Scientific Shell Game
Alla A. Yaroshinskaya · 2017
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster became the acid test not only for politicians in power but also for scientists and doctors, worldwide. This chapter presents the survey official data on the changes in the health of 9 million Chernobyl victims over the two decades since the nuclear blast. It suggests that the medics did not manage to conduct even ordinary iodine prophylaxis, and they did not keep specific dose records after the radiation impact and subsequent exposure of people trapped in the Chernobyl plume. The chapter focuses on the health of the more than 740,000 workers (liquidators) who acted swiftly to limit exposures from the damaged reactor. According to WHO reports, morbidity and mortality rates among liquidators are steadily climbing. Their chief health problems are vegetovascular dystonia, lung cancer, heart and gastroenterological trouble, and leukemia. The authors stress that it was the liquidator group that registered increased mortality from all kinds of cancer.