, but not really harmful levels of radiation.

I'm just a layman, so I'm hoping more informed folks can fill me in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhYEkRjUWM8

There are certainly a lot of areas where you shouldn't linger for extended periods of time. The reactor accident (and how the situation was handled afterwords[1]) was absolutely terrible.

That said, it is important to remember that - even accounting for the Chernobyl disaster (and the utterly insignificant radiological[3] disaster in Fukushima) - nuclear power is still the only viable option if we want to have energy in the future, as it is the cleanest. Everything else pollutes more and only a few technologies even come close to making enough power.

Unfortunately, the Hiroshima Syndrome[4] is epidemic, and the current wave of "Chernobyl disaster theatre" is only making these fears worse. We need to find better ways to educate people and counter the decades of misinformation and fear. The HN crowd like to "disrupt" things, so may I suggest finding ways to disrupt the common fears about radiation?

[1] My greatest respect and thanks to the people - the "liquidators" - who had to be the "bio-robots" that cleaned up the worst areas when the mechanical robots failed from the radiation. If you haven't seen it, I suggest watching this[2] footage of 3828 people that cleaned up one of the worst areas of the reactor's roof, <2 minutes at a time.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk

[3] the tsunami disaster was far worse, but isn't relevant to my point

[4] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/what-is-the-hiroshima-syndr...

Because of chernobyl I was born 2 months to early.

I had luck on the same day there where children born with 3 hands or other deformation.

The confirmed radiation related death's at Chernobyl was 13, the occurrence of cancers and other illnesses possibly related to radiation in the population is to close to the statistical noise floor to be significant.

The current popular narrative on nuclear energy is not doing us any good.